Pee-wee’s Big Do-Over

Pee-wee Herman is back.

I know because I’m looking right at him. We’re on the set of Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, his first movie in 28 years, and Paul Reubens, the mortal he inhabits, is decked out in that same old too-small suit and red bow tie. It’s like nothing’s changed. Well, almost nothing.

“There’s something funny about this character,” says Reubens, nibbling on a cookie in his trailer. “He just is. It doesn’t feel like there’s been any gap of time at all — until I look in the mirror.”

At 63, Reubens isn’t quite the same limber, baby-faced man-child we grew up watching in the ’80s. Every Saturday morning, thousands of kids — and in-the-know adults — would flip on Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where this giggly oddball would let us into his madcap world of talking chairs, genies and innuendoes. A very public sex scandal in 1991 suddenly made his Playhouse less inviting. But after two and a half decades, Pee-wee’s hoping to reconnect. He comes bearing a new Netflix film, produced by longtime fan Judd Apatow. And he’d really like it to feel like old times again.

It certainly looks like old times. Reubens is filming a Rube Goldberg-esque opening sequence — a clear nod to the iconic wake-up scene of 1986’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure — that sees him sitting in an easy chair, being carried via helium balloon through the roof of his suburban house. They shoot countless takes of that same part, making sure his tickled-pink smile is just right as he’s forklifted into the air. Wrapped around his neck is a skin-coloured piece of fabric, which yanks excess flesh back from his aged jawline. This, plus some post-production magic, makes him appear (almost) like his younger self. Apparently, Pee-wee’s not meant to age.

“Journalists used to ask me, ‘Will you still be able to be Pee-wee when you’re older?’ Back then, I thought, ‘Who cares?’ But now I’ve had to give it a little thought from a technical standpoint. Like, how do I pull this off?”

Everyone’s wondering the same thing. After being a pop-cultural pariah, how can Reubens make Pee-wee work again? In the years since he got busted for indecent exposure in a porno theatre, Reubens has kept a lower profile. He’s been doing quietly solid work; there was his brilliantly druggy turn in 2001’s Blow, and more recent guest roles on Gotham and The Blacklist. Now, after his successful run as Pee-wee on Broadway in 2010, the public’s ready to give his alter-ego a second chance, too.

“I’ve had 30 years to read press or hear what people think about Pee-wee,” Reubens admits. “But I really try not to. I’m afraid I’ll one day read something and, like Samson getting his hair cut, I’ll lose my ability to be Pee-wee.”

He shouldn’t worry; in Big Holiday, the character flows out of him with ease. We see Pee-wee bust out of a hometown he feels alienated in, embarking on a wacky cross-country road trip. Maybe there are real-life parallels to be drawn here. Mostly, though, it’s just bizarre, fun shit: sight gags, bad puns, and non-sequiturs. The same humour stoners got a kick out of in the ’80s; the kind still alive in the absurdist comedies of today (Comedy Bang! Bang!, The Mighty Boosh).

“There’s a universality to Pee-wee,” he says. “Everybody has a little uncomfortableness or awkwardness.” Even if he doesn’t look like Pee-wee anymore, he certainly still feels like him. You can’t fake being this weird.