Paula Reubens, aka PeeWee Herman, had a very public downfall in 1991 after an arrest for indecent exposure while in an adult film theater. He was also arrested on what were pretty bogus child pornography charges in 2001, for an extensive collection of mid-century kitsch art along with possession of the Rob Lowe sex tape. He plead guilty to a lesser charge on that issue but the case was so trumped up that the charges were ultimately dropped. He’s finally making a comeback after two decades have passed, and recently returned in a stage show as his famous cheeky alter ego. Reubens is now working on another family-friendly PeeWee movie, his third, to be produced by Judd Apatow. His stage show, featuring several original members of his TV show including Cowboy Curtis, Miss Yvonne and Genie, will come to Broadway this fall.

I’ve been seeing excerpts from Reubens’ Playboy interview quoted in the celebrity press, but instead of just covering the segments that were being covered I read the full piece and am so glad I did. If you grew up watching PeeWee’s Playhouse like me you may be interested to hear his side of the story. I found myself really rooting for the guy after hearing what he’s been through and how deeply it affected him.

On his arrest in 1991 in an adult movie theater
PLAYBOY: You maintained you were innocent of the charge that you were masturbating in public in an adult theater.

REUBENS: Had we gone to trial, we had ready an expert from the Masters and Johnson Institute who was going to testify that in 30 years of research on masturbation the institute had never found one person who masturbated with his or her nondominant hand. I’m right-handed, and the police report said I was jerking off with my left hand. That would have been the end of the case right there, proof it couldn’t have been me.

PLAYBOY: Then why did you plead no contest?

REUBENS: Did I want to have all that revealed in court and then have to listen to Jay and Arsenio and others for another two weeks? So I pleaded no contest, and all I got was community service, but that resolution happened the same day Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive. My case wasn’t in the news, so nobody even knew it was resolved. An article in Vanity Fair later described the 1990s as “the tabloid decade.” It suggested the decade was bookended by my arrest in 1991 and the Monica Lewinsky scandal at the decade’s end. I was just the warm-up act.

PLAYBOY: How bad did it get for you?

REUBENS: I wouldn’t leave the house. Except I did go do the MTV Video Music Awards a handful of weeks after the arrest—at which Pee-wee came out and said, “Heard any good jokes lately?”—because I had a publicist then who simply made me do it. Which may have set a good example for damage control. I don’t think it was coincidental that later Michael Jackson picked the MTV awards to give his new wife, Lisa Marie Presley, that big long kiss. But putting the Pee-wee suit and makeup back on to go do it was a nightmare. Paparazzi staked out my house for months. To get out, I hid on the floor of somebody’s car, under a blanket.

Toward the end of those first three months I made an appointment with a therapist and made him come to my house. Sometime during the session he said, “You know you’re in shock, right?” I didn’t know. When he said it, I thought, Oh my God! Okay, I get it. Then the whole three months I had just gone through made sense. I was in shock. There was a feeling like, You’re going to wake up from this and it’s going to turn out to be a bad dream. It didn’t. But as a result I now know everything there is to know about scandal and shock—how you move through the first 12 hours, the first 24 hours, the first six weeks, the first six months, the first six years and so on. I know how to navigate all this hideous, shitty, horrible stuff you go through. Which saved my life when scandal number two happened

On his child pornography charge
PLAYBOY: Which arrived in November 2001 when you were arrested again, this time charged with possessing child pornography. In many ways this was far worse than the first one. What exactly happened?

REUBENS: The police had been given a false tip in an alleged sting operation and came to my house. They thought the wrong thing, and they were there for the wrong reason, and when that became clear, they should have left. Or they should have taken all my computers like they did but spent three minutes looking through them and realized they were wrong. Hypothetically, even in a less than perfect world, you assume if the police barge into your house and it’s the wrong house and they have guns drawn and you hit the ground because you’re supposed to be, say, a crack dealer—and it’s obvious you’re not—that they ought to say, “Oh, okay. Sorry.” But they don’t, and they certainly didn’t after raiding my home in search of things that just didn’t exist. The state eventually realized I had nothing offensive, but the city attorney decided to put me through three years of hell anyway.

PLAYBOY: The case centered on your collection of what was described as kitsch art—only some of it vaguely sexual in theme—plus a copy of the Rob Lowe sex tape, which not only had its own kitsch value but had made the rounds all over the entertainment community.

REUBENS: It came down to whether the art was obscene or not obscene—you know, is it art or obscenity?

PLAYBOY: Well?

REUBENS: If you saw what was taken out of my house, you’d burst out laughing. An example of one of the things they confiscated was a crudely done painting I got at a thrift store. It’s of a football stadium. In the foreground the football players are out on the field in mid-play, but they don’t have pants on. When I found it I thought, Oh my God, that is the greatest painting I’ve ever seen in my life! It’s hilarious. Not one person ever—even a little old lady, even a conservative right-winger, even the pope—would ever look at that painting and call it obscene. I spent a year trying to get my collection back. They destroyed things you wouldn’t believe they’d destroy. I had an extensive collection of etched-on-glass 3-D 1940s cheesecake photography of beautiful women. They made it sound as if I had a huge homoerotic collection, which I didn’t.

PLAYBOY: The most horrific part of the outrage was that you were a children’s-show icon who’d already had his reputation compromised in a way this magazine would see as unwarranted persecution.

REUBENS: Yes, and I spent my blood, sweat and tears on the show, and I did it for kids. So to come out and suggest or even whisper anything regarding me and kids is devastating.

[From Playboy]

Reubens goes on to say that he doesn’t have a thick skin, that he doesn’t want to pretend he does, and that everything that happened to him did hurt his feelings. He also admitted that there’s no escaping these scandals, that “the public has a memory like a steel trap,” and added that after all he went through “it’s as though you’ve got some kind of stink on you” that can’t wash off. He’s 58 and joked that “I sure wish I had thought to lie about my age before the Internet started, but there’s no turning back now.”

We love PeeWee and hope that his new Broadway show, and upcoming film, are a success. It was a shock to find out that the goofy guy we watched on TV wasn’t the same person we knew, but he also wasn’t the deviant the media made him out to be. Now that he’s been through all that, we’re ready to welcome him back.

Paul Reubens is shown at the opening of his show in LA on 1/20/10. Credit Juan Rico/Fame Pictures

Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee Wee “I know you are, but what am I?” Herman, isn’t playing small potatoes with his comeback attempt. His Pee Wee Herman stage show has been selling out in Los Angeles for months, and with all this 80′s nostalgia, the time couldn’t be better for Pee Wee to return to the big screen. Sources report that Pee Wee’s big comeback film will be helmed by “Knocked Up” and “40 Year Old Virgin” mastermind Judd Apatow.

Look who’s joining Pee-wee Herman in the playhouse!

Bromance expert Judd Apatow has teamed up with Paul Reubens to develop a new Pee-wee film for the big screen, Daily Variety reports.

“Let’s face it, the world needs more Pee-wee Herman,” Apatow told the trade. “I am so excited to be working with Paul Reubens—who is an extraordinary and groundbreaking actor and writer. It’s so great to watch him return with such relevance.”

The venerable filmmaker says that he got the idea after taking in Reubens’ sold-out live show in L.A. earlier this year. The Pee-wee Herman Show is headed to Broadway in October.

And Reubens is apparently just as honored to be working with Apatow.

“There is no one like Judd in our business—he loves comedy with emotion and heart, and he sees what we do as art,” said the resurgent 57-year-old actor. “I can’t believe I’m getting this opportunity to be working with him.”

Reubens is working on the script with writer-actor Paul Rust. Apatow’s going to produce, not direct and produce, but that didn’t seem to hurt Superbad, Pineapple Express or Get Him to the Greek.

Besides, Pee-wee is technically a for-all-ages character, so they’re going to want to avoid the automatic “R” that Apatow’s films usually get.

[From E!]

I am so excited about this movie. I always thought Pee Wee/Paul got the big shaft (no pun intended..ok, pun intended!) regarding that whole “masturbating in a porn movie theater” thing. I mean, isn’t that what people do in those places? Compare his trangression to what people get away with these days, and you realize he wasn’t hurting anyone. But I digress. Pee Wee! Apatow! Movie! I just hope that Jambi, Miss Yvonne, and Chairy are along for the ride. I’ve missed them so much!

Photos are from 1/20/10 and feature Miss Yvonne, The King of Cartoons and Cowboy Curtis. Credit: WENN.com

As a product of the ’80s, I will always have a soft spot for Pee Wee Herman. His too-small 1950s suit, his man-child persona, and of course, that laugh. I can’t hear the song “Tequila” without breaking out the Pee Wee dance. And to be honest, I always thought he got the shaft. Yes, he was busted for indecent exposure for pleasuring himself in a porno theater. But compare that to what many celebrities get caught doing these days, and he’s practically in line for sainthood. It should also be noted that originally, the character of Pee Wee Herman was never intended for children. Anyone who saw his 1982 HBO special, “Pee Wee Herman Live at the Roxy Theater” knows this. Anyway, the disgraced comedian is staging something of a comeback, in the form of an all-new stage play.

Pee-Wee Herman’s ready for a comeback — and he’s starting in Los Angeles with a stage play.

“I’m opening a big show in January — ‘The Pee-Wee Herman Show’ — based on my original stage production, but completely new and rewritten,” Herman, played by creator Paul Reubens, said.

The play could lead to a national tour and maybe another Pee-Wee Herman movie, show producer Scott Sanders told CNN.

“I’m crossing all my fingers and toes that after Los Angeles, I’ll get Pee-Wee to say yes, that he’ll go and do this elsewhere,” Sanders said.

The stage show will include all the characters from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse — his CBS television series — including Chairry, Genie, Conky, Magic Screen, Miss Yvonne and Cowboy Curtis, Herman said.

“People are going to see a brand new show, full of incredible, incredible puppets, characters, live action, costumes, a plot, music, Club Nokia,” he said.

Club Nokia is the downtown Los Angeles venue where the show will run for four weeks, starting on January 12.

Reubens has rarely appeared in his child-like Pee-Wee persona since 1991, when he was arrested on an indecent exposure charge in a Florida theater.

The character, initially created for an adult alternative comedy audience in 1980, became a big hit with kids because of two movies and a Saturday-morning CBS show that ran for six years. It was canceled after his arrest.

Director Alex Timbers, who grew up watching Pee-Wee Herman, thinks the new show will appeal to all ages.

“He’s the impulsive character who will do what you’re feeling inside,” Timbers said.

Sanders suggested parents could safely bring children 10 and older to see Pee-Wee. “It would be rated PG if it were a movie,” he said.

“Pee-Wee’s got a lot of mischief in him and he’s subversive, but he’s also kind and warm and loving,” Sanders said.

All of the original actors from the TV show will reprise their roles for the stage play, except for Laurence Fishburne, who played Cowboy Curtis.

Fishburne, who has won Emmys and was nominated for an Oscar since his Pee-Wee’s Playhouse days, is busy portraying Dr. Raymond Langston in the CSI TV series, Sanders said. But Herman did call Fishburne to get his approval to hire another actor for the part, he said.

“Just before he hung up, Laurence said to Pee Wee, ‘But listen, if you decide you’re going to do another movie, I’ll get that Jheri curl out and I’ll be there for Cowboy Curtis,” Sanders said.

In fact, a new movie has been rumored, but Pee Wee Herman was coy when asked about it.

“A movie could be in the cards,” Herman said. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

But there is no question he has high expectations for his show.

“I hope the whole world, and people on the moon, and Mars and all over the universe get to see me, not just the people on Earth,” Herman said. “I don’t want to be limited to just Earth.”

[From CNN]

One person who will sadly be missing from the reunion is Phil Hartman, the slain comedian who played Captain Carl. He was great! It does seem to make sense to revive Pee Wee, with 1980s nostalgia at an all time high these days. I just hope this time around, Paul Reubens, the actor who created and plays the character, behaves himself. Reubens has had a few small but memorable roles outside of his alter ego. A longtime friend of Tim Burton, who directed “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,” Reubens lent his familiar voice to “A Nightmare Before Christmas.” He’s also made guest appearances on “30 Rock,” “Reno 911!” and the cartoon “Chowder.”

Here’s one of Pee Wee’s most memorable moments:

The Huffington Post had screenshots of the celebrity Christmas cards shown on “Live with Regis and Kelly” on Friday morning, and some are quite inventive and well designed.

Paul Reubens better known as Pee Wee Herman’s card shows the fallen kid’s star with his trademark raised eyebrows expression looking like he’s about to throw a snowball.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette’s card is bright pink on the outside with a big picture of their daughter Coco smiling and the words “Joy to the World.” The inside features a full page photo of Coco lounging on a Saint Bernard and says “And a peaceful New Year, love David, Courteney and Coco”

Tony Bennett’s card is of a winter scene the singer painted himself

Conan O’Brien’s Card has a close view of a cute cartoonish ornament of the talk show host hanging on a tree with other ornaments of the same style

Katie Holmes designed this simple bow-adorned Christmas card for the Cruise family. She was said to have had differently designed cards for friends, family and business associates and to have “kept her staff busy doing the shopping.” It sounds like she kept her staff busy making the cards too. (image and description from US Weekly)

Paris Hilton posed in what would look like a parody of herself if we didn’t know better. She wore a red wrap dress, posed in front of a cone-shaped tree with giant red velveteen bows, and clutched one of her chihuahuas, which was dressed in a little red Santa hoodie. (image found at CelebWarship)

I’ve always said that any show starring a talking armchair and a globe with hands should be sent back to the third level of hell from whence it came. Okay I haven’t always said that, but I’m pretty sure that any parents who lived through the eighties and had to be subjected to a constant barage of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse has said it. Mine sure did. Well after a blissful seventeen year break, Pee-Wee is back. No word on Chairry the arm chair – rumor has it that she’s become a total diva and is holding out for more money and a bigger trailer.

Comedy actor Paul Reubens is reprising his most famous character to make two new Pee-Wee Herman movies. Just months after vowing never to play the kids’ favorite again, Reubens is working on two new scripts – the first due for release in 2009, 19 years after he retired the beloved character. He explains his change of heart to MTV, “I feel like the time is really ripe right now. A lot of the kids who grew up with the show are young adults. The college kids are middle-aged adults. I feel like I have enough of a built-in audience to make back an investment.”

[From Contact Music]

Not all of the original cast will be returning. Penny – Pee-Wee’s little Claymation blond girl with pennies for eyes – sadly passed away in the late nineties. After Pee Wee’s Playhouse was canceled in 1990, Penny hit a rough patch and ended up with a pretty severe drug addiction. Eventually she started doing some Claymation niche porn to support her habit, and developed a small but loyal following. But there are only so many people with a Claymation sex fetish. Penny played it up for as long as she could, but blew most of her money on hamburgers and smack. She passed away in 1999 from a combination of cirrhosis of the liver and being left on top of the heater by a careless john.

Penny did, however, give him her two cents for it.

Note by Celebitchy: Here’s a clip from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Magic Johnson, Grace Jones, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. I think it’s from 1988. I’m confused as to why they would want to make this movie now, because they already did Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in 1985 and Big Top Pee Wee in 1988.