The Pee-wee Herman Show, the 1981 HBO special that introduced the nation to Pee-wee

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Originally published at: The Pee-wee Herman Show, the 1981 HBO special that introduced the nation to Pee-wee | Boing Boing

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The number of talented familiar faces on that one show is stunning; many of those giants of the '70s L.A. improv scene and countless comedy roles thereafter gone too soon. Meka Leka Hi Meka Hiney Ho to all of them.

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I remember seeing this as a rerun and adoring it, after we finally got cable in 1983, I think.

Pee-wee was a marvelous antidote to the depressing, hyper-materialistic 80s.

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Most of all his undermining of Reaganite conformity. What his Portlandia character would say years later was his career motto: it’s not a crime to be weird.

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Amen HA
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Amen!

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I would watch and re-watch a Fairy Tale Theatre VHS tape of Paul Reubens as Pinocchio as a kid and cry laughing. I think my dad would rent the Pee Wee Herman movies as kids and leave Playhouse on for us where I’m sure I’d just sit with my head tilted to one side. Wasn’t until later my dad showed me the original special and it made way more sense than anything leading up to it.

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I was in the Latin club (Junior Classical League) and went to regular conventions where, among other things, schools would put on plays. Cicero was nicknamed “Chickpea” and one school put on “Chickpea-wee’s Big Adventure Or Cicero Goes To Rome”. Cicero’s favorite sedan chair is stolen and after consulting a soothsayer he goes to find it in the basement of the Coliseum.

The kid who played Cicero could do an absolutely spot-on Pee-Wee impersonation. He even looked a bit like Paul Reubens. All of us in JCL were oddballs anyway but even outside of it being able to mimic Pee-Wee made that kid a star at his school.

Every time I remember that I think about how Paul Reubens didn’t just make it okay to be weird. He made it cool.

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“What if I told you that this chair I’m sitting in was made out of Pee-Wee Herman’s front door?”

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“I’m not wearing underpants”

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He had a standout performance as the hotel clerk in Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie a year earlier.

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here’s a performance from around the same time, a young comedian showcase hosted by Carl Reiner. extremely funny and the audience is losing it, they just had no frame-of-reference for what they were experiencing.

my favorite bits from the OP, they’re one right after another:

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