What’s that, Conky? 36 is the word of the day, you say? And you know what to do whenever somebody says “36,” right, kids? You scream real loud! Let’s try it out: Pee-wee’s Playhouse, the sweetly twisted brainchild of the comedian, icon, and legend Paul Reubens, premiered Sept. 13, 1986, with an episode titled “Ice Cream Soup” exactly 36 (“AHHH!!!!!”) years ago this week. 36 years?? “AHHH!!!!!” indeed! That makes me… uhhh, nevermind. Revealing my age would make only me scream.
Let’s just say that I was right in the sweet spot, demographically-speaking, when the Playhouse debuted at 11 a.m. on CBS, right after the brand-new Teen Wolf cartoon. While Teen Wolf only lasted for one season, Pee-wee's Playhouse ran for five (give or take a third season abbreviated by the 1988 WGA strike), winning a whopping 22 Emmys in the process. But more important than any shiny statues was the fact that the Playhouse, from its modest little perch high above Puppetland, reached straight through the TV screen, stuck Scotch tape on my nose so it looked like a pig snout, and reshaped everything about my small-town understanding of the world.
I mean, how did a show like this even happen?
Everything, even Pee-wee's Playhouse, has a beginning.
The literal history is well documented. Reubens debuted Pee-wee in 1978 while performing with the improvisational stand-up troupe The Groundlings in Los Angeles; the character became a quick smash. Within a couple of years, The Pee-wee Herman Show (consisting of a slightly more "adult" take on the character — think lots of looking up dresses) was selling out for months on end at The Roxy Theater in WeHo. And by 1980 there was Pee-wee, cameo-ing in Cheech and Chong movies. The stage show then got turned into an HBO special, which led to Pee-wee becoming one of David Letterman’s favorite guests. That led to Tim Burton’s directorial debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, dropping and exploding like Large Marge’s face in 1985.
Coming from out of nowhere, the movie was the surprise smash hit of the year. It cost seven million dollars to make and raked in more than 40 million, simultaneously cementing a legion of memorable lines into the pop culture lexicon forever. (There might not be a basement in the Alamo, but there are thousands and thousands of uses for corn, all of which I am going to tell you about right now.) Pee-wee mania was upon us!
Paul Reubens created an environment where everybody could play.
Naturally, the next stop was… a Saturday morning kid’s show? Well 36 (AHHHH!!!) years ago, it seemed like anything and everything could get turned into a cartoon. (See the aforementioned Teen Wolf cartoon.) And animation was CBS’s original intention with Pee-wee, too. But Reubens, having grown up watching live-action mixed with animation and puppetry in the worlds of Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody, saw an opening for something decidedly more deranged and delightful. And thank goodness CBS said yes and then stayed entirely out of his way.
The first season of the series was filmed in what was later remembered not entirely fondly as a “sweat shop” at 480 Broadway in New York City. It involved, by all accounts, a riot of like-minded artists and eccentrics, who had no idea what they were doing making a TV show, all going ape-shit in a very small space in the most legendary of ways. From The Groundlings there were actors and writers who came along for the ride, people like Phil Hartman as Captain Carl, John Paragon as Jambi, and Lynne Marie Stewart as the most beautiful woman in all of Puppetland, Miss Yvonne. Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes folks like cartoonist Gary Panter and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo worked on it, too. And yes, that is an uncredited Cyndi Lauper singing the theme song.
Together they were shaping the look and sound of Pee-wee's Playhouse. And you can see all of that unbounded creativity right there on the screen, bursting forth like nothing before in the jam-packed first episode. Those memorable opening credits introduce us to half of Puppetland and set the stage for the manic antics about to come. Once the story kicks in, all of the aforementioned live-action characters are there, plus several more (hey there, Tito the lifeguard, sunning them guns), all bouncing around alongside their puppet counterparts — Chairy! Pterri! (“The ‘P’ is silent, Randy!”) Globey, oh my! Then there’s a couple of talkin’ fish… and a genie who grants a wish! Golly, it’s cuckoo! (Sorry, that theme song’ll get stuck in your head.)
Before the episode is through, they even squeeze in a Penny cartoon and a visit with the stop-motion dinosaur family that lives inside the wall. Oh, and Natasha Lyonne is there, too? It’s barely, emphasis on barely, contained chaos.
But to a gay kid with zero-point-zero real-life friends in rural upstate New York, Pee-wee’s Playhouse was more than just the sum of those psychotic-snap parts. Like Sesame Street before it, Paul Reubens populated the Playhouse with every type of person. The mail lady (S. freaking Epatha Merkerson), the Cowboy (Laurence freaking Fishburne), and the multiple Kings of Cartoons (William Marshall and Gilbert Lewis) were people of color, while Jambi was basically a drag queen teleported straight out of a Kenneth Anger short film dropped into our unsuspecting laps.
Pee-wee Herman: Fashion icon.
Then there’s Pee-wee himself. From a distance Pee-wee looks like any “normal little boy.” Well-dressed. Dapper even, in his gray suit and bowtie, his trim little buzzcut and white shoes. He could be any “normal little boy” going to church or the supermarket back in the day when people got dressed up for such things. But then you move in closer and start to connect the dots — “LA, LA, LA!!!” — and them dots, they’re not connecting quite right. Is he a boy or is he a man? And is he wearing makeup? Those ruby red lips sure are red. Too red, if you ask my father and people like him. If you look back at the press coverage of the time, you can see the innuendos. Rolling Stone talked about, and I quote, Pee-wee’s “fine-wristed hands fluttering in independent Zasu Pitts imitations,” for god’s sake.
All of this performative normalness turned up to an unhinged 11 spoke to me in ways I couldn’t even begin to examine 36 (AHHHH!!!!) years back. I, too, felt like a confused poseur wearing “normal little boy” drag, unsure of what I really was. So Pee-wee Herman quick became my lifestyle avatar. I perfected an exquisite impersonation that I would show off to my mother and for my own personal Puppetland full of imaginary friends.
They were the only ones who saw that routine, though. Even then I knew well enough to not get that animated when my father or other real-life kids came around, lest my hands flutter in independent Zasu Pitts imitations. But every Saturday morning at 11 a.m. for five formative years, there Pee-wee would be, beamed into my bedroom, which is to say beaming me out of my own. And I wouldn’t have made it without him. Bless you Pee-wee, and merci-blah-blah!
How to watch: Pee-wee's Playhouse — including "Ice Cream Soup" — is available for purchase on Prime Video. The comedy special The Pee-wee Herman Show is available on HBO Max.
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