You're Wrong About - Pee-wee Herman Part 2 with Jamie Loftus

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

In the second part of our series, pop culture historian Jamie Loftus takes us through the meteoric rise of Pee-wee Herman and the withering of Paul Reubens' world as dubious allegations surface that threaten to turn a beloved children’s character into a real life villain. Jamie tells us about his struggle to reconcile the character of Pee-wee with the real Paul Reubens, and how his longtime friendships became his sanctuary until the very end. Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of explicit materials involving minors More about Jamie Loftus:https://www.jamieloftus.xyz/Support You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show

Feels like adults were more upset maybe than kids ever were. Welcome to You're Wrong About. I'm Sarah Marshall and here we are in part two of learning about Peewee Herman aka Paul Rubens. And we're of course learning about the character and the man with author, comedian, and podcaster extraordinaire, Kami Loftus. I'm so happy to be bringing you part two of this episode. I loved this conversation. I feel so lucky to have been able to have it and to pass it on to you. And now here's the show. But we're getting ahead of ourselves because before that, before the TV show comes Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Oh my God. In 1985. Wow.

It's fascinating that it was a movie first and then TV. I think I really thought it was the other way around. Yeah, so it was a movie, then TV, then a movie, and then nothing for a long time. Again, Paul has, as with everything he ever made, he was really, really involved in every part of production. But he gets into this in the documentary, a source of frustration for him is that it's starring Pee Wee Herman, but all the work is being done under the name Paul Rubens. So it's confusing. He feels like,

he feels like, and again, it's like one of his things of jealousy. This is also Tim Burton's first movie that he ever directed when he was like 28, which tried not to think too hard about it. And the two of them get connected via Shelley Duvall, which is incredible because she was in his short film, Frankenweenie. Oh yeah. Yeah. So they, so Shelley and Paul are friends

because I don't know how, but of course they are. Of course they are. They go to the same juice place or something. Exactly. And so he gets connected with Tim Burton. Tim Burton directs the movie and Paul feels that he gets most of the credit and that his career benefits more than Paul's

because it says directed by Tim Burton, written by Paul Rubin. Who's that? But no one knows who that is, right? Because he's done, it's that classic thing of like, he's done such a good job at becoming peewee that it becomes kind of a liability. And this is something that comes up for him again and again. But off of the movie, he gets the TV show that aired on Saturday mornings on CBS.

Wow. From 1986 to 1990. It's the greatest kids show of all time. It's so special. And luckily people generally agreed on this. It was almost immediately successful. It was the number two show on Saturday morning. It was like peak Saturday morning cartoons.

It was, can you guess what was the one children's show more popular than Pee Wee's Playhouse in 1987? Oh boy, this feels tough. My Little Pony? It is the Smurfs. Of course. Yeah, the Smurfs were huge, I guess. But I read a lot of the early writing and criticism around, not, I mean, there wasn't a lot of criticism, but part of the reason that parents really liked this, and I didn't

really connect this, was it was refreshing because there were jokes that were just for the parents. And every time I hear that, every time I hear like, and there's jokes for parents, I immediately and embarrassingly am like, Oh, like Shrek. That was the point. Yeah. But like Shrek, there's jokes for adults. but the real appeal of it for some TV critics was that it was not based off of existing intellectual property. Yeah. I mean, and if you look at 80s cartoons, it does seem like most of them were based on toys.

Care Bears, G.I. Joe, like Smurfs, it's all of this like, there's this feeling in all of the TV criticism I was reading from that time that most critics and parents, like, there's this feeling in all of the TV criticism I was reading from that time that most critics and parents were like, oh my God. And the reason that was happening, and I didn't know this, is because there was a change to FCC laws in 1984. I'm pulling this from the Buffalo News. Yes. Buffalo News in 1987. Until 1984, the FCC regulated programs and commercials for young viewers. Since it stopped, there has been an onslaught of commercial-oriented cartoon shows for action figures

and other toys. Since deregulation, the National Coalition on Television Violence reports the number of war cartoons has jumped from a few hours a week to 43 hours a week. The NCTV said the increase in is almost entirely due to toy companies using cartoons to sell various lines of war toys. How else will we brainwash children into supporting Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal? Exactly. Maybe the government can do something to clean up kids TV, but if not, at least Pee Wee's

Playhouse provides a worthwhile alternative to the other shows. So people are also just like, this is the one show in the Saturday morning TV block that isn't trying to sell me something. But at least, but it's like the bar is like, well, at least it wasn't conceived of so that it could be made into a toy. Exactly. Exactly. Like, so it's very, very successful.

It's the number two show. It has a really unusually high budget because Paul was really adamant that they keep the production budget high. This really the only, also the only live action show on a Saturday morning block as well. Yeah, so this continues for basically all five seasons of the show. There's also a second movie that comes out that I've only seen once.

It's not very good. It's called Big Top Pee Wee. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't do great. Paul is disappointed, but ultimately it doesn't affect the success of the TV show. So we'll kind of glaze over that. And Peewee's big adventure is basically like, it's a big adventure. He kind of has a hero's journey, right? He has to get his bike back. Exactly. To travel across America. Big Top Peewee is more based on like Pollyanna, where it's like, we got to get the town together. It's very circus based, like you can see why he was sad

because he's pulling it from all the stuff he loved from me as a kid. But sorry, Paul, the movie was not very good. Love being telling the truth. But the show is super successful. Another one of my favorite fun facts about it is that, you know how they would do, the king of cartoons would come and introduce

the cartoon of the week, which sometimes would just be an old cartoon in the public domain. But it was also the first consistent animation gig for the creator of one of my favorite cartoons, Hey Arnold. There are these shorts called Penny Cartoons on Pee Wee's Playhouse that was created by Craig Bartlett as well. So there's like this very, I feel like it's most often like the Dana Carvey show is considered like this launching point for all of these very successful creative

people. But Peewee ends up launching a lot of people, including Tim Burton, the creator of Hey Arnold. He's a big part of Laurence Fishburne becoming more mainstream successful. Like all these people, you know, Phil Hartman. Right. Because he's like a theater guy. I feel like before that. Yeah. Well, and I was thinking of Hey Arnold earlier because Arnold is also like a child who also has like the most incredible, cool,

basically adult living space that you could possibly imagine. Yeah, I just break. cool, basically adult living space that you could possibly imagine. Yes. Yeah. I just feel like the appeal of Arnold is kind of like different where he's like a child who is an adult. Like he is so mature. He's kind of the bizarre OP-wee. Yeah.

And also that he like lives in a boarding house with his grandparents. So he's like kind of a free agent, you know, who's like, and he's like a kid about the city. It's a little bit of a noir even. It kind of is. Yeah. Arnold, I mean, also a show I loved, but he lived in the real world. Oh yeah.

Arnold had to like deal with bureaucracy and stuff. It was exhausting. It's brutal. It's got the hair and old Christmas episode where Mr. Wynn gets reunited with his daughter after they were separated during the Vietnam War. I'm like, because a callous adult won't do it unless Arnold can get Nancy's bimony snow boots. And because for adults, everything has a price. But oh my God. Yeah, it's I love crying at that episode. It's so beautiful. And yeah, I guess very different for Peewee,

which is why it's weird that they're connected, but they are. Yeah, they support each other. They're like each other's force soulmates. Like, I don't know, what's her ass in Kylo Ren. Oh my God, yeah. So the show lasts for five seasons, including an incredible Christmas special. Have you seen the Pee Wee Christmas special? No, I have not.

I can kick myself. You would fucking lose it for this Christmas special. Let me just... I can't wait to lose it. Which is why it's so funny that in retrospect, people are like, I wonder if he was involved in the queer community, because listen to the list of guests on this show. It also starts with him singing a welcome song

in front of these like hot Navy guys. Of course. So for a moment one, you're like, okay, we're locked in. I'm here. Okay, here are the people who are in the Christmas special that are not just Pee Wee. Joan Rivers, Dinah Shore, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Oprah Winfrey, Little Richard, K.D. Lang, Cher, K.D. Lang, Cher, Charo, Whoopi Goldberg, Grace Jones, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello. Just queer icons top to bottom. He made it to bounce back from being disappointed about Big Top Pee-wee. And it is so worth it.

It's so good. I feel like the weirdest part of the story is because somebody got to do what they wanted to do creatively and that they were able to do it. And it was just on TV and people loved it. Until? Until, inevitably. Yeah. and people loved it. Until. Until, inevitably, yeah. Until, so I think one of the big important things

to correct that I think is misremembered in, I definitely remembered it this way, is that Paul Rubens is arrested in 1991. It is often portrayed that it was because of this arrest that the show was canceled. That is not true. Even though as time goes on, that would be reported more and more, even though at the time it's not true.

Paul decided- It's just like the brain seeking cause and effect and then one newspaper does it so the others copy it or something. Yeah. Or people just don't give a shit. I don't know. But as a peewee historian, I give a shit. And Paul decided to end the show after five seasons.

I love that. He was really burned out. He was exhausted and was like, I, you know, I think that we had a good run, but I'm ready to end it. And I just love stories like that. Ending a show on your own terms. It's like, oh, what a privilege. What an incredible thing to be able to do. Yeah. Yeah. And also to be able to resist, you know, being sort of bribed to do more of it. And like, look,

I know we all know Gary Seinfeld is terrible. But I do appreciate, as you know, I dream in Seinfeld sometimes. And Seinfeld is probably one of the only shows to have been ended on purpose by the people who made it when it was the top show in the country, which it was. You know? It's just like, you have to be able to walk away from something, I think.

And of course, we're seeing the effects of, we really can really just blame studios and corporations for this mostly. But this thing of having something that audiences like and then giving it to them so hard and refusing to make anything else until everyone just cannot stand you anymore. Movies are being made by the worst kind of casino gambler,

which is somebody who just stands at the slot machine for 14 hours because they have to keep going because surely this will work out if we just keep doing it as opposed to like, you know, especially in, in entertainment, which is a creative field ultimately to sort of be like, I am the person who makes this and I, I don't, I don't have anything anymore and I don't wanna do a final season of Game of Thrones. I think it's just rare to be able to like have dignity

as a professional creative person at all. And this feels like a rare instance of getting, like I also think of like Nathan for you, I'm pretty sure insecure was ended in that way, fleabag where you're just like, this is all there is to the story. Yeah. The story is over. You can't make me make more story because you paid me too much. And I love that. Cause stories really do like they just end. And then you, if they're truly over, you cannot do anything more with them. I really think.

And Peewee could have gone on forever, but it was like, he was done. He was done. And he's Peewee, so you know. No one can replace him. And I know that because many have tried. And when you think about it, this is very clear because the show ends at the end of 1990. And Paul, who was never estranged from his family, but hadn't been able to spend a lot of time with them since becoming very famous for like, basically 10 straight years. Yeah, wow. Goes back to Florida to spend time with his family.

And it is while he is spending time with his family in the, I think the summer of 1991, that he is arrested in Sarasota. This is like the most famous incident. And so I wanna just get into exactly why, I mean, it's obvious. He was arrested at a gay porn theater in Sarasota. Possibly the same one he was arrested at when he was 18 years old.

But he is arrested, of course, as Paul Rubens, but the public doesn't really know who Paul Rubens is. They know who Pee Wee Herman is. Right, he's the man who doesn't exist. Right, but now all of a sudden Paul Rubens does exist and everyone's mad at him. So what exactly happened here is, and I do appreciate that the residents of

Sarasota are like, now hold on, because he is arrested, allegedly, which he denies, and I believe him, that he was exposed, or like, jerking off in a porn theater, essentially. Which to be clear, like, even if a person does do that, it is kind of the best place to do it. Yeah. Who fucking cares? Like he wasn't even if he did do it, he wasn't the only person to do it that hour. And also, right, if this were a straight porn theater, it would be very different conversation, obviously. Yeah. So he's already this like homophobic witch hunt aspect to it. But the way they

explain it is just so fucking weird because they're saying there are no fewer than three Sarah Soda undercover cops in this porn theater. Yeah. What's the story there? In the middle of the day, the two movies showing were called Nancy Nurse and Turn Up the Heat. And they were just waiting to see someone jerking off. Like it's very unclear also at the time, Paul denies that he doesn't deny being at the theater, but he was like, I wasn't jerking off in the theater. And there was, if it had gone to trial, which it didn't, his lawyer said that they had a footage of, like security footage of Paul in the lobby

at the time that these three cops were for some reason looking for people jerking off at a theater, which should be illegal. Like it's so fucking weird. And I was like following this story like day to day, because it unfolds over the course of a couple of days. At first, it's just the news that breaks. And CBS is quiet about it,

because the show, they're no longer airing new episodes, but they are still airing reruns. And so the decision is, do we continue to air reruns? At first, there's a CBS executive that's like, yeah, we'll probably keep airing it. But within a day, it's when his mugshot comes out that the tide changes on him significantly because he doesn't look like Pee-wee Herman.

He's got longer hair. He hasn't been working for a couple months. He's a human man. He's hanging out in Florida. been working for a couple months. He's a human man. He's hanging out in Florida. He looks like a different person. And it seems like that had a, in that mug shop being so everywhere is what turns, interestingly,

and again, I viewed this very differently. It doesn't turn his fans against him really. It doesn't turn his fans against him really. It doesn't turn his friends, family, or most TV critics against him. It turns the network against him. CBS, after the mugshot is released, pulls reruns of the show, which only would have been running for another two months. So it's also very very like manufactured crisis. Right. Disney, I guess that he had like, he had a video at one of the roller coasters or some shit. They pull that and make a big deal about it. And there's these like, classic Sarah Marshall canon, like two narratives that develop among TV

critics, one of which I have like a couple of headlines here. There's one in the El Paso Herald Post that says, help kids separate Pee Wee Herman and actor. And I'm like, help Paul Rubin separate Pee Wee Herman and actor. Yeah. So why do your kids need to hear about any of this? That's a big question. Listen to how I was like, were these conversations happening? I certainly hope not. An elementary school child might be told that police say Rubens broke the law by touching his

private parts in a movie theater, but that the allegation has to be checked out further. She noted that a child may reply, if the police said he did it, didn't he really do it? I would explain that this is very complicated. Weird way to take civil rights. The point is that just because the police or media say somebody did something, that doesn't make it true. Dr. Alberto Serrano, a child psychiatrist who is the medical director of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center, said parents should deal with children's disappointment

that somebody they like is accused of doing something wrong. If a child wonders whether he can believe in anybody, parents can acknowledge that many people in the world do disappointing things, but that others have been reliable over a long period of time. This is so interesting that they're like, how to talk to your child about Pee-wee Herman. I mean, I get that it's like a very strange moment as a parent, presumably, because kids do hear stuff. I don't really think that they're having school year conversations involving the word allegations necessarily. But you know, that like they talk and the TV is odd and everything. But a from an adult perspective, which I don't think we had at

the time because we were in the sort of like George Bush family values Murphy Brown can't have a baby era of like sex is terrible and we're terrified of it. Also, Paul Ruppins is on Murphy Brown. He has an arc. Anyways, see, there you go fornicators. But like, it does feel like we're at a moment at a nation of being like, particularly scared of sex and particularly puritanical. Yeah. But also that like, I imagine as a parent, if you have a child who's like pre adolescent, you're like, I don't really want to have to talk about this topic and like introduce it this way. Because it's like not necessarily something that you can or should process depending on your age. Right. As a fan of the show. So it's like it's like as adults, we should have been able to be like, well, if you did do it, then like who fucking cares? Who cares? Right. But you're forced to sort of like have

all these like weird parent conversations, I guess, as part of it. Although I don't know how many people had to be having. That's the other thing. You're like, is this for anyone? It feels like adults were more upset maybe than kids ever were. It definitely seems that way. And that was another thing that I was learning through this, because there are plenty of TV critics who stand up for him and blame CBS. This is from the LA Daily News. Sorry kids, but business is business. Sure, CBS had basked gladly in the acclaim accorded to the stylishly stylized post-martyr children's show because it had won like at least a dozen Emmys and it's run. It won a ton of awards. They were like, my god, we're doing great. Prestige. Sure, it was Rubens, not Peewee, who was arrested. Sure, there's room for debate as to whether what

he is accused of doing is actually a crime, but it didn't matter. The lesson children can take from this is that if you make a mistake or are simply accused of making a mistake, you will pay dearly. Even if the judicial system eventually supports Rubin's claims, disputing the police version of what went on in the theater and he's found not guilty, the arrest ensures he'll never again be found innocent. And innocence was a big part of Pee-wee's charm. So he essentially blames the network for buying into the narrative, which I think is in the media for buying into the narrative. Yeah. I've like, we must immediately distance ourselves from this person because that sort of that communicates. Yeah. Like a worse outcome than what had happened so far legally.

Yeah. And this is, I mean, this is completely devastating for Paul because this is also tacitly outing him. Yeah. And in the worst way possible, or one of them. In the worst way. It's his worst nightmare. His friends are extremely supportive.

They basically get him out of Florida in disguise. They're reassuring. They're like, we're going to turn this around. It's okay. But immediately he is like, he says that the documentary, uh, the public has a memory like a steel trap. So don't kid yourself or be about how it works. 30 years later, I still feel those effects all the time. And he's right. Like that, that was still how people and still is how some people talk about him. Yeah. Well, and the way that I remember my dad describing it with his great grasp of

current events was that the guy who played Pee Wee Herman was arrested for, in reality, doing what he was accused of in an adult theater, but in my dad's version doing it like at a kids movie and there were kids everywhere. Because I think that was like not just my dad but the sort of like homophobia of the time and of the time before of like if you're outed as gay then that also you know and of course of today growingly that means you're also added as someone who's unsafe to be your own children or to even make media for them and that you know if you have any kind of allegedly deviant sexuality, then like it's all equally dangerous and that sort of what we were, what we were still teaching kids as well at that time and still,

and still, I mean, there's so much, I think that like the, unfortunately the timing of this documentary and also unfortunately for Paul, because it doesn't seem like he wanted this, his life to really exist within this narrative. Yeah. But unfortunately it does, where it's like, we're seeing that so frequently with any queer entertainer right now, particularly if they're out,

it's getting harder and harder to maintain a platform as a queer creator because, and- I mean, a parallel to this, of course, is Norm MacDonald getting fired from Saturday Night Live to my understanding because he made too many OJ Simpson jokes on Weekend Update and Donald Meyer golfed with OJ Simpson. So you can't do that. So it's like, you know, we'll spunk your name out of our records and stop showing your show if you're accused of doing something that's like a bit of a sex scandal, but you can kill your wife, obviously. Right. I mean, that's just a day at the park.

That's I did not know that. That's so fucked up. Yeah. And that, you know, and maybe NBC has a different story, but I don't, I don't believe it. Yeah. But I also just wanted to talk about like the media narratives. This was existing alongside, obviously there's still a lot of queer panic in the early nineties, but the specific queer panic that we're looking at here and the story that you see beside this, not in conversation with it. First of all, this is like not funny, but like here's this,

Bill Cosby did defend Paul. And I was like, we don't need you. We don't need you. It is wild to see Bill Cosby is among Rubin's defenders. They are judging a man without the right of due process. I was like, well, I wonder why that's on your mind. Totally different reasons. But the other story. And then Alan Dirkiewicz takes the floor. The other story that you see alongside this one, just because of timing, is Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh my God. Yeah. Jesus Christ. And the silence of the lambs is in theaters.

Yeah. Like queer panic is very, very high right now. And you'll often, there were a few different examples I saw of Paul Rubin's and Jeffrey Dahmer mentioned in the same sentence. And this will happen to Paul again in the early 2000s, where it is just a hyper conflation of like Paul, obviously, even if he did what he was accused of, which it sounds like he didn't, didn't hurt anybody, but he's being held alongside a serial killer. Like, and it's done very matter of factly. And he is right to say that this irreparably damages his career. Yeah.

But his fans still love him. There are, I didn't know this, but there were protests outside of CBS. They're here, they're queer. They're also afraid of what people are gonna say about them and comparing them to serial killers. Well what's interesting is Paul's queerness doesn't really come into the equation here. It's more, it's interesting that there are these protests outside of CBS for Pee-wee, not for Paul. There's families, there's kids, there's adult fans of the show that are like, bring back

Peewee. I love that. I had no idea that that happened. Isn't that nice? Yeah. It was, I mean, there were thousands of calls and fan mail that he received. I think if the public had had their way, the show would have been back on. It seems like the network was really outnumbered.

Which is interesting because then, because of the network just being able to override that we then, you know, until we go back and look at it more deeply, we can easily remember something as like we can easily look back and remember it as if the American people spoke with the same voice as CBS executives, which in fact they so rarely do. Exactly. Yeah, the public reception. I mean, I had no idea that I always thought the whole world turned on him. Right. That wasn't even true.

It was just the people with power turned on him. Yeah. And it doesn't take that many, it turns out. And I feel like, yeah, the public memory is so short that we are very quick to conflate the people with power turned on you to everybody trying you. It's like all of the resources turned on him basically. There are a few moments for him. Like there is, I, again, another thing I didn't know is that this all happens and I think like July that September he appears as Peewee at the VMAs for like 30 seconds

just and people are losing it. They're so happy he's there. All he says is heard any good jokes lately and then presents something. And it seems like there might be a road back for him, but it's very unclear in his personal life. He becomes really good friends with Debbie Mazar, who's like a character actor who I'm always like, what is she most famous for? And you could say Goodfellas, but I think of her as yeah, hot girl and Goodfellas, but she's I feel like she's like her younger to she's. Yeah. Well, oh, well, she's like she's an empire records iconically. I feel like she's one of those people who's been iconic in like 30 different movies when you add it all up. So she and Paul become really close at

this time. They're close friends till his death. And it's at this time where he's obviously he's very depressed. He's like in the house most of the time. the windows are blacked out for several weeks to avoid paparazzi. And he really relies on his friends. And that I think is like an element of the back half of his life is he became very invested in friendships. I think similar to John Waters, like he was obsessed with making sure he gave everyone really thoughtful birthday messages, which is just one of the most, the best qualities in a person. I wish I were better at it. I know. I tell myself that if you can get like a really thoughtful gift together at any other time of the year, then that kind of balances out. But I don't know. But yeah, it's and also like continuous with the show, you know, where it's like, it seems like if

there's something that you learn by example from it, it's to invest in community. No, absolutely. And he, I think like after having, I think just like honestly, the youthful like rivalries and all this stuff, he really, he really sinks himself into good friendships. Cause also all of his friendships are tested by this.

And the friends who stand by him are his basically become his his family. There is a lot of disappointment and still hurt it sounds like based on how he talks in the documentary on his peers who make fun of him. There is a former Pee Wees Playhouse producer that sort of denounces him after this happens. Phil Hartman makes jokes at his expense. Sam Kinison says he should be executed. . Oh, get it together Sam Kinison. I mean, just Kevin Nealon, Suppy Sales, Jim Carrey, there's all of these, his peers. Because he'd become material suddenly.

Exactly. And Paul, I would say he neither forgives nor forgets in these situations. And so the friends who stick by him, he really does everything he can to care for them. He becomes really good friends with David Arquette, which becomes important later in his life. Did you know David Arquette is bozo? No. Well, guess what, Sarah? David Arquette is bozo. What iteration of bozo? What's bozo? The current one. My friend saw him as bozo last weekend. What? He's around. This is huge. David Arquette is Bozo is one of my favorite sentences. To be clear, is it like Bozo is like an eternal being who like is played by different people at different times basically? Yes.

So I was weirdly very, I don't know. I think it's because it's connected to the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, which is like in not my neighborhood, but I performed there a lot. And there was this big story like last year, maybe a couple of years ago, where David Arquette and Billy Corgan were trying to buy the rights to Bozo the Clown, because you can't just perform as Bozo. You got to buy it.

You got to franchise it. And so they were like really trying to buy the rights to Bozo so that David Arquette could be Bozo and they did it. And now David Arquette is Bozo and sometimes he's around town playing Bozo. That's just kind of what he's up to right now. He's doing Bozo, you know. For the next couple of years, Paul very much like his career is never as big as it was in the late 80s again. But he continues to work and do really, he does a lot of smaller iconic roles. He's in the

original Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's how he meets David Arquette. He plays the Penguin's when his father in Batman Returns with Tim Burton again. So he kind of falls into his friends who stood by him and works with them. And that's how he's able to, he has an arc on Murphy Brown. He appears a lot on Joan Rivers show. And this is kind of how he continues through the 90s. And then so into the early 2000s, by the early 2000s, he is starting to step out more.

It seems like the public is like, we miss Peewee. They re-release Peewee on DVD. It's being shown on Adult Swim. People are like, maybe it's time. Maybe it's time for more Paul. He hosts this game show on NBC as a character. I don't know. I can send you a clip of it, but he plays a character named Troy Stevens and people

were like, hmm, okay. He's in the movie Blow. I remember that weirdly. That's the first thing I remember seeing him in. I've never seen Blow. It's not that good. But like people like that. And then he starts talking about coming back as Peewee.

He talks about these few scripts that never come to pass. He has an idea for something that I was like, oh man, I wish he'd gotten to do that. He wanted to do basically a like black comedy mockumentary about how Peewee came to be and had the script since the 80s. He said that it's not dissimilar to Valley of the Dolls. I was like, what do you mean? He has one that is like a Wizard of Oz kind of journey thing. He has all of these ideas and he starts being like, what if Pee Wee came back, you guys? And everyone was like, we would love that. We would love that. But that does not happen. And this I

don't remember at all, even though it's the Pee Wee indiscretion public narrative that I was alive for. But you know, he's doing basically just mostly sitcom bit parts until late 2002. When he is in the middle of doing a bit part in an Elton John music video, his house is raided by the LAPD. This was not something that I was familiar with until I think he passed. Like I definitely knew everyone knew about the porn theater narrative, which by the way, I should say for closure for that, he pleaded no contest, pay like paid a $50 fine was technically like, you know, they said if it had gone to trial, he would have been found innocent because there was that footage of him in the fucking lobby. But the

public didn't forget. So the first thing doesn't even go to trial. He pleads no contest. Of course not. Yeah. I'm gonna apply to this. There was more children's education centered on this as a lesson in innocent until proven guilty. We can bring that up more in the curriculums.

But man, yeah. And of course that part of the story is the part we don't know. Yeah, right. But in late 2002, this is the one that I think really kind of breaks his spirit for some time. And it's on his mind for the rest of his life. His house is raided by the LAPD

because there were reports of child pornography at his home. The story that this is presented alongside reports of child pornography at his home. The story that this is presented alongside is Jeffrey Jones. These two, they're presented as, again, equal offenses. So I'm just gonna read from the original report so you can hear how it was reported. A year old pornography investigation has led to the filing of criminal charges against two Hollywood actors, Paul Rubens and Jeffrey Jones. Rubens was charged

with one misdemeanor count of possessing materials depicting children under the age of 18 engaged in sexual conduct. He surrendered to authorities Friday and was released on $20,000 bail. Jeffrey Jones was charged with hiring a 14-year-old boy to pose for sexually explicit photos of felony, as well as misdemeanor possession of child pornography. So these charges are very different in their severity. Jeffrey Jones and Paul Rubin, it sounds like they had met. The story is honestly unclear, Yeah. Jeffrey Jones and Paul Rubens, it sounds like they had met. The story is honestly unclear, but with regards to Paul, I think it definitely hurts him that

Jeffrey Jones committed a felony. He committed child abuse. Paul's is much harder to kind of pin down. And so as he explains it, as his lawyers explain it, and as David Arquette, AKA Bozo explains it, and we must trust Bozo. And I want to be careful with how I talk about this because I know that, and I know your listeners know this, but I don't mean to minimize any of this, but I feel it does come back to a homophobic witch hunt for Paul. For years, he and David Arquette, AKA Bozo,

were like, Paul was really into collecting vintage pop culture stuff. And so what they would often do is go to flea markets, go to whatever places where you could get boxes of old magazines. And he could get boxes of old magazines. And he would buy boxes of old magazines and he had a lot of old magazines at his house. And it was the investigation involved the LAPD in an incredible use of their time as always.

Once again, yeah, to continue our theme. Goes through over 30,000 photos, bits of footage, all of this stuff. After months and months of this, they find two images that are considered questionable, both of which are determined to not actually be photos of underage people and was very unlikely that Paul had ever even accessed it because it was deep in these boxes of stuff. So this is a far more complicated, like the 1991 thing is pretty fucking cut and dry.

This is a more severe accusation, but just from what I've been able to gather, there's nothing to it and Paul is devastated. And basically it's an attempt to sort of comb through everything in the hopes of finding something and ultimately finally saying, well, I guess we didn't, but we sure did try. But it's too late. The damage is done. And then being connected to somebody who very manifestly did it and was an abuser.

Yeah. And had a pretty clear intent. And also, as you said, actually took it out of that realm into actual child abuse. And again, to sort of be connected or sort of positioned as if there is a connection between you and someone who is demonstrably very dangerous when there it's, you know, despite attempts, nobody has uncovered that information about you.

No, I would not. I would I would go I would not seek out public life at that point either. I'll just say a Peewe innocent, Peewee innocent. Peewee is innocent. But this breaks him. It affects his life in every single way because now he is being accused of, because he was a former children's entertainer and now he's being framed as an abuser of children.

He's really close with, he had the same assistant for 40 years about, and is a huge part, was a huge part of her child's life, and had to, like, could only be supervised with her for years. So this, it just like, it seems like it really breaks his spirit. This does go to trial. And what happens, and I'm sure you have examples of this, I wish I had more time to do a little bit more research on the history of just obscenity laws. What ends up happening is he is sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor account of quote, possessing obscene materials of minors engaged in sexual conduct based off of these two pictures

deep in boxes in his house, which he still objects to and his lawyers still object to because they were not photos of underage people and I had never accessed the material. But that is what he ends up pleading guilty to, which means that he has to register as a sex offender. And I, again, like I understand if people find that objectionable, but I would also again point out that like there's such a difference, you know, intent I think is, is meaningfully, at least in theory, such a big part of any functioning legal system, including this one. And there's such a world of difference between seeking out images depicting minors in such

a context and buying publications, especially quantity, that you don't have the capacity to before you purchase, go through and evaluate, or really anyway, a lot of the time of determining that everything was produced ethically and you know, is on the up and up and that everyone is over 18. This is famously a problem with Tracy Lourdes' career because she made so many porn movies before, I feel like an old person saying porn movies, I don't know.

But she acted in a lot of porn before she turned 18. And so retroactively all of that became, I think technically child pornography, but nobody involved in making it. Well, probably. I mean, you know, I'm sure people, I'm sure there were whispers, but she had forged materials. She had, you know, had an age that she was pretending to be. It's just what happened. It's how things went. And so retroactively, things fall into a different category. Once people know what they know, then they seem to initially.

So just to say that it's nothing about his intent, I think, very clearly was proved by the case or what he had in his house. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, it's like, if you feel differently, that's total. I mean, I, it's such a, I think it's such a difficult thing to talk about because everyone's going to react to the story differently. It's very personal. But pursuing less detail is not, is not the answer. And I think in a state of fear, we can be persuaded to want, you know, to consent to having less information, but we always need more. And what I think is indisputable is that there were very political reasons for doing this.

It was done by a recently elected city attorney named Rocky Decadillo, who had stated that child welfare was one of his big issues. And at this point, Paul Rubens was a, you know, proven to be a viable public punching bag. Like this was, this was an easy win for the city attorney. And so I have a lot of cynicism about it. And it was extremely difficult and painful for him not to mention that after this, he ends up his father who is in the IDF, his father's dying, Paul goes down to Florida and is his caretaker for the end of his life, which makes me cry.

I didn't know that he did that. And I was like, we're like the same. But his dad is actively dying as this obscenity case is going on. And so he has to go back to, his father passes away when he has to fly back to LA for a couple of days to deal with this. And so he's just at an extreme low. And for the first time, he really like, he makes a big public appearance as himself

to defend himself because in 1991 he goes on the VMAs as Peewee. But here it's like the crime he's being accused of is severe that he needs to show up as Paul Rubin's. And he does. And he is emphatic of his innocence. He's asked directly, I think on CNN, he says emphatically, no, I was not in possession. I feel like I live in a country where I can collect what I want to collect as long as I'm not hurting anyone or exploiting children, which I am not." So he publicly defends himself, but the damage is done for the next, again, 10 years or so. This haunts him. Towards the end of his life, he has a late career resurgence in the, mostly because of now there's this like,

the Judd Apatow's of the world who grew up watching Peewee are now making movies and wanna make movies with him. I think Judd Apatow, Paul Russ, that whole kind of like Gen X comedy guy, they all wanna work with Peewee. And they want Peewee to get out of the house basically, because Paul's very introverted. That's the thing about kids, they grow up and they make movies. And don't we love that?

And so with the help of sort of that cohort, he brings Pee Wee's Playhouse to Broadway in 2011 with a lot of the original cast. It goes super well. He's very encouraged by it. There was a one last Pee Wee movie that is okay that came out in 2016 on Netflix, which is so it's like a sort of big return to pop culture. The movie isn't a big hit. It's not great, but he's back. You know, like he's fully back.

But even that, like keep in mind, this is 12 years after the obscenity case. So there are large chunks of time where he is mainly, it seems like, focused on his friends and his family. And then the last thing of mention is this documentary that he worked on, documentary that he worked on or that he didn't, well, it's complicated, is directed by Matt Wolf, who is a queer filmmaker who grew up as a peewee kid. And it was like his big dream to make this documentary about him. Okay. So this documentary sort of starts taking shape, I think, like around 2020-ish. Matt Wolf is sending messages. He's like, Hey, what if you he writes apart a whole section of this because this documentary was in production right up until and after Paul Rubin's died. And just to like really pull into focus how private he was,

no one knew he was sick. He was struggling with cancer for the last six years of his life, the entire production of this documentary, the director found out that he had died from the news. He had no idea. There's this incredible quote from Paul that is like, the key to keeping a secret is to tell nobody. And he was really good at that because he was sick for the last half decade of his life, which explains and doesn't explain, I think some of it's just who he is, how he acts through this documentary. It's his first time, obviously, publicly stating he's gay. The director doesn't realize that this documentary is almost certain to come out once Paul isn't there. Yeah, basically, he and the director have this very complicated, drawn out relationship where Paul, as he always has been, is obsessed with control and is really threatened

by losing control of how he's perceived, which given his history, could not make more sense. But he's basically feuding with this documentary director who loves him the entire time because he's not comfortable with giving the creative reins or his narrative over to someone else because he's never shared any of this before. No one knew that his relationship with Guy existed.

No one knew that he didn't drag. No one knew any of this. And yet he documented it all. It was all in these boxes, right? Like Matt Wolf wrote an essay about making this because you can see, you should watch the documentary. Paul can be very combative. He sometimes kind of bullies Matt.

And he's like, why should I listen to you? I've watched all your documentaries and I only liked one. And it was only sort of, and I was like, whoa. I would walk into traffic. Like, Matt Wolf, spiritually strong, I would not have survived that. Change your name, move to another country. Yeah, right.

But he's very irritated that he cannot have the control over this documentary. He tells Matt Wolf, I don't wanna be depicted as a gay icon, but I do wanna come out in the documentary. He's very particular about how he wants his story framed in a way that is unfortunately kind of impossible, right?

Eventually by the time the documentary is done, he's being a pill about signing the release. So he's done about 40 hours of interviews, but he still is holding onto maybe I won't let you wear it. Wow. He and the director have a falling out. He and Paul stop speaking for five months. It seems like the documentary is not going to happen.

And then Paul sends him a happy 40th birthday text because even the like pettiest thing in the world will not stop the birthday text from coming from Paul Rubin's, which I think is so beautiful. And then at that point, Paul says, okay, I'm ready to talk after five months. He says to Matt Wolf, I might not be able to stay as involved as I hoped, but I know you'll make the film we discussed. I'm sorry that I was so emotional these past few years. It's so sad. I'm sorry if I did things that upset you. You didn't do anything wrong. I trust you." And he died the next day.

Wow. Wow. And so the last thing I wanted to share about our friend Paul is, or sorry, I don't know that he died shortly after. But the day before he died, he never gave another interview. They never finished the interviews that Matt Wolf wanted to do. But Paul recorded a video on his phone at his house the day before he died. And I wish I could give you a hug, Sarah. So sad. But I think it's just best listened to. Yeah. More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am and how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn't.

The moment I heard somebody label me as, I'm just going to say it, a pedophile. I knew it was going to change everything moving forward and backwards. I wanted to talk about and have some understanding of what it's like to be labeled a pariah, to have people scared of you or unsure of you or untrusting or to look at what your intentions are through some kind of filter that's not true. I wanted people to understand that occasionally where there is smoke, there isn't always fire. I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote was based

in love and my desire to entertain and bring glee and creativity to young people and to everyone. And that's it. What can be said is that at the end of his life, Paul was in a good relationship. He was surrounded by his friends. He always had his community. He was never alone. But this is, that footage just came out a couple weeks ago.

How people found out he passed at the time was from an Instagram post that his, I think his assistant posted. out he passed at the time was from an Instagram post that his, I think his assistant posted. And his message at the time was, please accept my apology for not going public with what I've been facing the last six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans, and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you. And I don't know, but I think that the message that he sends Matt Wolfe is so telling of like where he was at the end of his life

and what was on his mind. And it makes me really sad for him in some ways, but also like he lived a really rich life in spite of how terribly he was treated sometimes by the media, by other people. I don't know. That just really struck me. And I love him. And I love him too now. That's Paul Rubens. Thank you. Thank you for sharing everything. I do. It is, I don't know, like now, unfortunately, more relevant than ever that if you have queer people in any sector, but certainly working with children, working to, you know, do what he said to sort of work from a place of love

and entertainment and creativity and whimsy that you will be the one who is more frequently accused of being dangerous to children than people who actually are. Yeah. I don't know like any life is is complicated and there's often great things lying right next to awful things that you can't really imagine going through but But I feel like, I think what sticks out to me of what you've told me is that you have someone who was so well known and so beloved, but also unable to, I don't know, maybe more able to express his true self through character than in his actual life. And having those outlets, at least for the time that we have them, is the creativity and the sort of worlds we create

through this discomfort in our own lives can be so beautiful and give so much to the people who grow up with them and who need them. But also, there's still, I don't know, to me that core sadness of, I guess, for whatever reason, needing to live in sex secrecy until the very end, and also being encouraged

to do that at various intervals by the world. You put it so beautifully and I think of like how many seminal creators of children's work were closeted queer people. I think of my favorite, I mean my favorite artists as kids was like Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak, Arnold Lobel, all queer men that- Yeah, Tommy DePaola.

Tommy DePaola of a similar generation that I think also what Pee Wee was, that Paul was experiencing, I still can't separate it, was generational. Where even though by the time he died, it was not easy, but easier and quite different to live as an out queer person as it would have been when he was the same age. I feel like he was still because of the media narratives that existed around him, he was treated with the same level of homophobia that existed around him, he was treated with the same level of homophobia

that existed in 1991 forever. And the narrative around him was so persistent and it didn't grow or really reevaluate in the way that he deserved for it too. And so like all of those quotes that he has about like, he was kind of frozen in time in this weird way. And it's heartbreaking. I mean, I think that all of the fans of his work ultimately lost a lot of other creative creativity from him because it wasn't possible, it wasn't accepted. And I don't know, yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, he deserved better. He deserved better. And he still managed to do so much. It's like, I think Pewi is like one of the greatest comedic creations in the history of the world. And you can feel his influence in so much. And I don't know, I just love him.

The secret word is Paul Rubin's forever. What we've learned is that we love Paul Rubin's. See, I'm doing it too. We do. And we love Pee Wee Herman and I don't know I think artists art kind of shows especially when we're young shows us how many different ways life can be and how how much more there is to the world than what the people in our community are willing or able to show us. Yeah and I feel like you're much like the Holy Spirit carrying Paul Rubens

within you now and whatever you do. I mean, watching the documentary, I'm like, I don't know if he would have liked me, but I like him so much. I don't care. The Julie and Julia effect. You're like, I don't care. I don't even care if you like me because you've inspired me for my whole life and you can't even take it back now. So ha ha. It's true.

What are you going to do? So yeah, that's, that's the story of Paul. Long may he live. Jamie, you do so much great stuff. Tell us about some of that stuff. Oh boy. You can. I, my books just came out in paperback, Raw Dog, The Naked Truth

About Hot Dogs. I have several podcasts, one of which is currently on hiatus, but 16th Minute of Fame is where every week I interview a past main character of the internet. It is a show very inspired by this, as are so many things I've done because All our shows are holding hands. You're just a brilliant ray of light and it is the, I don't know, my way of trying to let internet characters of the day say their piece. Reflect on what it's like to be overexposed. And then there's the Bechdel cast where we talk about movies every week. And there's also, I am the producer of a show called We The Unhoused

that is bi-weekly. My friend Theo Henderson hosts it. It is one of the only podcasts, I think, possibly the only podcast that is about issues that affect the unhoused told by currently or formerly unhoused people. So if you are curious about that, which you should be, you should check it out. It's a great show. Nicole Zichal-Bendis Thank you just for doing what you do. And yeah, everybody read Raw Dog if you haven't yet, get a nice paperback. It's actually a good gift. Just give it to everybody. Fold it up. Fuck it up. That's what it's for. It's a travelogue. It's a feelings book. It's a food book. It's a funny book. It's a book that'll make you cry. It's everything you want from a book. It's the Jane Eyre of hot dog books. I don't know what to tell you. Thankfully, there's just the one. It's whatever you want it to be. I love you, Sarah. I love you, Jamie. You're the best. You're going to go do another show right now. And you are amazing. And thank you for telling

me the story. And if you weren't so busy, I would have you on the show 25 times a year. I mean, I could always just quit my job, you know? Yeah, I'm always on the brink. Just let me know. Come live on this couch with me. And that was our episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much to Jamie Loftus for guesting and for sharing this story and her dedication and love to this subject and to anything else that she explores in her work.

You can find her at 16th Minute, the Bechdel cast, My Gear and Mensa, so many other great shows. Ghost Church is another one. We are a very ghosty show and boy does she do great work with ghosts and the living too. And of course you can read her book Raw Dog now out in paperback. Thank you of course to Miranda Zichler for editing and producing and thank you to Carolyn Kendrick for editing and producing. Thank you.