T. GERTLER
Special to The Jewish News
He is totally weird. I think he is tapped
into something weird and magical.
— WAYNE WHITE, a designer for
Pee-wee's Playhouse, on Pee-wee Herman
I don'thave much to say about what it
is that I do. I feel that it, by and large,
speaks for itself — or I hope it does.
— PEE-WEE HERMAN
I
his season, cartoon-numbed Sat-
urday-morning TV has offered kid-
dies of all ages only one live per-
son to watch: the profoundly odd
Pee-wee Herman, shrieking and
swooping around Pee-wee's Play-
house. lb lure the boy-man's fetal charms
to its schedule, CBS offered to give him
money and then leave him to his mischief.
In return, CBS asked three things: (1) Pee-
wee should not stick pencils in potatoes;
(2) Pee-wee should not emerge from the
bathroom with a trail of toilet paper stick-
ing to his shoe; (3) Pee-wee should not say,
in the context of a certain presumably in-
nocent scene, "I'll show you mine if you'll
show me yours."
Pee-wee Herman ended up doing all three
things. He also ended up with high praise
from The New York Times, which called
the new series "this season's most imag-
inative and disarming" The Washington
Post said, "All right, so Pee-wee Herman
is an acquired taste. But how sad for those
who are just too darn uptight to acquire
it."
And he got the ultimate accolade each
time a football player scored a touchdown
and, instead of spiking the ball, trium-
phantly did the Pee-wee, a dance resem-
bling the efforts of a patient to show a
doctor the source of lumbar or gastric
distress.
At first, ratings for the show, while
respectable, didn't match critics' and wide
receivers' enthusiasm. The audience for
animated guano like Smurfs and Real
Ghostbusters remained true. By
November, though (thanks in part to a
move to an earlier time slot), the Playhouse
T Gertler is author of the novel 'Elbowing
the Seducer.'
Copyright Rolling Stone 1987
22
Friday, March 20, 1987
had established itself among the top
Saturday-morning shows in households
with children aged two to eleven — the
target group for kid-vid advertisers
pushing toys and glucose. And apparent-
ly lots of superannuated children have been
watching, too, some setting their alarms,
others their VCRs. Pee-wee's audience is so
eclectic there's now talk around CBS of
running the Playhouse twice — Saturday
morning for kiddies and late night for
culties. The show, like its star, defies
categories.
In one episode, Captain Carl (played by
Phil Hartman, now also on Saturday Night
Live) growls, "You know, Pee-wee, there's
a real twisted side to you."
"Thank you, Captain Carl," Pee-wee
answers with becoming modesty.
He seems harmless enough, frolicking in
his nerdy, shrunken suit, with short cuffs
revealing white socks, and with his fine-
wristed hands fluttering in independent
Zasu Pitts imitations. He even has a
beslimed crew cut — none of this long hair
whipping around, like lbd Nugent in a
blow-dryer square-off with David Lee Roth.
He sports clean white shirts and a red bow
tie, probably a clip-on. He could be a high-
school chemistry teacher from the Sixties.
Problem is, this guy is wearing makeup.
Yes, sir, he's got on your face powder, your
rouge, your lipstick — more like a Sixties
home-ec. teacher. Then there's his voice,
which sounds like a blender with sinus
problems, whining at high speed through
taco dip.
His playhouse, which might be the colli-
sion of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with a
raspberry-and-lime Jell-O mold con-
structed by Disney technicians recovering
from 'Paiwan flu, is crammed wall to wall
with toys and tchotchkes reminiscent of
every flea market, swap meet, garage sale
and New Wave gallery between SoHo and
Sausalito. It features a resident genie and
drag queen manque who grants wishes, a
mouse hole with tennis-playing dinosaurs,
an antic ant farm, a fridge where food
wears sunglasses, a chair with arms that
hug and a robot who outacts Olmos on
Miami Vice. Its style completely reflects
Pee-wee Herman, who exercises auteur-like
control over every detail, according to
the artist Gary Panter, the show's de-
sign director.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
ROGRESS
Where does Pee-Wee Herman
begin and Paul Reubens
(A.K.A. Paul Rubenfeld) end?
Never mind. The fans of his
Saturday morning TV show have
formed what amounts to a cult.