Pee-wee Herman was the rare kids’ icon equally loved by adults

Paul Reubens, who died of cancer at age 70, created a character that transcended age and put us in touch with the anarchy of childhood.

Paul Reubens in character as Pee-wee Herman onstage after a performance of “The Pee-wee Herman Show” on Broadway in New York.

Photo: Charles Sykes/Associated Press

比维赫尔曼,和创建的可爱的男孩portrayed by Paul Reubens, straddled absurdity and reality, mature double-entendre and juvenile silliness, sophisticated cultural references and giant underpants for more than 40 years.

When it wasannounced that Reubens had diedon Sunday, July 30, at age 70 from cancer, it was a double loss.

We not only grieved Reubens, the influential actor and creator, we were saying goodbye to a character whose reach extended to children and adults, who existed both in a fictional playhouse and as a guest on talk show couches.

My childhood friends and I mourned Pee-wee, who was so ingrained in pop culture in our formative years and remained a lifelong favorite for all of us. One friend said it was like we had “lost our favorite uncle.”

Pee-wee Herman was developed by Reubens in a sketch for the Los Angeles comedy troupe the Groundlings in 1977 or ’78. The character began as a flailing stand-up comic and eventually morphed into a hybrid of 1950s children’s show hosts like Pinky Lee and a frenetic 6-year-old.

Paul Reubens, in character as Pee-wee Herman, poses after a performance of “The Pee-wee Herman Show” on Broadway in New York. Reubens died Sunday night after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public, his publicist said in a statement.

Photo: Charles Sykes/Associated Press

His shrunken gray glen plaid suit was a hand-me-down from Groundlings founder Gary Austin, while the name Pee-wee taken from a childhood harmonica. His wiry physicality, nasal voice and staccato laugh made him hard to forget. In the 1980 play “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” the character was established as a living cartoon with comedic outbursts and fantastical adventures. Pee-wee could convey the anarchy of being a kid, but like a child, also ask the taboo question or tell the truth adults won’t.

Pee-wee’s appearances were almost always credited as “himself,” further blurring the line between creator and creation.

Paul Reubens as his character Pee-wee Herman in his 1988 movie “Big Top Pee-wee.”

Photo: Warner Brothers/TNS

“You would just sometimes see Pee-wee Herman existing,” said San Francisco drag performerPeaches Christ, a longtime fan. “He would show up at movie premieres, fundraisers, not as Paul but in character. It was my earliest connection with something that I now see is very similar to drag, where you have this alternative identity, but you can exist in the real world as this character.”

San Francisco photographer迈克尔张成泽attended the California Institute of the Arts with Reubens in the early 1970s and saw him a few times after his success as Pee-wee. Although he said he didn’t know Reubens well, Jang remembered him as “extremely sensitive and soft spoken. That personality and the way he was able to be onstage were two different things. … Maybe that’s part of the way a lot of us are, we can become a different person with our chosen art forms.”

A photo by Jang from the early ’70s captures a young Reubens in high camp regalia at a CalArts party, wearing a Carmen Miranda costume, complete with fruit headdress.

Paul Reubens dressed as Carmen Miranda at a party at California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County) in the early 1970s. Reubens was a student at CalArts, as was San Francisco photographer Michael Jang.

Photo: Michael Jang

“Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” Tim Burton’s 1985 film that introduced the character to mainstream audiences of all ages, has gone from being a cult favorite to road movie classic. Quotes from the film like “Large Marge sent me,” “There’s no basement at the Alamo” and Pee-wee’s catchphrase, “I know you are but what am I?,” are now part of our vernacular.

他的儿童系列“尿尿-wee’s Playhouse,” which ran from 1986 to 1990, is still available for streaming on Amazon, Vudu and other services. Its wacky, literate humor included bizarre touches like Pee-wee once marrying a bowl of fruit salad. The playhouse’s world of living furniture, puppets and a diverse cast of human characters were also essential to the show’s success. It was like the surrealism of filmmaker Luis Buñuel distilled with a dash of “Howdy Doody.”

Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special”(1988) is considered a standout of the holiday program genre, mixing celebrities likeCher,Charoand Grace Jones with holiday kitsch. The character is presented as a weird but ultimately noble outsider — “a loner, a rebel” as he declared himself in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” The positioning helped make the character a favorite in many alternative cultures and the queer community.

Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman on the set of his Saturday morning television show “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”

Photo: Mario Ruiz/TNS

Following a decade in the zeitgeist, Reubens became tabloid fodder after a 1991 arrest for indecent exposure at an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Fla. CBS pulled reruns of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” Disney dropped a theme park attraction hosted by the character, and Toys R Us removed merchandise from its shelves. One of his last appearances as Pee-wee for almost two decades was opening the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, where he asked the audience, “Heard any good jokes lately?”

Reubens also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obscenity charge related to his vintage erotica collection in 2004, further delaying Pee-wee’s comeback.

And, yet, the character never totally disappeared.

In San Francisco, Peaches Christ screened “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” multiple times at her Midnight Mass series at the former Bridge Theater in the 2000s, and for years, while promoting other projects, Reubens teased the return of Pee-wee.

Actor Paul Reubens attends the 2016 AOL Build Speaker Series to discuss “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday” at AOL Studios in New York.

Photo: Mike Pont/WireImage

In 2009 he revived “The Pee-wee Herman Show” onstage in Los Angeles, then on Broadway in 2010 where it received positive reviews. At the performance I saw in Los Angeles, Reubens’ timing was sharp as ever, his delivery unchanged. (The stage production was filmed for HBO in 2011.)

Then Pee-wee began making the talk show rounds again. A 2011 “Saturday Night Live” digital short withAndy Sambergfurther primed interest. In 2016 the movie “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday” premiered on Netflix, his first feature film in almost 30 years. Produced by Judd Apatow, the buddy movie co-starring Joe Manganiello successfully premiered at the South by Southwest festival. It was an appropriately kooky and touching swan song.

That final film reminded us that Pee-wee Herman endured as a character because he captured something about childhood. Pee-wee put adults in touch with that joyful, chaotic part of ourselves we lose as we get older and validated it in children.

Reach Tony Bravo: tbravo@sfchronicle.com

  • Tony Bravo
    Tony BravoTony Bravo is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Arts and Culture writer. Bravo joined The Chronicle staff in 2015 as a reporter for the former Style section, where he covered New York Fashion Week for the Hearst newspapers and served as the section’s editorial stylist, in addition to writing the relationship column “Connectivity.” He primarily covers visual arts and the LGBTQ community as well as specializing in stories about the intersections between arts, culture and lifestyle. His column appears in print every Monday in Datebook. Bravo is also an adjunct instructor at the City College of San Francisco Fashion Department and is the fourth generation of his family born in San Francisco, where he lives with his husband.