Rant #3,180: I'm Your Puppet

Happy August!

We are finally here into the last full month of summer.

July was a bit nicer to myself and my family than June was, but we still have a long way to go to put everything on the right track.

Maybe August will be the month.

This is a good month for my family anyway, as it is the month my son turns the ripe old age of 28, so it is a really good month to begin with.

So let’s see how the month pans out for us, and for all of us, you guys included.

Anyway, what can I talk about today?

How about the death of “Pee Wee Herman” yesterday.

Very sad indeed.

“Pee Wee Herman” was actually the alter ego of comic Paul Reubens, a nerdish character, with a dark underside, that he created in the 1970s and rode to fame in the 1980s.

The only way I can describe “Pee Wee Herman” is that he resembled a ventriloquist dummy who had come to life, with his ultra-skinny features, short-cropped hair, pink lips, and never-saw-the-sun complexion.

Hew also had that tight suit, the bow tie, and the ever-present smile and quick wit delivered in a high-pitched whine that rounded out his character.

You would have thought by looking at him that he was a real life Pinocchio—Reubens was obviously influenced by Paul Winchell’s “Jerry Mahoney” ventriloquist dummy character--but he wasn’t made of wood, he was all flesh and bones, and nobody’s hand was up his back as he made us laugh.

I remember that the first time I saw “Pee Wee Herman” was on, of all things, “The Dating Game.”

That classic game show often cast young, on-the-rise male actors and similarly on-the-rise starlets to compete for dates on the show, and Reubens was cast on an episode of the show, pitting himself against two clueless hunks.

I don’t remember if he won or lost, but he was “Pee Wee Herman” to the max on that show, and really,, the rest is history.

Later came “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” a successful Saturday morning kids’ show that really wasn’t for kids, and it propelled him to stardom.

Adults were as eager to watch the show as kids were, but for different reasons, as Reubens injected a lot of adult humor—and attractive female supporting characters—into the show underneath and in between all of the kids-oriented material.

He went on to make a few movies as star and as a supporting actor as
“Pee Wee Herman,” but Reubens’ world blew up around him when he was arrested for lewd acts in a pornographic movie theater.

He laid low for a while, and Hollywood eventually gave him a second chance as both “Pee Wee Herman,” the character, and Paul Reubens, the actor.

He appeared as the actor in a couple of movies, including one of the Batman films, and he turned up here and there as the character, as nebbishly as ever.

But Reubens never reached his previous heights, a nd now we learned yesterday that in real life, he lost a battle to cancer at age 70.

So even the character “Pee Wee Herman” could not avoid a sad, real-life end.

R.I.P.