1
00:00:17,559 --> 00:00:19,769
So I'm going to ask him
if I can make the...

2
00:00:21,563 --> 00:00:23,064
You're going to be
asking interview questions

3
00:00:23,148 --> 00:00:24,274
on the talking heads.

4
00:00:27,819 --> 00:00:30,405
I don't know if I'm gonna be
able to do it with a straight face.

5
00:00:35,243 --> 00:00:36,411
He's going to know.

6
00:00:36,828 --> 00:00:39,080
Even if I do it
with a straight face, he's going to know.

7
00:00:43,626 --> 00:00:44,961
FaceTime Matt Wolf.

8
00:00:46,629 --> 00:00:48,798
Making a FaceTime call to Matt Wolf.

9
00:00:50,633 --> 00:00:53,053
Hey, I just had a quick thought
I wanted to run by you.

10
00:00:53,553 --> 00:00:57,015
How do you feel...
Or I would like to be able to, like,

11
00:00:57,098 --> 00:01:01,436
have my own set of questions
and ask questions of the people,

12
00:01:01,561 --> 00:01:03,646
on the talking head interviews.

13
00:01:03,730 --> 00:01:07,150
Like, could I be there,
and like, when you've done your thing,

14
00:01:07,233 --> 00:01:10,695
like I-- or every other question,
I could like, ask a question?

15
00:01:15,909 --> 00:01:18,119
I think you already know
the answer to that.

16
00:01:19,454 --> 00:01:21,122
What? You don't like that idea?

17
00:01:21,581 --> 00:01:23,083
-No.
-Why?

18
00:01:23,166 --> 00:01:25,919
I like the idea of you prepping me
on stuff that you think

19
00:01:26,002 --> 00:01:27,712
would be good stories to tell

20
00:01:28,129 --> 00:01:31,299
and for me to get that
in the context of the interview.

21
00:01:32,509 --> 00:01:35,512
-I can't ask the questions myself?
-No.

22
00:01:37,847 --> 00:01:38,848
Let me do that.

23
00:01:38,932 --> 00:01:42,102
Let me do that,
but get your feedback as I'm prepping.

24
00:01:42,644 --> 00:01:45,146
Oh, my God!

25
00:01:49,567 --> 00:01:52,612
What if the documentary wasn't made
at all? What would be lost?

26
00:01:52,695 --> 00:01:54,155
Why do I want to make a documentary?

27
00:01:54,239 --> 00:01:56,157
Is that a better way
to ask me what you're asking me,

28
00:01:56,241 --> 00:01:57,658
or is that a different question?

29
00:01:58,743 --> 00:01:59,911
Tell me what you think.

30
00:02:01,287 --> 00:02:03,998
You're not a therapist.
You don't get to say that kind of stuff.

31
00:02:05,291 --> 00:02:08,127
It's not for me to discover.
It's for you to tell me and lead me.

32
00:02:08,627 --> 00:02:10,713
Okay, if you didn't choose
to make a documentary

33
00:02:10,839 --> 00:02:15,093
and to utilize your 1,000 hours of footage
and tens of thousands of photos,

34
00:02:16,511 --> 00:02:19,681
some of that stuff
or most of that stuff would never be seen.

35
00:02:21,391 --> 00:02:22,392
Fine.

36
00:02:22,892 --> 00:02:26,062
If all my stuff wasn't seen ever,
I don't care.

37
00:02:26,771 --> 00:02:29,190
Do I? Is that true? Maybe not.

38
00:02:39,367 --> 00:02:41,911
I have been collecting now

39
00:02:42,579 --> 00:02:49,002
for probably at least 50 years
since I was a teenager.

40
00:02:50,545 --> 00:02:54,132
I decided that I was gonna get
all my stuff out of storage

41
00:02:54,215 --> 00:02:58,845
and move it to one space
and make that project

42
00:02:58,928 --> 00:03:03,683
part of the documentary.
And, voilà, that's what's happened.

43
00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:07,979
It's completely overwhelming,

44
00:03:08,228 --> 00:03:13,902
the amount of stuff
and the scope of seeing it all laid out.

45
00:03:15,612 --> 00:03:19,449
But it's incredible to unpack
all that stuff from the past.

46
00:03:35,048 --> 00:03:39,510
People still really don't know me.
I mean, friends know me.

47
00:03:41,679 --> 00:03:44,015
But I kind of wanted
the public to know me.

48
00:03:44,098 --> 00:03:47,268
I kind of wanted...
I think it's time that I...

49
00:03:51,231 --> 00:03:57,528
get to be more known and explain,
like, explain myself, I guess.

50
00:03:57,862 --> 00:04:03,159
As Desi used to say to Lucy, you know,
"You've got some 'splaining to do."

51
00:04:03,243 --> 00:04:07,538
Like, I feel like people
may think that a little bit about me.

52
00:04:07,747 --> 00:04:09,874
Or if they don't,
I'd like them to think that,

53
00:04:09,958 --> 00:04:12,669
and I'd like to sort of answer
some questions for people

54
00:04:12,794 --> 00:04:16,505
on who I really am
and what's my story

55
00:04:16,589 --> 00:04:19,384
and how did it all, like...

56
00:04:21,469 --> 00:04:22,595
shake down.

57
00:04:27,475 --> 00:04:28,601
What's going on?

58
00:04:28,810 --> 00:04:30,979
Look! It's Pee-wee Herman.
He's walking on a tightrope

59
00:04:31,062 --> 00:04:33,523
-between the World Trade Center.
-Hey, watch this.

60
00:04:37,902 --> 00:04:40,154
-I don't believe it.
-Oh, my God!

61
00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:41,990
Danger! Danger!

62
00:04:42,073 --> 00:04:43,157
He's falling!

63
00:04:46,494 --> 00:04:50,957
Live from New York, it's Saturday Night.

64
00:04:57,255 --> 00:05:03,678
There wasn't, like, a moment in the '80s
that wasn't really super cool to be me.

65
00:05:05,221 --> 00:05:08,766
I am such a, you know,
star-fucker, really.

66
00:05:10,435 --> 00:05:11,811
Hello, I'm Pee-wee Herman.

67
00:05:12,061 --> 00:05:17,317
There's something
so exciting and fun about success.

68
00:05:20,903 --> 00:05:23,990
You know, Pee-wee,
you are really so sweet.

69
00:05:24,198 --> 00:05:25,908
I know you are, but what am I?

70
00:05:26,034 --> 00:05:28,578
If I went to a party,
people wanted to, like,

71
00:05:28,661 --> 00:05:31,497
say hi to me and run up to me
and, like, fawn over me.

72
00:05:34,876 --> 00:05:38,254
I took the check that I made
from Pee-wee's Big Adventure

73
00:05:38,338 --> 00:05:41,674
and signed the back of it,
and that was the down payment on my house.

74
00:05:45,511 --> 00:05:49,140
There were two things about this house
that were really interesting

75
00:05:49,223 --> 00:05:50,600
that pushed me over the edge.

76
00:05:50,808 --> 00:05:55,688
One is, I looked over on a hill
next to the house and I saw a deer,

77
00:05:55,772 --> 00:05:57,940
a buck with giant antlers.

78
00:05:58,441 --> 00:06:00,860
And for a second,
I almost thought I was hallucinating.

79
00:06:00,985 --> 00:06:05,740
I wasn't really aware
of there being deer in Los Angeles.

80
00:06:06,366 --> 00:06:12,163
And there was a pool
and I walked around to the end of the pool

81
00:06:12,288 --> 00:06:16,918
where the diving board was,
and I looked up and I realized

82
00:06:17,126 --> 00:06:20,088
that you could dive off the diving board

83
00:06:20,380 --> 00:06:23,049
and see the Hollywood sign
at the same time.

84
00:06:23,966 --> 00:06:25,802
And that's what made me buy it.

85
00:06:27,762 --> 00:06:29,555
At the premiere
of Pee-wee's Big Adventure,

86
00:06:29,972 --> 00:06:33,267
an executive from CBS comes up
and she says, "You know something?"

87
00:06:33,433 --> 00:06:37,355
"We're very, very interested
in doing a children's show with Pee-wee."

88
00:06:37,480 --> 00:06:38,523
I said, "Really?"

89
00:06:38,648 --> 00:06:39,649
And what do you know?

90
00:06:39,732 --> 00:06:41,776
It just happens to be time
for your drawing lesson right now.

91
00:06:41,943 --> 00:06:43,027
Come on over here.

92
00:06:43,111 --> 00:06:45,696
I was always thinking
I would have a nighttime show.

93
00:06:45,780 --> 00:06:48,324
Now, Pee-wee, there's two things
missing from this drawing.

94
00:06:49,575 --> 00:06:51,159
In The Pee-wee Herman Show,

95
00:06:51,244 --> 00:06:55,540
there was all this innuendo
and all this kind of like, adult flavor.

96
00:06:55,623 --> 00:06:58,376
I know, I know. Earrings.

97
00:06:59,877 --> 00:07:00,878
No, Pee-wee.

98
00:07:01,003 --> 00:07:04,257
I'd never really thought about being
a children's show host,

99
00:07:04,799 --> 00:07:06,676
but the second I heard it,
it sounded right.

100
00:07:07,677 --> 00:07:12,765
The idea of impacting kids in the way
that television had impacted me

101
00:07:12,849 --> 00:07:17,603
when I was a kid
was enormously exciting to me.

102
00:07:19,814 --> 00:07:22,817
I thought this is such
a golden opportunity

103
00:07:22,942 --> 00:07:25,778
to be like really influential
and widely watched.

104
00:07:28,906 --> 00:07:31,659
CBS suggested
a production partner for us

105
00:07:31,868 --> 00:07:33,744
and we saw some of the things
that they did

106
00:07:33,828 --> 00:07:36,622
and some of the access to people
that they had, stop motion,

107
00:07:36,789 --> 00:07:38,332
photography, and things like that.

108
00:07:39,417 --> 00:07:43,546
Their perception was it would be
90 percent animated and ten percent

109
00:07:43,629 --> 00:07:46,507
Paul Reubens
just introducing the animation.

110
00:07:48,634 --> 00:07:53,389
I think the producers tried to put
their will on top of it a little bit,

111
00:07:53,514 --> 00:07:58,019
and I quickly found out
that Paul was running the show.

112
00:07:59,395 --> 00:08:01,481
At a certain point, I had to go like,

113
00:08:01,898 --> 00:08:04,317
you know, "Get Gary Panter.
This is ridiculous."

114
00:08:05,485 --> 00:08:07,403
Paul believed in my art
from the beginning.

115
00:08:07,904 --> 00:08:10,823
I'd spent my whole life
preparing for this job.

116
00:08:11,324 --> 00:08:13,659
And I went down
and they did end up hiring me

117
00:08:14,076 --> 00:08:16,287
'cause Paul kept turning down
all of their drawings.

118
00:08:16,954 --> 00:08:20,291
And I wanted Ric Heitzman and Wayne White.

119
00:08:20,582 --> 00:08:25,671
So I made them into our team.
We just drew and drew and drew.

120
00:08:27,507 --> 00:08:29,759
We were all basically
underground cartoonists.

121
00:08:30,176 --> 00:08:32,929
We'd just go into this little room
and smoke weed

122
00:08:33,054 --> 00:08:36,140
and draw pictures all day long,
and it was a dream job.

123
00:08:38,142 --> 00:08:41,979
Me and Gary, and Ric made hundreds,
maybe thousands of drawings,

124
00:08:42,563 --> 00:08:45,191
because Paul liked to see
a lot of alternatives.

125
00:08:47,193 --> 00:08:49,737
He always picked out
the weirdest stuff I did.

126
00:08:49,862 --> 00:08:52,114
And I love that,
'cause usually it's the opposite.

127
00:08:53,574 --> 00:08:58,037
You know, everybody was sort of like green
and kind of, "Let's put on a show."

128
00:08:58,246 --> 00:09:01,207
And there was
like a rickety-ness and an innocence

129
00:09:01,290 --> 00:09:03,876
about the whole thing.
And it just felt right.

130
00:09:06,837 --> 00:09:09,423
I met Wayne White as a puppeteer.

131
00:09:09,674 --> 00:09:12,802
He wrote me a letter and said,
"You know, if you were in New York

132
00:09:12,927 --> 00:09:15,388
you'd be working
on this show for Pee-wee Herman."

133
00:09:15,513 --> 00:09:16,806
Alison.

134
00:09:17,306 --> 00:09:19,684
Even when I auditioned, I knew
it was going to be something special.

135
00:09:20,142 --> 00:09:22,770
And as we got into it,
that was pretty much confirmed.

136
00:09:24,188 --> 00:09:26,857
I remember the first time I saw Chairry,
I'm walking by and I was like,

137
00:09:27,024 --> 00:09:29,235
"Oh, thank God
I'm not going to be in that thing."

138
00:09:31,696 --> 00:09:35,908
So I got in there and I puppeteered it.
It was a very complicated puppet.

139
00:09:37,034 --> 00:09:40,329
I had a little, little, tiny...
It was like a walkie-talkie side monitor

140
00:09:40,496 --> 00:09:41,872
inside of Chairry.

141
00:09:42,748 --> 00:09:44,625
So I could see what was going on.

142
00:09:46,043 --> 00:09:48,254
One of the great things
I thought about Pee-wee's Playhouse

143
00:09:48,337 --> 00:09:50,590
is they weren't trying
to make them look like Muppets.

144
00:09:52,258 --> 00:09:54,760
They were really more like art school

145
00:09:54,927 --> 00:09:57,138
or cartoonist-style puppets.

146
00:10:01,851 --> 00:10:03,853
Gary was his go-to guy.

147
00:10:05,021 --> 00:10:07,815
Gary was the consciousness
of the playhouse.

148
00:10:07,940 --> 00:10:10,026
He was the design guru.

149
00:10:11,277 --> 00:10:16,073
The playhouse is like a toy box,
an escape into a pop art world.

150
00:10:16,324 --> 00:10:19,243
It was mind-expanding,
in the best sense of the word.

151
00:10:20,786 --> 00:10:22,496
As an art nerd, I was trying to see

152
00:10:22,788 --> 00:10:24,999
what the future was
from looking at the past.

153
00:10:26,500 --> 00:10:32,298
I felt like Gary was so visionary
and was able, like, to create worlds.

154
00:10:33,132 --> 00:10:35,551
I could just go design the playhouse.

155
00:10:37,178 --> 00:10:38,512
That's why it worked.

156
00:10:38,971 --> 00:10:40,973
If you have that kind of vision,

157
00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:45,436
it unifies the whole world
in a way that makes the world real.

158
00:10:46,479 --> 00:10:48,606
The opening sequence was a fly-through.

159
00:10:48,981 --> 00:10:52,443
It wasn't easy.
Nothing was instant like it is now.

160
00:10:53,027 --> 00:10:57,823
Twice a day, for seven weeks,
we would take a black-and-white video

161
00:10:57,948 --> 00:10:59,450
down to Paul to see.

162
00:11:00,201 --> 00:11:02,244
He would notice a wrong movement,

163
00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:06,207
and then we'd come back
in the afternoon, and he would say,

164
00:11:06,415 --> 00:11:09,460
"No, you want to go up at this point,
you want to go down at this point."

165
00:11:09,543 --> 00:11:13,756
And every time we did it,
it would be better.

166
00:11:19,762 --> 00:11:22,056
I wanted the opening
of Pee-wee's Playhouse

167
00:11:22,181 --> 00:11:25,643
to be very kind of like... ooh!

168
00:11:25,768 --> 00:11:26,769
Like...

169
00:11:32,483 --> 00:11:36,112
Like, I just wanted to be drawn
right into the TV

170
00:11:36,237 --> 00:11:40,866
and right into this world
and have every other element drop away

171
00:11:41,450 --> 00:11:44,912
so that you were just,
you know, transfixed.

172
00:11:51,794 --> 00:11:55,965
-Come in and pull yourself up a chair
-Like Chairry!

173
00:11:56,215 --> 00:12:00,136
Let the fun begin
It's time to let down your hair

174
00:12:01,053 --> 00:12:05,015
Pee-wee's so excited
Because all his friends have been invited

175
00:12:05,099 --> 00:12:09,353
-That's you!
-Go wacky at Pee-wee's Playhouse

176
00:12:10,146 --> 00:12:13,607
There's a crazy rhythm coming
From Puppet Land

177
00:12:13,691 --> 00:12:16,444
-What's that?
-Dirty Dog, Cool Cat, Chicky Baby

178
00:12:16,610 --> 00:12:18,988
-are the Puppet Band
-Yeah!

179
00:12:19,071 --> 00:12:23,242
He's got a couple of talking fish
And a genie who'll grant a wish

180
00:12:23,534 --> 00:12:27,747
Golly, it's cuckoo at Pee-wee's Playhouse

181
00:12:28,414 --> 00:12:30,207
Now we've given you fair warning

182
00:12:30,458 --> 00:12:37,047
It's going to be that kind of morning
For being wacky, for getting nutty

183
00:12:37,256 --> 00:12:42,720
Golly, it's cuckoo at Pee-wee's Playhouse

184
00:12:50,936 --> 00:12:55,733
If you're gonna have a kid's show,
you better really do something great.

185
00:12:56,275 --> 00:12:57,902
Oh, hello, boys and girls.

186
00:12:58,235 --> 00:13:00,488
Me and Globey, and Magic Screen
were just going through

187
00:13:00,571 --> 00:13:01,864
some of our old junk.

188
00:13:01,947 --> 00:13:04,116
-Hello, boys and girls.
-Hello, boys and girls.

189
00:13:04,450 --> 00:13:07,453
Look, it’s one of my favorite old records.

190
00:13:07,912 --> 00:13:12,082
-Remember this one, Globey?
-Oh, I love that record.

191
00:13:12,666 --> 00:13:14,210
I’ll get it. I’ll get it.

192
00:13:14,293 --> 00:13:19,757
I felt like I could just give
this beautiful, incredible gift to kids.

193
00:13:20,299 --> 00:13:22,551
Pee-wee's Playhouse!
Pee-wee speaking! Who's this?

194
00:13:22,718 --> 00:13:24,470
-Hi, Pee-wee!
-Hi, Pee-wee!

195
00:13:24,678 --> 00:13:27,389
-Hi, kids! Guess what?
-What?

196
00:13:27,723 --> 00:13:30,810
I'm having a party, and you're invited!

197
00:13:30,893 --> 00:13:32,686
-Yeah!
-Yeah!

198
00:13:32,812 --> 00:13:35,856
They could just jump into the TV
and jump into a world that was,

199
00:13:35,981 --> 00:13:38,651
like, really full of beauty and fun.

200
00:13:41,946 --> 00:13:43,572
Hi, Elvis! Hi, Cher!

201
00:13:43,864 --> 00:13:45,115
-Hi, Pee-wee!
-Hi, Pee-wee!

202
00:13:45,324 --> 00:13:46,659
We've got a new member!

203
00:13:46,867 --> 00:13:49,954
I think it was almost like I thought
I was inside of a cartoon or something.

204
00:13:50,871 --> 00:13:54,625
I don't know why they thought
I was an eccentric or would fit in at all.

205
00:13:55,543 --> 00:13:58,546
Yeah, you know,
a little tiny Paul Giamatti.

206
00:14:00,130 --> 00:14:05,511
I do remember being on set
and that it was the most exciting thing

207
00:14:05,594 --> 00:14:06,971
I'd ever done.

208
00:14:07,388 --> 00:14:09,223
I think it felt like permission
to be myself.

209
00:14:09,682 --> 00:14:12,309
Today's secret word is...

210
00:14:14,353 --> 00:14:18,941
"Fun." Today's secret word is "Fun."

211
00:14:19,358 --> 00:14:21,986
How would you guys like
to go outside and play with Pterri?

212
00:14:22,069 --> 00:14:23,737
That sounds like fun.

213
00:14:28,450 --> 00:14:30,494
-Good morning, Chairry.
-Good morning.

214
00:14:30,703 --> 00:14:34,748
I was so thrilled and so excited
that I was going to get

215
00:14:34,832 --> 00:14:37,418
to be Miss Yvonne on camera.

216
00:14:37,668 --> 00:14:40,671
-Good morning, Mr. Window.
-Hello, Miss Yvonne.

217
00:14:41,088 --> 00:14:42,590
Good morning, boys and girls.

218
00:14:42,798 --> 00:14:45,092
She always was kind and loving,

219
00:14:45,467 --> 00:14:49,221
and she always wanted everybody
to be happy and beautiful.

220
00:14:51,056 --> 00:14:55,102
-Presenting the new Mrs. Steve!
-Let me see, let me see.

221
00:14:55,185 --> 00:14:56,186
Okay.

222
00:14:57,396 --> 00:14:59,815
You're right! I am beautiful!

223
00:15:00,232 --> 00:15:03,819
And when you feel beautiful,
you are beautiful.

224
00:15:05,446 --> 00:15:07,489
I walk into this audition.

225
00:15:08,032 --> 00:15:10,784
They said, "This is Paul."
And I went, "Oh, hey."

226
00:15:11,702 --> 00:15:15,539
And this little, small, skinny guy
with long hair,

227
00:15:15,623 --> 00:15:18,667
mustache and goatee, and cutoffs.

228
00:15:18,918 --> 00:15:21,003
He looked like a '60s reject.

229
00:15:21,587 --> 00:15:24,298
I didn't connect that he would be Pee-wee.

230
00:15:25,758 --> 00:15:28,969
-Here you go.
-Pen pal letters!

231
00:15:29,053 --> 00:15:31,555
You know, what I love about Reba is that

232
00:15:31,639 --> 00:15:34,558
she was the only normal person
in the crew.

233
00:15:34,642 --> 00:15:36,518
Would you like to sit down
by the campfire and dry off?

234
00:15:38,729 --> 00:15:41,315
-What campfire?
-That one.

235
00:15:45,861 --> 00:15:50,532
Oh, yeah. That one. No.
I'll just get wet again anyway.

236
00:15:50,783 --> 00:15:54,870
She's the only one that saw
the weirdness in the playhouse.

237
00:15:56,413 --> 00:15:59,124
Okay. Hey, who would like a Tootsie Roll?
Okay, right there.

238
00:16:00,501 --> 00:16:03,128
When I first saw Paul as Pee-wee,
it was probably like,

239
00:16:03,212 --> 00:16:05,547
1980, '81, at the Groundling Theatre.

240
00:16:05,631 --> 00:16:08,092
And I didn't get it.

241
00:16:09,051 --> 00:16:12,888
I just, I was like,
"Who is this little man in this bowtie,

242
00:16:13,013 --> 00:16:16,016
and why is he throwing Tootsie Pops
and Tootsie Rolls at people?"

243
00:16:18,435 --> 00:16:19,520
I got a call, you know,

244
00:16:19,645 --> 00:16:22,022
"Pee-wee Herman
wants to see you about playing a cowboy."

245
00:16:22,690 --> 00:16:26,527
You know, I'd had no experience
with performance art, as it were.

246
00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:33,075
I had no experience
with performing for children.

247
00:16:35,703 --> 00:16:37,788
Cowboy Curtis
was a different kind of cowboy,

248
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:42,126
and I think that's because Cowboy Curtis
was just as much an outsider

249
00:16:42,251 --> 00:16:43,669
and different as Pee-wee was.

250
00:16:44,670 --> 00:16:45,671
Thank you, Jambi.

251
00:16:45,963 --> 00:16:48,799
Over here, Pee-wee. Put me on.

252
00:16:49,049 --> 00:16:51,844
I wanted kids to learn
about being a nonconformist

253
00:16:51,927 --> 00:16:53,429
and what nonconformity was.

254
00:16:54,596 --> 00:16:59,351
You could be somebody who just doesn't
conform to, like, society's rules.

255
00:17:04,022 --> 00:17:06,233
It's like you can do
the opposite of things.

256
00:17:06,358 --> 00:17:07,568
You can do whatever you want.

257
00:17:25,085 --> 00:17:28,589
I just put in a lot of stuff
in Pee-wee's Playhouse

258
00:17:28,672 --> 00:17:30,507
that I thought, "Why not?"

259
00:17:32,593 --> 00:17:36,055
I'm going to put on
my mom's high heels and walk around,

260
00:17:36,138 --> 00:17:37,431
because that's what I want to do.

261
00:17:38,057 --> 00:17:39,058
Backwards.

262
00:17:49,318 --> 00:17:54,073
And did I put my mom's high heels on?
Yes, I did, okay?

263
00:17:58,285 --> 00:18:00,996
Oh, man. Oh, man. What a moon!

264
00:18:01,580 --> 00:18:03,540
I just felt right from the get-go,

265
00:18:03,957 --> 00:18:06,543
something that I could do
that could be very important

266
00:18:06,919 --> 00:18:13,092
and very subliminal would be
to just make the show very inclusive

267
00:18:13,717 --> 00:18:15,844
and not comment on it in any way.

268
00:18:18,013 --> 00:18:21,433
Captain Kangaroo, Soupy Sales,

269
00:18:21,558 --> 00:18:24,436
Howdy Doody, you know,
none of those shows

270
00:18:24,686 --> 00:18:26,688
did I see myself reflected.

271
00:18:28,398 --> 00:18:33,612
So, that I had the opportunity
to be a part of a show

272
00:18:33,946 --> 00:18:39,409
that young Black kids would see and go,
"There's an image of me here."

273
00:18:39,993 --> 00:18:41,370
That means a lot to me.

274
00:18:43,580 --> 00:18:47,835
Rising from his tomb
to fill the night with horror.

275
00:18:48,335 --> 00:18:52,297
William Marshall had played
the title character, Blacula.

276
00:18:52,756 --> 00:18:54,800
Dracula's soul brother.

277
00:18:54,925 --> 00:18:58,929
And to a lot of the Black actors
who came in on the show,

278
00:18:59,346 --> 00:19:02,099
he was like a rock star or God.

279
00:19:02,349 --> 00:19:06,895
Boys and girls,
Playhouse friends, and cowboys,

280
00:19:07,146 --> 00:19:09,690
and people taking bubble baths...

281
00:19:11,733 --> 00:19:15,737
Let the cartoon begin!

282
00:19:20,325 --> 00:19:23,954
We added a Spanish cartoon
called El Hombre,

283
00:19:24,246 --> 00:19:27,374
and I wanted it to look
like velvet painting.

284
00:19:33,297 --> 00:19:37,134
And people kept coming to me going like,
"You have to subtitle it."

285
00:19:37,509 --> 00:19:39,303
And I go, "Why?"

286
00:19:54,151 --> 00:19:56,987
Penny was out there. She was supposed
to be the little feminist.

287
00:19:57,070 --> 00:20:01,950
And we interviewed seven-year-olds
and animated to their stories.

288
00:20:02,576 --> 00:20:03,869
Hello, my name's Penny.

289
00:20:04,411 --> 00:20:06,955
I think children should have rights
about where they want to move

290
00:20:07,664 --> 00:20:09,583
and how they want to live.

291
00:20:12,211 --> 00:20:14,755
And not about they want to go
to sleep at one o'clock in the morning

292
00:20:14,922 --> 00:20:17,299
and like go to school-- not go to school.

293
00:20:18,717 --> 00:20:23,055
I'm saying that the parents shouldn't say,
"Well, we're going to take you over here

294
00:20:23,138 --> 00:20:24,932
because we're the parents
and we pay the rent."

295
00:20:25,807 --> 00:20:30,229
I was going to try to be educational
in a more undercover way

296
00:20:30,395 --> 00:20:32,272
so that you wouldn't really even realize

297
00:20:32,356 --> 00:20:34,566
that there was much
going on educationally.

298
00:20:35,234 --> 00:20:38,362
I mean, parents shouldn't rule
the life of kids.

299
00:20:38,862 --> 00:20:41,990
It's like they treat children
like children, you know?

300
00:20:44,368 --> 00:20:48,538
-Randy, what are you doing?
-Nothing. I'm smoking.

301
00:20:49,289 --> 00:20:52,167
-Want a drag?
-No, Randy. I don't smoke.

302
00:20:52,251 --> 00:20:56,004
-Smoking is bad for you.
-So? It makes me look cool.

303
00:20:56,380 --> 00:20:59,841
No, it doesn't make you look cool, Randy.
It makes you look stupid.

304
00:21:00,175 --> 00:21:01,593
You're cool already.

305
00:21:03,470 --> 00:21:07,724
Saturday morning television at that time
was not just a little lawless.

306
00:21:07,808 --> 00:21:10,769
It was extremely lawless.
It was the Wild West.

307
00:21:11,228 --> 00:21:13,772
We could literally
do anything we wanted to do.

308
00:21:26,618 --> 00:21:30,914
-Are you okay, Miss Yvonne?
-Yes. Thank you, Pee-wee.

309
00:21:31,456 --> 00:21:33,125
And thank you, big fella.

310
00:21:35,168 --> 00:21:37,754
You know, Pee-wee, when it comes
to fixing mechanical things

311
00:21:37,838 --> 00:21:41,508
around the house, it's always best
to use a qualified repairman.

312
00:21:41,925 --> 00:21:44,636
He has the right tools,
and he knows how to use them.

313
00:21:45,721 --> 00:21:48,015
Johnny, would you mind
swinging by my house?

314
00:21:48,307 --> 00:21:50,309
I'm sure there's something there
that needs to be fixed.

315
00:21:50,642 --> 00:21:52,602
And if not, we could break something.

316
00:21:52,978 --> 00:21:57,274
I designed things that were meant
to go over a kid's head.

317
00:21:57,399 --> 00:21:59,985
And if it didn't,
then that meant that the kid

318
00:22:00,402 --> 00:22:05,157
learned something either
from you as the parent or from the street.

319
00:22:10,620 --> 00:22:14,333
I thought that having a kids' show
on Saturday morning television

320
00:22:14,708 --> 00:22:18,378
immediately to me
seemed subversive in a really eccentric,

321
00:22:18,462 --> 00:22:20,630
arty, cool, great way.

322
00:22:20,756 --> 00:22:22,132
Did you wash your hands?

323
00:22:23,633 --> 00:22:24,676
Good boy!

324
00:22:26,636 --> 00:22:31,975
I wanted to add something that I loved
about the early Andy Warhol movies

325
00:22:32,142 --> 00:22:34,227
that I thought was very high concept.

326
00:22:35,812 --> 00:22:39,191
I had a dog that came into the playhouse

327
00:22:39,358 --> 00:22:44,112
and we shot him for about two minutes
eating this bowl of food.

328
00:23:07,636 --> 00:23:10,722
We're having an indoor picnic
in the middle of the night.

329
00:23:11,723 --> 00:23:14,393
I had some leftover fruit salad
in the refrigerator.

330
00:23:14,601 --> 00:23:18,772
I just felt like, "Wow,
I can be a beacon out there

331
00:23:18,855 --> 00:23:23,568
of going like, 'it's okay to be different.
It's okay to be creative.'"

332
00:23:23,652 --> 00:23:25,904
Fruity, I love fruit salad.

333
00:23:26,279 --> 00:23:28,365
-Then why don't you marry it?
-Then why don't you marry it?

334
00:23:30,075 --> 00:23:32,702
All right then, I will.

335
00:23:35,664 --> 00:23:37,124
Do you, Pee-wee Herman,

336
00:23:37,499 --> 00:23:40,752
take this fruit salad
to be your lawfully wedded wife?

337
00:23:41,336 --> 00:23:45,841
To have and to hold from this day forward,
in sickness and in health,

338
00:23:46,216 --> 00:23:48,385
till death do you part, so help you God.

339
00:23:51,263 --> 00:23:52,431
Do you? Do you?

340
00:23:53,723 --> 00:23:54,766
I do.

341
00:23:57,978 --> 00:24:02,482
Not only is being different okay,
but let's celebrate it.

342
00:24:05,652 --> 00:24:09,948
Hi. While the cartoon was playing,
I took an ordinary potato like this

343
00:24:10,073 --> 00:24:11,783
and stuck some pencils in it.

344
00:24:12,033 --> 00:24:14,995
And I made an animal that looks like this.

345
00:24:15,162 --> 00:24:17,998
I remember the first episode
of Pee-wee's Playhouse,

346
00:24:18,331 --> 00:24:20,667
I got a note from the network.

347
00:24:21,001 --> 00:24:24,129
I was being creative.
I used my imagination.

348
00:24:24,463 --> 00:24:26,214
You can do this at home, too.

349
00:24:26,339 --> 00:24:31,178
"You can't stick pencils in potatoes."
And I said, "Why?"

350
00:24:31,511 --> 00:24:33,930
And they went, "Okay, you can."

351
00:24:35,807 --> 00:24:40,812
I, in five seasons of Pee-wee's Playhouse,
probably had, like, five notes.

352
00:24:46,443 --> 00:24:51,156
I dug my heels in and felt like,
"This is me. This is what I'm gonna do."

353
00:24:51,656 --> 00:24:54,951
And I was in the right place
at the right time.

354
00:24:56,369 --> 00:24:58,246
Boy, this luau sure was great.

355
00:24:58,580 --> 00:25:01,166
I hope all you boys and girls
had a lot of fun!

356
00:25:04,336 --> 00:25:05,629
Aloha!

357
00:25:12,719 --> 00:25:14,846
Season one was filmed in a loft in SoHo.

358
00:25:15,514 --> 00:25:19,643
The producers did not want to give
all this money to a real stage.

359
00:25:20,101 --> 00:25:22,479
They felt that, you know,
it was better to cut corners.

360
00:25:24,105 --> 00:25:28,026
That show was made despite
what the production company wanted.

361
00:25:29,528 --> 00:25:33,240
It was crazy to the point where Paul
banned them from the set.

362
00:25:34,866 --> 00:25:37,077
Since we were still in production,

363
00:25:37,410 --> 00:25:40,205
I wasn't around
when they put the show together.

364
00:25:40,705 --> 00:25:41,873
So I hadn't seen it.

365
00:25:42,457 --> 00:25:45,377
So the first show, we stayed up all night
on Friday night.

366
00:25:46,169 --> 00:25:48,213
The show was supposed
to air Saturday morning at nine o'clock.

367
00:25:48,505 --> 00:25:50,674
So they're calling me, "Where's the show?
Where's the show?"

368
00:25:51,216 --> 00:25:53,843
We finished at about 5:00
or 6:00 in the morning.

369
00:25:54,803 --> 00:25:59,599
I just remember walking over
with Rich Abramson to CBS

370
00:25:59,975 --> 00:26:03,061
with the one inch,
you know, being carried

371
00:26:03,186 --> 00:26:06,523
and taking it into them and going,
"Here, here's for the satellite hookup."

372
00:26:06,731 --> 00:26:09,067
I mean, it was really
20 minutes before it aired.

373
00:26:12,904 --> 00:26:16,199
I was anxious to know, was it okay?

374
00:26:18,910 --> 00:26:23,999
I had really high hopes for it all.
And thank God it came out good.

375
00:26:26,501 --> 00:26:28,336
-Knock, knock.
-Who's there?

376
00:26:29,129 --> 00:26:30,463
-Dwayne.
-Dwayne who?

377
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,174
Dwayne the bathtub. I'm drowning.

378
00:26:35,260 --> 00:26:38,513
Being me, I was on to,
"Here's my own notes,

379
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,308
here's what I got to fix,
this is what I'm going to do next."

380
00:26:44,394 --> 00:26:45,437
After the show aired

381
00:26:45,729 --> 00:26:49,357
the network called on Monday
and said, "The ratings are high."

382
00:26:49,441 --> 00:26:53,403
"The critics love it.
This is an unbelievable success."

383
00:26:54,195 --> 00:26:55,572
We've tapped into

384
00:26:55,739 --> 00:27:00,535
some vein of the psyche that needed
to emerge at that moment.

385
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,455
It wasn't just
the four-year-olds watching it.

386
00:27:03,538 --> 00:27:07,584
It was the college kids, the stoners.
It was everybody watching it.

387
00:27:08,251 --> 00:27:12,505
It was like a bomb that was dropped
in 1986 on the world of television

388
00:27:12,589 --> 00:27:13,715
that just exploded.

389
00:27:15,133 --> 00:27:18,553
It was pretty much off my radar
that I had a hit TV show.

390
00:27:19,471 --> 00:27:22,891
There’s weeks more of work to do.
It's not over.

391
00:27:23,224 --> 00:27:26,895
And so I said,
"I cannot do it like this anymore."

392
00:27:27,395 --> 00:27:30,607
I wanted to be in Los Angeles
in a sound stage

393
00:27:30,732 --> 00:27:33,276
with a full-on professional everything.

394
00:27:33,777 --> 00:27:35,528
And that's what we did.

395
00:27:40,408 --> 00:27:44,204
My alarm just went off alerting me
that it's time to do a birthday text.

396
00:27:44,287 --> 00:27:49,125
And today is a heavy birthday day
because I have 12 birthdays today,

397
00:27:49,250 --> 00:27:51,711
including my eye doctor.

398
00:27:53,129 --> 00:27:57,217
I send a birthday GIF all day to people
about every two or three hours

399
00:27:57,884 --> 00:28:01,054
from sunup to sundown
from the time I get up.

400
00:28:02,222 --> 00:28:03,264
Listen, you seem busy.

401
00:28:03,348 --> 00:28:05,016
I'm gonna let you let me run
in just a minute.

402
00:28:05,100 --> 00:28:08,770
'Cause I am very busy doing these texts.

403
00:28:09,020 --> 00:28:11,022
My God. Why do I even do this?

404
00:28:11,106 --> 00:28:13,316
I've turned...
This has turned into, like, a full...

405
00:28:14,734 --> 00:28:16,986
And now people are texting me back.

406
00:28:17,070 --> 00:28:19,447
"Ha, ha, I love that.
I love you so much, Paul."

407
00:28:20,156 --> 00:28:21,908
"How do you ever remember my birthday?"

408
00:28:22,033 --> 00:28:24,202
That's the part I can't figure out.
It's like...

409
00:28:33,670 --> 00:28:37,090
Pee-wee Herman chalks up an honor
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

410
00:28:37,173 --> 00:28:40,468
It was a circus on Hollywood Boulevard
as hundreds of fans

411
00:28:40,635 --> 00:28:42,762
and members of the media
flooded into the street

412
00:28:43,054 --> 00:28:46,349
to see Pee-wee Herman's star
unveiled on the Walk of Fame.

413
00:28:47,183 --> 00:28:52,021
Let me say this.
I did not get a star on the Walk of Fame.

414
00:28:52,564 --> 00:28:55,692
Pee-wee Herman got a star
on the Walk of Fame.

415
00:28:56,526 --> 00:28:59,112
Little bit of irony. Makes sense.

416
00:28:59,404 --> 00:29:00,739
More people knew that name.

417
00:29:02,157 --> 00:29:04,492
I wasn't complaining,
I'm not complaining now.

418
00:29:05,618 --> 00:29:08,413
Gives me somewhere to go,
something to still have happen,

419
00:29:08,496 --> 00:29:11,416
a Paul Reuben star, I'm just saying,
just putting it out there.

420
00:29:12,250 --> 00:29:13,460
Okay, shut up!

421
00:29:15,253 --> 00:29:18,673
Anybody who I stepped on
to get to the top

422
00:29:19,174 --> 00:29:22,427
can come down here
every day after this and step on me.

423
00:29:24,137 --> 00:29:25,764
Thank you. Thanks.

424
00:29:26,765 --> 00:29:29,559
My entire life was dedicated, 24/7,

425
00:29:29,893 --> 00:29:32,645
to Paul Reubens
and to the Pee-wee Herman franchise.

426
00:29:33,772 --> 00:29:36,399
We became good friends
because we were together all the time.

427
00:29:36,941 --> 00:29:39,110
And just like good friends,
sometimes we fought.

428
00:29:40,779 --> 00:29:46,326
There was certainly a lot of tension
between me and Rich at this time.

429
00:29:47,952 --> 00:29:53,583
The production in New York
was just relentlessly hard.

430
00:29:53,958 --> 00:29:58,338
And I kind of blamed Rich to some degree.

431
00:30:00,215 --> 00:30:03,176
Paul became very famous pretty quickly,

432
00:30:03,426 --> 00:30:07,722
and I think he got some horrible advice,
and he followed it.

433
00:30:08,973 --> 00:30:14,771
I felt the deal that I had made
was stacked against me a little bit,

434
00:30:14,854 --> 00:30:16,397
that I had made a deal that wasn't,

435
00:30:16,481 --> 00:30:19,818
like, really the smartest deal
I could have made.

436
00:30:21,694 --> 00:30:25,907
I'd thrown my heart and soul into him,
and all of a sudden, he goes, "That's it."

437
00:30:27,617 --> 00:30:29,744
And I remember walking
from the stage, going, like,

438
00:30:29,869 --> 00:30:32,247
"I'm done. He doesn't want to work
with me anymore."

439
00:30:33,373 --> 00:30:36,835
And I left the meeting, picked up a phone,
called an attorney,

440
00:30:36,918 --> 00:30:39,212
and we sued each other
for a couple of years.

441
00:30:41,256 --> 00:30:44,676
It was devastating. It took me a long time
to recover from it.

442
00:30:44,759 --> 00:30:46,928
And, in some ways,
I don't know that I ever have.

443
00:30:49,389 --> 00:30:52,600
Paul had conflicts with most everybody
he worked with.

444
00:30:53,101 --> 00:30:54,894
That was just his nature.

445
00:30:55,979 --> 00:31:01,150
He was such a perfectionist and so driven
to make something that matters.

446
00:31:01,860 --> 00:31:04,153
It takes a lot of negative energy
to get there too.

447
00:31:05,154 --> 00:31:06,739
You have to throw people under the bus.

448
00:31:07,866 --> 00:31:09,409
Everything's transactional.

449
00:31:11,119 --> 00:31:15,081
Paul could hold a grudge.
He didn't forgive very easily.

450
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,127
These are a few of the things
I'd like to do on Saturday Night Live.

451
00:31:19,794 --> 00:31:25,758
I'd like to do Playhouse 90,
90-second dramas that are very intense,

452
00:31:26,467 --> 00:31:29,053
like, "Johnny, Johnny, the cops are here!"

453
00:31:29,304 --> 00:31:31,139
"Shut up, shut up, will you?
I'm trying to think!"

454
00:31:31,514 --> 00:31:32,515
That kind of thing.

455
00:31:32,599 --> 00:31:36,603
During this period of time,
Phil Hartman was my best friend,

456
00:31:36,936 --> 00:31:41,816
but we worked together
for the good of Pee-wee.

457
00:31:42,525 --> 00:31:45,612
When he got on SNL,
it was a huge opportunity.

458
00:31:45,945 --> 00:31:50,658
It’s Saturday Night Live
with Phil Hartman.

459
00:31:51,367 --> 00:31:54,746
He said, "I'm going on SNL
and we're starting."

460
00:31:55,079 --> 00:31:56,205
Hi, Captain Carl.

461
00:31:56,331 --> 00:32:00,793
I didn't want to lose
that amazing character, but I did.

462
00:32:02,003 --> 00:32:03,630
We didn't hang out anymore.

463
00:32:04,255 --> 00:32:08,259
And he rose to the top
and became one of the stars of SNL.

464
00:32:09,010 --> 00:32:10,053
Good for him.

465
00:32:12,013 --> 00:32:15,767
So, yeah. I kept moving along.

466
00:32:17,268 --> 00:32:22,649
I feel like a character in
The Bad and the Beautiful or something.

467
00:32:22,774 --> 00:32:25,151
Like, it was show business.

468
00:32:26,694 --> 00:32:28,154
I'll get my violin.

469
00:32:35,036 --> 00:32:36,079
Hi, Coco.

470
00:32:39,332 --> 00:32:44,504
I was so busy,
I had very little social life,

471
00:32:44,587 --> 00:32:47,507
I had very little real
outside-of-work life.

472
00:32:51,552 --> 00:32:56,224
There were so many things going on
professionally and creatively

473
00:32:57,225 --> 00:33:01,354
that I needed somebody
who could handle all the other stuff.

474
00:33:03,439 --> 00:33:05,942
I would say, right off the bat,
I was way more involved

475
00:33:06,025 --> 00:33:09,570
in beginning to landscape the property.

476
00:33:10,196 --> 00:33:13,950
I planted all those trees
with Paul and all that cactus.

477
00:33:14,575 --> 00:33:17,120
Okay. Well, I still think you could
go to... How about Acapulco?

478
00:33:17,245 --> 00:33:20,248
Hey. Like, don’t lift anything heavy
or move too much, man.

479
00:33:20,331 --> 00:33:22,917
-These guys be loose, John. Don’t worry.
-Yeah, let Art to it.

480
00:33:23,042 --> 00:33:25,545
I mean, he's really good.
He's a very good gardener.

481
00:33:25,670 --> 00:33:28,756
He can grow things from pieces of sticks.

482
00:33:29,048 --> 00:33:32,927
I thought like, "Oh, here's somebody that,
you know, likes the same things."

483
00:33:37,515 --> 00:33:42,103
Any kind of spirituality that I have
has to do with nature.

484
00:33:45,648 --> 00:33:50,903
We were very much attracted to plants
and animals of the world,

485
00:33:51,029 --> 00:33:57,285
but particularly around where he is there.
We feed the birds and squirrels.

486
00:33:59,871 --> 00:34:03,041
We've developed
quite a lot of wild animals.

487
00:34:09,213 --> 00:34:13,134
-Don't go too much now.
-Come on now, sweetie. Come on.

488
00:34:13,217 --> 00:34:14,469
Let's move a little towards me.

489
00:34:14,552 --> 00:34:18,764
I mean, Paul's
the kind of person that rescues spiders.

490
00:34:20,308 --> 00:34:23,101
It's like living out
in the woods, you know,

491
00:34:23,186 --> 00:34:25,188
even though it's right
in the heart of Hollywood.

492
00:34:26,022 --> 00:34:27,732
You probably don’t even have
enough light in here.

493
00:34:27,940 --> 00:34:29,150
Now, jump in.

494
00:34:29,358 --> 00:34:32,277
Warren Montgomery started to work with me

495
00:34:32,612 --> 00:34:36,699
kind of as like an on-set assistant
and he did security.

496
00:34:37,949 --> 00:34:40,369
I just kind of knew who he was
and I wasn't a fan.

497
00:34:41,621 --> 00:34:43,998
I was too macho
to be a Pee-wee Herman fan.

498
00:34:45,500 --> 00:34:49,253
I mean, I was young and I was athletic.
I came off strong.

499
00:34:49,462 --> 00:34:50,713
I think Paul liked that.

500
00:34:51,672 --> 00:34:54,509
You're not fighting off women
trying to rip his clothes off

501
00:34:54,634 --> 00:34:55,635
like he's Elvis Presley.

502
00:34:56,219 --> 00:34:57,345
Even though I think in his mind,

503
00:34:57,428 --> 00:34:59,972
he felt that that's what was taking place
at the time, but...

504
00:35:02,558 --> 00:35:03,684
As time went on,

505
00:35:03,768 --> 00:35:06,979
I would say that I became more
like ground control.

506
00:35:08,106 --> 00:35:13,361
In the beginning, it was like me going
like, "I need to make sure I keep my job."

507
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,322
And then he had to make sure to keep me.

508
00:35:17,323 --> 00:35:18,491
Sometimes, it would be nice

509
00:35:18,616 --> 00:35:21,911
to have an assistant where you say,
"Would you go and do this?"

510
00:35:22,036 --> 00:35:23,663
And they go, "Yes, I'll go and do that."

511
00:35:23,871 --> 00:35:26,666
Instead of spinning around and, you know,

512
00:35:27,333 --> 00:35:30,128
giving me a whole bunch of attitude
about something.

513
00:35:32,547 --> 00:35:35,383
Allison has worked for me
for almost 40 years.

514
00:35:37,260 --> 00:35:39,887
It's in many ways like having a wife.

515
00:35:42,056 --> 00:35:43,891
We were like a surrogate family.

516
00:35:46,978 --> 00:35:50,815
Warren and Allison
were like a little bit of a barrier,

517
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:55,528
not to keep people away,
but to keep people at bay a little bit

518
00:35:55,611 --> 00:35:58,364
or to just keep situations under control.

519
00:36:02,869 --> 00:36:08,416
At the same time, I had many,
many secretive relationships.

520
00:36:14,172 --> 00:36:17,508
Probably lots of people
who are high-profile people who,

521
00:36:17,592 --> 00:36:20,052
like, had something to lose

522
00:36:20,678 --> 00:36:25,433
over being identified as gay
may have done the same thing.

523
00:36:25,641 --> 00:36:28,019
Hey, now. Stop it just for a second.

524
00:36:29,312 --> 00:36:31,647
I do remember at the time
thinking to myself,

525
00:36:31,731 --> 00:36:34,775
"This will be interesting to see
what effect this has."

526
00:36:37,653 --> 00:36:40,907
I was conscious enough to know
being closeted

527
00:36:41,115 --> 00:36:43,409
would have some kind of an effect on me.

528
00:36:45,494 --> 00:36:48,164
I just was like, "Okay,
put your blinders on."

529
00:36:48,539 --> 00:36:51,292
"You're not having any kind
of traditional relationship."

530
00:36:51,792 --> 00:36:57,506
"You're going to just pursue your career."
And I led an extremely private life.

531
00:37:03,137 --> 00:37:04,430
Are you starting to trust me?

532
00:37:04,764 --> 00:37:08,017
No. I don't think...
I think you're missing the point

533
00:37:08,100 --> 00:37:09,727
if you think I'm going
to start to trust you,

534
00:37:09,810 --> 00:37:12,188
it's not going to happen.
No, I'm that person.

535
00:37:12,271 --> 00:37:13,648
I'm not a trusting person.

536
00:37:14,065 --> 00:37:16,150
So, I don't think I'll ever trust you.

537
00:37:16,234 --> 00:37:17,777
-I don't totally believe you.
-Ever. Never.

538
00:37:17,860 --> 00:37:20,529
I do think there is an element
of trust between us.

539
00:37:22,949 --> 00:37:25,451
What do I have to do to prove to you
I don't trust you?

540
00:37:27,286 --> 00:37:30,539
You're right.
There's a tiny bit. A tiny bit.

541
00:37:30,790 --> 00:37:32,500
I don't want this to go to your head

542
00:37:32,583 --> 00:37:36,128
and I don't want you to feel in any way,
shape or form that I trust you.

543
00:37:36,921 --> 00:37:40,216
I don't think we would be here
if you didn't have a tiny bit of trust.

544
00:37:41,884 --> 00:37:45,471
You made one documentary I liked,
out of what? Six?

545
00:37:47,056 --> 00:37:51,477
Do I feel like I'm in control
of this process by being interviewed?

546
00:37:51,852 --> 00:37:55,398
Yes and no.
I mean, you have the questions.

547
00:37:55,856 --> 00:37:59,026
A lot of the questions you have
because of stuff I told you,

548
00:37:59,110 --> 00:38:00,611
so I have control there.

549
00:38:00,903 --> 00:38:02,530
I could choose what to...

550
00:38:02,655 --> 00:38:07,285
I could pick and choose
what to tell you to ask me

551
00:38:07,576 --> 00:38:10,830
or stories to tell you
and stories to leave out.

552
00:38:11,747 --> 00:38:15,543
I feel like I'm gonna come out
at the other end of this whole process

553
00:38:15,668 --> 00:38:21,048
and be like, "I told everybody,
I could have directed this documentary."

554
00:38:24,427 --> 00:38:26,429
At Bonnie's.

555
00:38:26,679 --> 00:38:28,931
All right, then we shall.

556
00:38:29,015 --> 00:38:32,059
I was excited about the possibility
of making another movie.

557
00:38:32,685 --> 00:38:34,603
Top floor, rex.

558
00:38:36,647 --> 00:38:42,194
On Big Adventure, I feel like I didn't get
recognition for my creative role.

559
00:38:42,653 --> 00:38:44,655
And I wasn't going
to let that happen again.

560
00:38:47,283 --> 00:38:49,994
I was always obsessed with circus movies,

561
00:38:50,911 --> 00:38:53,998
and I was excited about the possibility
of making my own.

562
00:38:55,624 --> 00:39:00,463
Immediately, the circus seemed
like a good world and a good backdrop.

563
00:39:00,546 --> 00:39:03,341
Well, what about this?
What if Gina’s doing an act?

564
00:39:03,632 --> 00:39:06,427
I hired George McGrath from season one
of Pee-wee's Playhouse

565
00:39:06,510 --> 00:39:08,554
to co-write the movie with me.

566
00:39:09,180 --> 00:39:13,392
And we screened a lot of circus movies
and then sat down

567
00:39:13,476 --> 00:39:15,269
to try to figure out what was mine.

568
00:39:16,937 --> 00:39:19,982
The circus is rooted in reality,

569
00:39:21,067 --> 00:39:26,739
and yet it's a world of make-believe,
of fantasy, of flash and magic.

570
00:39:43,047 --> 00:39:48,094
I've had opportunity after opportunity
after opportunity to just go do my thing.

571
00:39:51,764 --> 00:39:55,142
I had made a movie. I had a hit TV show.

572
00:39:56,268 --> 00:40:01,273
The studio pretty much said,
"Go with God. Do what you want."

573
00:40:03,317 --> 00:40:04,652
Yeah.

574
00:40:05,152 --> 00:40:08,989
Somebody came forward and started
to campaign to direct the movie,

575
00:40:09,281 --> 00:40:14,912
a director named Randal Kleiser,
who was a very talented filmmaker.

576
00:40:15,121 --> 00:40:17,331
He had made a little movie called Grease.

577
00:40:18,874 --> 00:40:21,127
I was officially producing the movie,

578
00:40:21,210 --> 00:40:24,130
which I hadn't been doing
on Big Adventure.

579
00:40:25,047 --> 00:40:27,675
And I was very, very involved
as a producer.

580
00:40:28,884 --> 00:40:31,095
I am not a very trusting person.

581
00:40:31,178 --> 00:40:33,347
I'm not a very go-with-the-flow
kind of person.

582
00:40:33,431 --> 00:40:35,683
I'm like a person who wants
to control things.

583
00:40:36,517 --> 00:40:40,312
I asked, "Could I breathe down
your neck a little bit, Randal,

584
00:40:40,396 --> 00:40:41,605
while you're directing it?"

585
00:40:42,356 --> 00:40:44,024
And he was open to that idea.

586
00:40:46,026 --> 00:40:47,528
Yeah, it sounds so familiar.

587
00:40:49,488 --> 00:40:53,367
The biggest collaborators
of mine from Big Adventure

588
00:40:53,492 --> 00:40:55,327
were not working on the film.

589
00:40:56,036 --> 00:41:00,499
But I wanted it to be fantastic
and live up to the expectation

590
00:41:00,583 --> 00:41:02,084
or go beyond that.

591
00:41:04,462 --> 00:41:07,923
I thought, well, maybe I'd go back
and do the Pollyanna thing,

592
00:41:08,090 --> 00:41:14,722
where Pee-wee brings joy to a town
full of people who have lost that.

593
00:41:14,930 --> 00:41:17,141
We told you, we don't want no circus here.

594
00:41:17,308 --> 00:41:19,727
And you showfolk ain't welcome
in this town.

595
00:41:19,935 --> 00:41:23,272
-That's right.
-Townspeople! Listen to me.

596
00:41:24,398 --> 00:41:26,275
You are getting very sleepy.

597
00:41:27,860 --> 00:41:33,657
Your eyelids are getting very heavy.
You will enjoy the circus.

598
00:41:37,077 --> 00:41:39,246
A lot of people wrote
a lot of funny things

599
00:41:39,330 --> 00:41:43,709
about Pee-wee's relationship to Dottie
in Big Adventure.

600
00:41:44,460 --> 00:41:47,087
There's a lot of things about me
you don't know anything about, Dottie.

601
00:41:47,588 --> 00:41:51,175
Things you wouldn't understand.
Things you couldn't understand.

602
00:41:51,675 --> 00:41:53,677
Things you shouldn't understand.

603
00:41:54,553 --> 00:41:56,013
He doesn't seem
like he likes his girlfriend

604
00:41:56,138 --> 00:41:59,892
or seems like he's trying to get away
from her and all different things.

605
00:41:59,975 --> 00:42:02,937
So I thought, "Okay,
what's the flip side of that?"

606
00:42:05,397 --> 00:42:09,360
Pee-wee definitely has a big libido
in Big Top Pee-wee.

607
00:42:14,031 --> 00:42:17,826
I decided to really amp up
the romantic side of Pee-wee Herman.

608
00:42:19,286 --> 00:42:23,874
One thing that I was focused
on for a while was Pee-wee's kiss

609
00:42:23,958 --> 00:42:29,421
with his leading lady would be
the longest kiss in screen history.

610
00:42:34,718 --> 00:42:36,971
Something that I hoped would be funny,

611
00:42:37,429 --> 00:42:40,224
that it just kept going
and going and going.

612
00:42:46,397 --> 00:42:52,987
I had, until this point, had a huge amount
of control and a lack of interference

613
00:42:53,404 --> 00:42:57,866
or input from people I was working with.

614
00:42:59,702 --> 00:43:01,870
There was some wrangling
with the studio over the duration

615
00:43:01,954 --> 00:43:04,498
of this painfully long kiss scene.

616
00:43:04,999 --> 00:43:08,085
'Cause he had final cut rights,
they couldn't shorten the kiss scene.

617
00:43:09,837 --> 00:43:12,881
And it created a situation
where he could afford

618
00:43:12,965 --> 00:43:14,300
to be arrogant about it.

619
00:43:15,634 --> 00:43:17,678
There was some self-sabotage in it,

620
00:43:17,761 --> 00:43:20,014
with him controlling every element
of the film.

621
00:43:22,516 --> 00:43:24,560
I mean, I gave in at a certain point.

622
00:43:25,227 --> 00:43:29,315
I was just beside myself that something
I'd worked that hard on

623
00:43:29,398 --> 00:43:32,693
and thought was so good was,
you know, just...

624
00:43:33,611 --> 00:43:35,321
It fell out of my reach.

625
00:43:36,572 --> 00:43:42,119
Two of the stars of Big Top Pee-wee,
Mr. Pee-wee Herman and Valeria.

626
00:43:46,874 --> 00:43:52,379
So the movie was completed
and Paramount threw a circus-themed party

627
00:43:52,755 --> 00:43:56,800
for the premiere.
And I was sitting at a table,

628
00:43:56,884 --> 00:44:00,012
and all these people
that were my friends and acquaintances

629
00:44:00,095 --> 00:44:03,432
and people I'd invited
came one by one up to the table.

630
00:44:04,016 --> 00:44:08,479
After the tenth person came up to me
and said, "Wow, the sets were, I mean..."

631
00:44:08,646 --> 00:44:11,273
"Wow, it was beautiful." I thought...

632
00:44:13,567 --> 00:44:14,818
"People don't like the movie."

633
00:44:14,943 --> 00:44:19,323
I mean, it was like... Hit me
like a ton of bricks. Like I just...

634
00:44:21,283 --> 00:44:27,790
I... It was not well received
and I didn't see that coming.

635
00:44:28,290 --> 00:44:33,337
And it was the first time in my run
of success

636
00:44:33,754 --> 00:44:37,633
that I wasn't Midas
with the Midas touch.

637
00:44:40,344 --> 00:44:42,971
The Monday after the weekend
that it opened,

638
00:44:43,097 --> 00:44:47,893
I drove onto the Paramount lot
and this sounds like a made-up story,

639
00:44:48,143 --> 00:44:52,147
but I drove into my parking spot
in the executive parking lot

640
00:44:52,272 --> 00:44:56,527
and somebody was painting out
my name as I drove in.

641
00:44:57,653 --> 00:45:01,490
And it felt horrible and scary,
and terrible.

642
00:45:01,907 --> 00:45:04,618
This new Pee-wee adventure
seems more conventional.

643
00:45:04,743 --> 00:45:06,954
Part whimsy, part circus, part love story.

644
00:45:07,246 --> 00:45:10,040
-I felt that he'd lost the magic.
-Absolutely lost the magic.

645
00:45:10,249 --> 00:45:12,918
We both voted thumbs down
on Big Top Pee-wee

646
00:45:13,043 --> 00:45:14,420
because we were disappointed

647
00:45:14,503 --> 00:45:17,214
to see Pee-wee's magic
diluted by the real world.

648
00:45:19,007 --> 00:45:22,094
First review of the movie,
"Big Flop Pee-wee."

649
00:45:25,264 --> 00:45:29,059
I think I went into shock a little bit
and I was really disappointed

650
00:45:29,435 --> 00:45:32,980
and it seemed like a huge failure.

651
00:45:38,569 --> 00:45:41,530
I'm going. Did I mention I was going?

652
00:45:41,655 --> 00:45:47,119
What took me out of it
was John Paragon and I sat down and wrote

653
00:45:47,369 --> 00:45:49,288
Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special.

654
00:45:50,164 --> 00:45:52,833
We wrote that quicker than anything
I'd ever written before.

655
00:45:54,001 --> 00:45:59,298
I remember hour by hour and day by day,
it lifting me out of the funk

656
00:45:59,465 --> 00:46:03,427
of "my circus movie didn't do
what it was supposed to do."

657
00:46:04,428 --> 00:46:05,637
Christmas!

658
00:46:07,681 --> 00:46:10,392
Hello, everybody. My name's Pee-wee.

659
00:46:10,559 --> 00:46:14,563
What's yours?
Welcome to my special Christmas Special.

660
00:46:15,105 --> 00:46:16,857
Starring me, Pee-wee Herman.

661
00:46:17,107 --> 00:46:21,737
Christmas in the playhouse
And we're going to have a lot of fun

662
00:46:22,029 --> 00:46:24,656
Merry Christmas, everybody

663
00:46:25,032 --> 00:46:27,534
I was trying to be throwback-y
and be influenced

664
00:46:27,785 --> 00:46:30,704
by every single Christmas special
I'd ever seen.

665
00:46:31,330 --> 00:46:34,374
But first, did you bring me
all the presents I asked you for?

666
00:46:34,958 --> 00:46:39,254
The guest stars are my favorite people,
and every one of them said yes.

667
00:46:44,092 --> 00:46:46,261
Hey, it's Little Richard on ice!

668
00:46:46,845 --> 00:46:47,971
Hi, Pee-wee!

669
00:46:51,934 --> 00:46:53,519
Great gosh, Almighty!

670
00:46:53,727 --> 00:46:56,438
I had, unbilled,

671
00:46:57,189 --> 00:47:00,609
to this day, that was part
of her contract, "Don't bill me,"

672
00:47:02,069 --> 00:47:03,111
Cher.

673
00:47:03,529 --> 00:47:06,156
So, Cher, are you having
a nice Christmas so far?

674
00:47:06,406 --> 00:47:09,117
Oh, yeah, Pee-wee.
Christmas is my favorite time of year.

675
00:47:19,503 --> 00:47:22,714
Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock

676
00:47:23,382 --> 00:47:26,468
Jingle bells swing
And jingle bells ring...

677
00:47:26,593 --> 00:47:28,095
Hello, Pee-wee.

678
00:47:28,262 --> 00:47:29,930
Snowin' and blowin' up bushels of fun

679
00:47:30,180 --> 00:47:31,640
Hi, Pee-wee. Merry Christmas.

680
00:47:31,723 --> 00:47:34,101
I was just calling to see
if I could be on your Christmas Special.

681
00:47:34,434 --> 00:47:35,769
Happy holidays, everybody.

682
00:47:37,354 --> 00:47:38,730
Magic Screen and I are cousins.

683
00:47:39,189 --> 00:47:40,440
Merry Christmas to you.

684
00:47:40,858 --> 00:47:41,900
Merry Christmas, Oprah.

685
00:47:42,109 --> 00:47:45,445
I made a very special dish for you,
fruitcake.

686
00:47:46,154 --> 00:47:48,198
Oh, fruitcake, my favorite.

687
00:47:49,408 --> 00:47:50,659
Look, everyone!

688
00:47:52,578 --> 00:47:56,248
A new wing to the playhouse!
Made entirely of fruitcakes!

689
00:47:57,207 --> 00:47:58,750
Wow!

690
00:47:59,585 --> 00:48:02,713
Yes, there is gay subtext
in Pee-wee's Playhouse.

691
00:48:02,963 --> 00:48:04,214
Yes, there is.

692
00:48:05,173 --> 00:48:06,925
I'm saying this seriously
so you can put some...

693
00:48:09,761 --> 00:48:12,014
dark music, some sting into it.

694
00:48:17,436 --> 00:48:22,566
Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum

695
00:48:25,319 --> 00:48:31,533
A newborn King to see, pa rum pum pum pum

696
00:48:33,744 --> 00:48:39,833
I played my song for Him
pa rum pum pum pum

697
00:48:41,543 --> 00:48:43,712
Me and my drum

698
00:48:43,837 --> 00:48:45,339
I don't brag about lots of stuff,

699
00:48:45,422 --> 00:48:50,344
but I feel like the Christmas Special
is a part of pop culture fame.

700
00:48:50,427 --> 00:48:51,428
Welcome back.

701
00:48:51,678 --> 00:48:54,806
We're just putting the finishing touches
on the Christmas tree.

702
00:48:54,932 --> 00:48:59,478
I'm enormously proud of it
and bask in its gloriousness.

703
00:48:59,561 --> 00:49:00,729
Thank you, Miss Yvonne.

704
00:49:02,356 --> 00:49:04,399
Hey, Pee-wee,
what about that special wish?

705
00:49:05,984 --> 00:49:08,195
My wish is that there's peace on Earth

706
00:49:08,570 --> 00:49:12,532
and that everybody
has the very merriest of Christmases

707
00:49:12,908 --> 00:49:16,870
and a Happy New Year!

708
00:49:35,973 --> 00:49:38,100
By the time I'd get there,
Paul would have been in the chair.

709
00:49:38,225 --> 00:49:41,436
He'd be in the makeup chair,
and he'd be there for however long.

710
00:49:41,895 --> 00:49:45,357
But he'd really be napping.
He'd be catching up on his sleep.

711
00:49:47,275 --> 00:49:49,778
Around this time,
CBS ordered the last two seasons

712
00:49:49,861 --> 00:49:53,365
of Pee-wee's Playhouse,
season four and season five, together.

713
00:49:53,824 --> 00:49:57,077
That was a lot of episodes
in a short period of time.

714
00:49:57,661 --> 00:49:59,913
No wonder I was a shell of a person.

715
00:50:00,706 --> 00:50:05,877
I was working so hard
that I had no personal life whatsoever.

716
00:50:07,379 --> 00:50:10,799
It felt very lonely to me
and very singular.

717
00:50:12,092 --> 00:50:14,469
-"For sale."
-Oh, no.

718
00:50:14,553 --> 00:50:16,805
Is Pee-wee selling us?

719
00:50:18,306 --> 00:50:21,268
Oh no. Pee-wee would never do that.

720
00:50:21,601 --> 00:50:23,979
And besides, it was
in the playhouse window.

721
00:50:24,271 --> 00:50:26,398
So Pee-wee must be just selling
the playhouse.

722
00:50:26,940 --> 00:50:29,359
We wrote an episode called,
"Playhouse for Sale."

723
00:50:29,443 --> 00:50:31,945
Pee-wee’s selling the playhouse?

724
00:50:32,946 --> 00:50:35,991
And it was the last episode,
and I knew it was the last episode.

725
00:50:36,074 --> 00:50:39,786
I didn't feel like at the time
it was the last episode ever.

726
00:50:40,829 --> 00:50:44,624
I just felt like this is coming to an end.

727
00:50:44,958 --> 00:50:50,088
It’s time to say goodbye, goodbye...

728
00:50:50,255 --> 00:50:56,386
When I was a little kid,
my favorite show, Howdy Doody, ended.

729
00:50:57,429 --> 00:51:01,099
This is my first, like,
real dose of reality.

730
00:51:01,683 --> 00:51:05,812
-Goodbye from us to you.
-Goodbye from us to you.

731
00:51:07,230 --> 00:51:09,149
What kind of a world is this?

732
00:51:09,232 --> 00:51:12,110
What kind of world would put
Howdy Doody off the air?

733
00:51:12,986 --> 00:51:15,739
You know, what's wrong with everything?

734
00:51:16,448 --> 00:51:19,534
And I wanted to have something like that.

735
00:51:19,951 --> 00:51:22,704
I wanted to go out
with some kind of a beautiful bang.

736
00:51:23,955 --> 00:51:24,956
Hey!

737
00:51:25,791 --> 00:51:27,125
Thanks for watching, everybody.

738
00:51:27,417 --> 00:51:31,797
Before I go, I would like to say goodbye
to each and every one of you.

739
00:51:33,090 --> 00:51:35,217
Goodbye to you and you.

740
00:51:35,425 --> 00:51:39,554
I loved looking into the camera
and talking directly to the kids.

741
00:51:39,679 --> 00:51:41,098
Come closer.

742
00:51:42,307 --> 00:51:43,350
Closer still.

743
00:51:44,392 --> 00:51:47,604
Right up into my face.

744
00:51:51,691 --> 00:51:58,115
I took my job as having
a children's show so seriously.

745
00:52:09,543 --> 00:52:12,420
I always thought,
"Whatever is interesting you

746
00:52:12,462 --> 00:52:14,172
is going to reveal itself."

747
00:52:17,300 --> 00:52:19,719
In a lot of ways,
it turned out to be this.

748
00:52:21,388 --> 00:52:24,182
-Goodnight, everybody.
-Goodnight, Cowboy Curtis.

749
00:52:31,565 --> 00:52:32,566
Smile at the camera.

750
00:52:32,649 --> 00:52:36,695
I wasn't sick of being Pee-wee Herman.
I wasn't fed up with it.

751
00:52:38,155 --> 00:52:40,699
I should have broken it up
with a little vacation.

752
00:52:43,201 --> 00:52:44,953
So I went home to Florida.

753
00:52:48,331 --> 00:52:50,876
You know, there were
six or seven years in a row

754
00:52:51,668 --> 00:52:54,963
with an additional ten to 15 years

755
00:52:55,046 --> 00:52:58,466
prior to that of just being
obsessed and driven.

756
00:53:01,469 --> 00:53:03,680
To a very, very large degree,
I could control that.

757
00:53:04,556 --> 00:53:08,768
You know, I had a lot of control in that.
And then, I didn't.

758
00:53:18,153 --> 00:53:19,404
It was the morning,

759
00:53:20,530 --> 00:53:22,324
I was taking care of that garden.

760
00:53:24,284 --> 00:53:29,748
He called me at his house
and was very quiet.

761
00:53:30,373 --> 00:53:31,499
And he said,

762
00:53:32,250 --> 00:53:35,253
"I need you to go down the hill

763
00:53:36,588 --> 00:53:41,092
to the grocery store
and call me back from the payphone."

764
00:53:42,427 --> 00:53:43,678
I was like, "What?"

765
00:53:44,554 --> 00:53:47,307
"What do you mean?"
And he was like, "Just do it."

766
00:53:48,934 --> 00:53:50,810
And, you know, he was just immediately,

767
00:53:50,894 --> 00:53:54,231
like, very aware that the story
was going to break quickly.

768
00:53:55,482 --> 00:53:58,151
In Sarasota, Florida, actor Paul Reubens,

769
00:53:58,276 --> 00:54:02,906
better known as TV's Pee-wee Herman,
is free on bail after being charged

770
00:54:02,989 --> 00:54:06,034
with indecent exposure
in an adult movie theater.

771
00:54:06,493 --> 00:54:09,079
CBS announced today that,
under the circumstances,

772
00:54:09,204 --> 00:54:13,708
the network is dropping scheduled reruns
of the program Pee-wee's Playhouse.

773
00:54:14,376 --> 00:54:17,796
Comedian and television star
Pee-wee Herman spent a couple of hours

774
00:54:17,879 --> 00:54:20,173
playing house behind bars today.

775
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,385
He's charged with allegedly
exposing himself

776
00:54:23,468 --> 00:54:25,136
inside an adult movie theater.

777
00:54:25,345 --> 00:54:27,305
The arrest came during a sting operation.

778
00:54:27,555 --> 00:54:32,560
Officers approached Paul Reubens, he said,
quoting here, "This is embarrassing".

779
00:54:32,727 --> 00:54:34,688
The report says, Reubens said
he was Pee-wee Herman

780
00:54:34,771 --> 00:54:36,564
and offered to do the charity benefit.

781
00:54:36,940 --> 00:54:38,692
The detectives then arrested Reubens.

782
00:54:38,984 --> 00:54:41,945
Pee-wee Herman, one of the biggest stars
among the small fry...

783
00:54:42,070 --> 00:54:44,864
He was dressed as any normal person
going to a theater...

784
00:54:44,948 --> 00:54:46,783
-for an afternoon of...
-Two months in jail...

785
00:54:46,908 --> 00:54:49,286
-...theater enjoyment.
-They say, because of the way he looked,

786
00:54:49,369 --> 00:54:51,913
they had no immediate idea
they'd arrested a celebrity.

787
00:54:52,038 --> 00:54:55,709
I actually observed him
manipulating his genitalia.

788
00:54:55,792 --> 00:54:58,712
The statement said Reubens is,
quote, "Emotionally devastated

789
00:54:58,837 --> 00:55:00,297
by the embarrassment of the situation."

790
00:55:00,380 --> 00:55:02,632
I was with John Paragon.

791
00:55:02,757 --> 00:55:04,884
We just couldn't believe it,
and we were feeling very

792
00:55:05,593 --> 00:55:08,763
upset and panicky about it.
I mean, I felt like crying.

793
00:55:08,847 --> 00:55:13,143
It was like this is a terrible thing
to have happened.

794
00:55:13,393 --> 00:55:15,270
Herman's lawyer told a newspaper, quote,

795
00:55:15,562 --> 00:55:18,273
"When that story runs,
his career will be over."

796
00:55:21,943 --> 00:55:25,488
I kept who I was a secret
for a really long time.

797
00:55:26,406 --> 00:55:29,617
And that served me very well
as I wanted it to.

798
00:55:29,909 --> 00:55:31,119
And then it didn't.

799
00:55:32,162 --> 00:55:37,083
It really backfired when I got arrested
and people had never seen a photo of me

800
00:55:37,208 --> 00:55:38,460
other than Pee-wee Herman,

801
00:55:38,710 --> 00:55:42,380
and then all of a sudden
I had a Charlie Manson mug shot.

802
00:55:45,050 --> 00:55:49,929
I lost control of my anonymity,
And it was devastating.

803
00:55:55,935 --> 00:55:59,439
This was not a story that could be killed.
You just had to accept that.

804
00:56:01,399 --> 00:56:03,276
But he also was insistent from day one

805
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,487
that he didn't do
what they accused him of.

806
00:56:06,696 --> 00:56:10,158
And that the facts didn't line up
for what they were saying.

807
00:56:10,408 --> 00:56:13,370
Meantime, the actor's publicist
released a statement completely

808
00:56:13,453 --> 00:56:15,121
refuting all allegations.

809
00:56:15,205 --> 00:56:17,624
Quote, "According to Paul,
the facts as stated

810
00:56:17,707 --> 00:56:19,918
by the vice squad were totally untrue

811
00:56:20,001 --> 00:56:22,587
and he never exposed
himself or engaged in any other

812
00:56:22,629 --> 00:56:24,381
improper activities," end quote.

813
00:56:25,298 --> 00:56:29,803
Paul's state of mind from the arrest
was a state of shock.

814
00:56:30,637 --> 00:56:32,472
And he just wanted somebody
to take care of him.

815
00:56:35,141 --> 00:56:37,352
News trucks were like sitting
in front of his parents' house.

816
00:56:38,603 --> 00:56:43,149
Had to figure out how to get him
out of Sarasota without being spotted.

817
00:56:44,859 --> 00:56:46,319
Paul had prosthetic teeth.

818
00:56:46,694 --> 00:56:49,447
They changed the shape of his mouth,
so they made him look very different.

819
00:56:50,198 --> 00:56:52,117
So with that and glasses,

820
00:56:52,242 --> 00:56:55,912
and I think we cut all his hair off,
we got him out of Sarasota.

821
00:57:04,671 --> 00:57:07,841
Paul was friends with Doris Duke.

822
00:57:09,342 --> 00:57:12,137
Paul reached out to her personally
and said,

823
00:57:12,554 --> 00:57:14,264
"I really need to hide out for a while."

824
00:57:16,015 --> 00:57:20,478
She said, "Of course."
And we swore everybody to secrecy.

825
00:57:21,980 --> 00:57:26,651
And we got him to New Jersey,
where he hid out for a couple of weeks.

826
00:57:28,445 --> 00:57:30,363
I was calling him, like, every day,

827
00:57:30,613 --> 00:57:34,492
'cause I was worried he might be suicidal.
Like, I didn't really know.

828
00:57:35,410 --> 00:57:38,455
My parents told him that,
"We were with you

829
00:57:38,538 --> 00:57:40,290
and supported you
in all the good times."

830
00:57:40,373 --> 00:57:43,543
Like, "We’re here for you
a hundred percent now, too."

831
00:57:46,504 --> 00:57:49,090
It's shocking what hideous,

832
00:57:49,215 --> 00:57:52,719
horrible, mean stuff people say
and think about me.

833
00:57:53,052 --> 00:57:57,307
I have the right to an attorney.
I have the right to remain silent.

834
00:57:57,724 --> 00:58:00,852
And what if I did
some charity work instead?

835
00:58:02,312 --> 00:58:04,689
Pee-wee Herman was rushed
to Cedars-Sinai Hospital today

836
00:58:04,772 --> 00:58:07,609
after attending a Halloween costume party
as Edward Scissorhands.

837
00:58:10,528 --> 00:58:12,530
Pee-wee Herman,
I think he should be executed

838
00:58:13,031 --> 00:58:14,824
simply because
he was involved with children.

839
00:58:14,949 --> 00:58:17,368
I mean, Captain Kangaroo,
people forget this man lived

840
00:58:17,452 --> 00:58:19,579
with a load for, like,
many years, many decades.

841
00:58:19,954 --> 00:58:21,456
You’re involved
with children’s programming.

842
00:58:21,539 --> 00:58:23,875
There’s a certain responsibility involved.

843
00:58:24,292 --> 00:58:26,920
Pee-wee Herman,
people put their trust in him.

844
00:58:27,086 --> 00:58:30,632
We do not like our children
hanging out or having anything

845
00:58:30,715 --> 00:58:32,884
to do with perverts.

846
00:58:34,177 --> 00:58:37,388
It’s still a gigantic footnote.
And when people said to me at the time,

847
00:58:37,472 --> 00:58:39,390
people I work with said to me stuff like,

848
00:58:39,933 --> 00:58:42,519
"You know, the public
has a really short-term memory."

849
00:58:42,602 --> 00:58:46,523
I turned around in the moment,
and this is true 30 years later, and said,

850
00:58:46,898 --> 00:58:49,442
"The public has a memory
like a steel trap."

851
00:58:49,526 --> 00:58:52,487
"The memory of the public
is like an elephant memory."

852
00:58:52,570 --> 00:58:56,741
"People remember everything,
so don’t kid me or yourself."

853
00:58:56,824 --> 00:58:58,493
"Like, that’s just now how it works."

854
00:58:58,826 --> 00:59:02,664
And 30 years later, I still feel
the effects all the time.

855
00:59:08,002 --> 00:59:11,297
When they finally decided
that he was gonna fly home,

856
00:59:11,381 --> 00:59:14,842
we put, like, black plastic
over all the windows

857
00:59:14,926 --> 00:59:18,054
so that there was just no way
anybody could look in at all.

858
00:59:19,138 --> 00:59:21,766
It was sort of almost symbolic
of him sort of trying

859
00:59:21,849 --> 00:59:23,309
to just cocoon a little bit.

860
00:59:24,018 --> 00:59:25,770
I just wanted Pee-wee Herman to know

861
00:59:26,020 --> 00:59:27,814
that no matter what he does
in his private life,

862
00:59:27,897 --> 00:59:30,066
he'll always be number one
with all our kids.

863
00:59:30,775 --> 00:59:33,027
Hang in there, Pee-wee.
We still love you.

864
00:59:33,111 --> 00:59:37,282
-You made a mistake, but so what?
-I believe in you. Don't give up.

865
00:59:37,365 --> 00:59:40,785
A lot of people called,
and a lot of people wanted to,

866
00:59:40,868 --> 00:59:44,205
like, give him their best wishes
and all that.

867
00:59:44,289 --> 00:59:46,291
Pee-wee, hang in there.
Don't let them run you down.

868
00:59:46,374 --> 00:59:47,875
I don't care if you did do it.

869
00:59:48,126 --> 00:59:50,753
Paul, he probably knows who didn't call,

870
00:59:50,962 --> 00:59:54,674
and he probably knows
who said harsh things about him.

871
00:59:56,676 --> 01:00:00,680
I think he's just cruel to the people
that help him the most.

872
01:00:01,598 --> 01:00:04,392
And he has some kind of pathological need

873
01:00:04,892 --> 01:00:07,937
to kill the projects
that he's got going for him.

874
01:00:08,896 --> 01:00:11,733
Now, were you shocked
when you saw that Pee-wee Herman

875
01:00:12,025 --> 01:00:13,151
had been arrested?

876
01:00:13,401 --> 01:00:15,987
Paul called me,
and we had been estranged for...

877
01:00:16,237 --> 01:00:18,156
really, since I started
Saturday Night Live.

878
01:00:18,323 --> 01:00:20,283
-Estranged?
-Yeah, just not talking.

879
01:00:20,533 --> 01:00:21,909
Well, for any particular reason?

880
01:00:22,368 --> 01:00:23,995
You’re at odds with him, aren’t you?

881
01:00:24,078 --> 01:00:25,079
-Yeah.
-Why?

882
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:28,374
Because you felt you helped
develop the Pee-wee Playhouse,

883
01:00:28,458 --> 01:00:30,001
and you never received credit
or money for it.

884
01:00:30,168 --> 01:00:32,003
-Is that correct? It is.
-Well, that’s part of it. Yeah.

885
01:00:32,086 --> 01:00:33,838
You certainly could have, legally,
you could have taken

886
01:00:33,963 --> 01:00:35,340
-him to court though.
-Yes, I could have.

887
01:00:35,465 --> 01:00:36,883
-But you didn’t.
-And a lot of people have.

888
01:00:36,966 --> 01:00:39,927
I know a lot of people have excused it,
but I still have not excused his behavior.

889
01:00:40,428 --> 01:00:41,846
Yes, it’s deviant behavior.

890
01:00:46,392 --> 01:00:50,980
I just went through all kinds of hideous,
horrible feelings.

891
01:00:52,857 --> 01:00:54,192
I became a different person.

892
01:00:57,070 --> 01:00:58,946
We hired a crisis PR firm,

893
01:00:59,072 --> 01:01:01,491
and the press really wanted
a picture of him in public.

894
01:01:02,158 --> 01:01:03,451
So the conclusion was,

895
01:01:03,743 --> 01:01:05,995
let’s have him coming out
of a restaurant with a date.

896
01:01:06,245 --> 01:01:09,999
And let’s let a couple of choice
press photographers know,

897
01:01:10,667 --> 01:01:13,628
with the understanding nobody’s going
to know that it’s staged.

898
01:01:14,754 --> 01:01:17,590
But now it took all the wind out
of all the other reporters’ sales

899
01:01:17,674 --> 01:01:19,050
'cause the picture had been had.

900
01:01:20,510 --> 01:01:24,097
So now, there was how to get
this image of his mug shot

901
01:01:24,305 --> 01:01:27,016
out of the minds of the audience.

902
01:01:29,018 --> 01:01:32,146
I had this idea 'cause I knew that
the MTV Music Awards were coming up.

903
01:01:34,315 --> 01:01:37,694
Ladies and gentlemen,
MTV is proud to introduce someone

904
01:01:37,819 --> 01:01:40,613
who has been a friend for a long time.

905
01:01:46,577 --> 01:01:48,454
And so, I remember
being in that press tent.

906
01:01:48,538 --> 01:01:50,873
And he came out, and those reporters
were all going like,

907
01:01:50,998 --> 01:01:53,334
"Is that really him?
Is this really happening?"

908
01:02:01,634 --> 01:02:02,635
Thank you.

909
01:02:04,429 --> 01:02:06,681
Thanks, thanks.

910
01:02:08,850 --> 01:02:10,852
Thanks. Thank you.

911
01:02:14,147 --> 01:02:16,274
Test. Test.

912
01:02:22,780 --> 01:02:24,115
Thank you very much.

913
01:02:32,790 --> 01:02:33,875
Thank you.

914
01:02:35,835 --> 01:02:36,836
Thank you.

915
01:02:38,671 --> 01:02:40,214
Heard any good jokes lately?

916
01:02:43,676 --> 01:02:46,679
The audience at the MTV Awards
really didn't give a damn

917
01:02:46,763 --> 01:02:48,055
about him being arrested.

918
01:02:48,389 --> 01:02:50,433
They cared about his creative genius.

919
01:02:51,392 --> 01:02:55,646
-Pee-wee. Pee-wee. Pee-wee.
-Others are sticking by Pee-wee.

920
01:02:55,730 --> 01:02:59,692
These folks gathered in front of
CBS Television in Los Angeles to protest

921
01:02:59,859 --> 01:03:01,694
the network’s decision to pull
Pee-wee’s Playhouse

922
01:03:01,986 --> 01:03:04,030
off the Saturday morning schedule.

923
01:03:04,197 --> 01:03:05,490
Free Pee-wee!

924
01:03:06,157 --> 01:03:09,827
Well, the media has crucified him,
and CBS, these spineless jellyfish,

925
01:03:09,911 --> 01:03:12,997
have dropped him before
he’s been proven guilty of anything.

926
01:03:13,122 --> 01:03:14,165
Pee-wee!

927
01:03:14,624 --> 01:03:16,876
People really came out to support Paul.

928
01:03:17,502 --> 01:03:19,712
There were protests all over the country.

929
01:03:20,379 --> 01:03:24,050
Pee-wee Herman has an adult cult
following, but they know it is unlikely

930
01:03:24,133 --> 01:03:26,177
that this demonstration
will change anything.

931
01:03:26,344 --> 01:03:29,388
How many of you masturbated
in the last week?

932
01:03:32,975 --> 01:03:35,353
This is not to condone
what he may have done,

933
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:37,730
but it’s not exactly the crime
of the century either.

934
01:03:37,814 --> 01:03:40,691
Allegedly, the guy walked
into a dirty movie house, exposed,

935
01:03:40,775 --> 01:03:42,235
and then, quote, "manipulated himself."

936
01:03:42,568 --> 01:03:45,279
Do you think anybody in a joint like that
was shocked by it?

937
01:03:45,404 --> 01:03:46,948
There’s wilder stuff up on the screen.

938
01:03:48,366 --> 01:03:51,285
The goal for Paul was to avoid
going through the pain of a trial.

939
01:03:51,410 --> 01:03:53,579
There was no question in the world
that he would have beat this.

940
01:03:54,956 --> 01:03:58,334
It just drags the story out,
and we just wanted it done.

941
01:03:58,709 --> 01:04:02,088
So the best we were gonna do
was a no-contest plea.

942
01:04:03,548 --> 01:04:06,592
Actor Paul Reubens has agreed
to pay a 50-dollar fine

943
01:04:06,717 --> 01:04:09,470
and make an anti-drug commercial
as part of a plea bargain

944
01:04:09,595 --> 01:04:11,472
on indecent exposure charges.

945
01:04:11,848 --> 01:04:13,933
He appeared in court today
at a brief hearing.

946
01:04:14,058 --> 01:04:17,186
Reubens is best known for his role
as Pee-wee Herman.

947
01:04:17,270 --> 01:04:21,649
He was arrested last July and accused
of exposing himself in an X-rated theater.

948
01:04:21,858 --> 01:04:23,901
He pleaded no contest to the charges.

949
01:04:24,569 --> 01:04:26,529
At this time, Mr. Reubens,
I will ask you...

950
01:04:27,989 --> 01:04:30,658
if you understand the plea
called for the acknowledgement

951
01:04:30,741 --> 01:04:32,243
and waiver of rights that you have signed.

952
01:04:32,451 --> 01:04:33,452
Yes.

953
01:04:33,536 --> 01:04:36,539
Do you understand you give up all
your rights in this waiver of rights form,

954
01:04:36,622 --> 01:04:38,207
-including the right to a trial?
-Yes.

955
01:04:38,749 --> 01:04:40,710
Did your attorneys, Mr. Dresnick
and Mr. Gerstein,

956
01:04:40,793 --> 01:04:42,753
-explain everything to you, sir?
-Yes.

957
01:04:43,254 --> 01:04:44,547
-Do you have any questions?
-No.

958
01:04:45,214 --> 01:04:47,425
All right. Then I’ll ask you
at this time how you plead.

959
01:04:49,135 --> 01:04:51,637
He will plead no contest. The plea,
the plea is no contest, your Honor.

960
01:04:51,721 --> 01:04:52,722
All right.

961
01:04:56,976 --> 01:05:00,605
My biggest fear is,
and where I think is...

962
01:05:04,775 --> 01:05:07,778
wherein lies the rub, no pun intended...

963
01:05:09,530 --> 01:05:14,410
is how do I come off in this narrative
and what the goal is for me in this

964
01:05:14,493 --> 01:05:17,330
and not come off like a victim
in some way?

965
01:05:17,455 --> 01:05:20,333
You know? Like, I feel like

966
01:05:20,416 --> 01:05:26,422
it’s very easy to turn my story into

967
01:05:27,173 --> 01:05:30,468
"I'm a victim in some way,"
or I’m, you know,

968
01:05:31,302 --> 01:05:34,513
the man behind the mask,
the tears of a clown.

969
01:05:34,597 --> 01:05:40,853
I mean, I know a lot of what it is,
and I don’t, I rebel against it.

970
01:05:40,937 --> 01:05:45,858
I don’t want it to be that.
I’m going to try to figure out some way to

971
01:05:46,734 --> 01:05:50,321
rise up above that in the same way
that I feel like I’ve been forced

972
01:05:50,404 --> 01:05:55,534
and had to kind of rise up
above that in, you know, reality.

973
01:06:03,834 --> 01:06:08,464
Oh, God, she’s really beautiful.
She’s gorgeous.

974
01:06:08,547 --> 01:06:09,548
Thanks.

975
01:06:10,967 --> 01:06:12,510
Elida was born.

976
01:06:14,303 --> 01:06:16,347
She would come to work with me every day.

977
01:06:20,184 --> 01:06:23,854
That was actually a really nice thing,
I think, for Paul

978
01:06:23,938 --> 01:06:27,900
because he was ready to start
to, like, open up a little bit more,

979
01:06:28,859 --> 01:06:32,071
to kind of get his mind off of things
and to sort of move on.

980
01:06:38,661 --> 01:06:40,621
I remember the night that I met Paul.

981
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:44,792
We had mutual friends.
I was a huge, huge fan of his.

982
01:06:47,211 --> 01:06:53,718
It was after his arrest, and the weight
of the situation was so heavy.

983
01:06:54,885 --> 01:06:57,096
He was damaged. He was broken.

984
01:06:57,388 --> 01:06:59,432
It was like a bird
that got hit by a truck.

985
01:07:00,975 --> 01:07:02,601
He couldn’t go out
of the house for a minute,

986
01:07:03,519 --> 01:07:08,858
and being reclusive, it was often dark.
He was sleeping weird hours.

987
01:07:09,817 --> 01:07:13,696
I’d come over to the house,
open up the curtains, get some fresh air.

988
01:07:14,739 --> 01:07:17,408
I couldn’t really make my way
through the house. It was packed.

989
01:07:19,493 --> 01:07:22,038
I encouraged him
to get out because, you know,

990
01:07:22,788 --> 01:07:25,916
as someone with so much creativity,
if they don’t work, they die.

991
01:07:28,210 --> 01:07:29,211
Coco.

992
01:07:31,881 --> 01:07:35,092
Before Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
we just kind of clicked.

993
01:07:36,844 --> 01:07:40,264
Since it was the first film
that he was gonna do after his arrest,

994
01:07:40,431 --> 01:07:43,434
he had to put it in his contract
that he could look as much like

995
01:07:43,517 --> 01:07:45,269
his mugshot as possible.

996
01:07:45,352 --> 01:07:47,980
What are you, some kind
of weirdo or something, huh?

997
01:07:48,647 --> 01:07:52,902
It’s cool to see him sort of, like,
you know, protect himself that way.

998
01:07:56,864 --> 01:07:58,407
You ruined my new jacket.

999
01:07:59,867 --> 01:08:01,160
Kill him a lot.

1000
01:08:09,001 --> 01:08:12,755
When Paul turned me into a vampire,
it really does bond you for life.

1001
01:08:13,130 --> 01:08:14,381
We’ve always had this connection.

1002
01:08:14,465 --> 01:08:18,511
We’re kind of, you know,
we’re bound in eternity.

1003
01:08:20,720 --> 01:08:23,765
Document this whole situation.

1004
01:08:26,018 --> 01:08:28,770
This is the kind of shit
that comes back onto you.

1005
01:08:30,481 --> 01:08:34,819
Oh, my God, I can’t believe we’re video...
Are we videoing?

1006
01:08:38,154 --> 01:08:41,908
He just needed, like, his family.
His, like, you know,

1007
01:08:42,033 --> 01:08:43,828
his second family to come around.

1008
01:08:45,203 --> 01:08:47,413
He started slowly seeing people.

1009
01:08:49,250 --> 01:08:51,001
He started laughing again. It was great.

1010
01:08:53,796 --> 01:08:54,796
Go.

1011
01:08:57,424 --> 01:08:58,759
Excellent.

1012
01:09:00,761 --> 01:09:03,930
But I don’t see any synchronized swimming.

1013
01:09:04,932 --> 01:09:06,058
Film, Paul.

1014
01:09:09,645 --> 01:09:11,729
-Look at my pants.
-...any kids or anything.

1015
01:09:11,814 --> 01:09:13,899
Look at my pants.

1016
01:09:15,317 --> 01:09:19,363
We started going to these thrift stores
and collectible places and swap meets,

1017
01:09:21,282 --> 01:09:24,952
and just sort of expanding
my knowledge on things.

1018
01:09:27,078 --> 01:09:29,372
I’ve always tried to encourage him
of doing, like, a museum

1019
01:09:29,915 --> 01:09:32,042
because he’s got
all this incredible stuff.

1020
01:09:35,921 --> 01:09:41,760
The collecting really is at the core
of sort of things he loves and who he is.

1021
01:09:49,310 --> 01:09:53,479
The more time we all spent together,
the happier he got.

1022
01:09:54,523 --> 01:09:56,275
He became like Paul again.

1023
01:09:58,652 --> 01:10:01,197
My first guest, best known,
of course, as Pee-wee Herman.

1024
01:10:01,447 --> 01:10:04,450
This is his first talk show appearance
ever as himself.

1025
01:10:04,533 --> 01:10:06,368
Please welcome Paul Reubens.

1026
01:10:14,835 --> 01:10:16,003
Well, thanks for coming.

1027
01:10:17,087 --> 01:10:18,214
Now...

1028
01:10:18,923 --> 01:10:22,468
You usually come on, or you have
come on in the past as Pee-wee.

1029
01:10:22,551 --> 01:10:23,552
Are you a little nervous?

1030
01:10:27,806 --> 01:10:28,974
Oh, you're not nervous.

1031
01:10:34,438 --> 01:10:36,065
Are you gonna talk at all tonight,
do you think?

1032
01:10:40,736 --> 01:10:43,989
Now, see, people want to know
what you’re like, so you have to speak.

1033
01:10:44,865 --> 01:10:47,243
-Okay.
-No, that's very good.

1034
01:10:47,326 --> 01:10:49,036
That what we call a beginning.

1035
01:10:49,119 --> 01:10:50,871
Now, that sounded like Pee-wee, though.

1036
01:10:51,413 --> 01:10:52,414
It did?

1037
01:10:52,581 --> 01:10:54,625
See, that sounds like Pee-wee.
That doesn’t sound like Paul.

1038
01:10:54,917 --> 01:10:56,794
No, this is my real voice.

1039
01:10:57,294 --> 01:10:58,337
Very...

1040
01:10:59,338 --> 01:11:03,592
Paul had not gotten attention for playing
another role that wasn’t Pee-wee Herman.

1041
01:11:06,220 --> 01:11:09,348
So this was a defining moment.

1042
01:11:11,475 --> 01:11:15,604
-Come on, faster, faster!
-Okay, Andrew, time to die.

1043
01:11:16,021 --> 01:11:19,775
Good idea, Miss Brown.
A suicide pact. Here, rip out my throat.

1044
01:11:20,442 --> 01:11:22,361
-What are you talking about?
-Just do it!

1045
01:11:26,448 --> 01:11:29,702
Paul was being a creative person
and being in Hollywood.

1046
01:11:31,412 --> 01:11:32,538
And it was great.

1047
01:11:33,414 --> 01:11:38,127
I remember him being fit for wigs,
creating a whole look.

1048
01:11:39,003 --> 01:11:40,629
Please welcome Paul Reubens.

1049
01:11:41,297 --> 01:11:43,882
He developed, you know,
different characters.

1050
01:11:45,467 --> 01:11:48,137
He was able to hide behind,
not Pee-wee,

1051
01:11:48,387 --> 01:11:51,557
but throw himself into something
completely new.

1052
01:11:57,563 --> 01:11:58,564
Barbie.

1053
01:12:01,191 --> 01:12:02,693
Maria.

1054
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:09,074
-George.
-Barbie, he is yummy.

1055
01:12:09,867 --> 01:12:11,493
He looks just like a Ken doll.

1056
01:12:12,494 --> 01:12:16,707
Ken and Barbie,
oh, my God, it is so perfect.

1057
01:12:18,292 --> 01:12:20,461
I went to the premiere of Blow with Paul.

1058
01:12:22,379 --> 01:12:24,173
And finally he was confident.

1059
01:12:25,841 --> 01:12:27,259
I mean, everyone was there.

1060
01:12:30,137 --> 01:12:33,307
It was Hollywood.
It was big, and Paul was back.

1061
01:12:34,433 --> 01:12:35,517
You’re getting great reviews

1062
01:12:35,601 --> 01:12:36,602
-for this movie, Blow.
-Yeah.

1063
01:12:36,685 --> 01:12:39,021
-People are very excited about--
-The movie is great.

1064
01:12:39,188 --> 01:12:42,733
And in it, you play, it’s an interesting
character, bisexual hairdresser.

1065
01:12:43,567 --> 01:12:46,904
Did you, is that a role
you gotta research in some way, or no?

1066
01:12:48,030 --> 01:12:50,741
-I knew how to cut hair a little bit.
-Right.

1067
01:12:56,622 --> 01:13:01,919
Paul and I, like, were consistently
together for a couple of years.

1068
01:13:03,337 --> 01:13:06,215
So I think it started
raising some eyebrows.

1069
01:13:07,758 --> 01:13:12,638
I left it always ambiguous
because I like to keep people guessing.

1070
01:13:12,971 --> 01:13:14,932
I like the idea of mystery.

1071
01:13:16,558 --> 01:13:17,810
We’re following Paul...

1072
01:13:18,894 --> 01:13:20,979
while he’s putting his-- there he is.

1073
01:13:22,773 --> 01:13:24,191
You look damn good, I’ll tell you.

1074
01:13:25,234 --> 01:13:26,985
-Here's my 'mani.
-Let me get back.

1075
01:13:28,195 --> 01:13:33,784
I mean, look, in old Hollywood,
people were set up to date.

1076
01:13:33,909 --> 01:13:35,911
It was like an arranged marriage.

1077
01:13:37,287 --> 01:13:40,999
And with Paul, he was my boyfriend.
And I know that, like, people might say,

1078
01:13:41,083 --> 01:13:43,085
"Well, you know, like, well, he was gay."

1079
01:13:43,877 --> 01:13:44,962
Yeah, well, so what?

1080
01:13:46,547 --> 01:13:49,883
I mean, I grew up in the life,
so to speak.

1081
01:13:51,009 --> 01:13:55,514
So, for me, like, I never really
had to put a label on anything

1082
01:13:55,597 --> 01:13:57,057
because nobody else did.

1083
01:13:58,434 --> 01:14:02,604
One day, he just gave me, like,
a friendship ring, you know,

1084
01:14:02,729 --> 01:14:04,523
a boyfriend-girlfriend ring.

1085
01:14:05,607 --> 01:14:08,068
It was, like, you know,
literally from a Cracker Jack box.

1086
01:14:09,611 --> 01:14:11,405
We knew that in moving forward,

1087
01:14:12,531 --> 01:14:14,450
we’d always be there for each other.

1088
01:14:19,705 --> 01:14:20,873
Look at her through here.

1089
01:14:23,208 --> 01:14:26,336
About ten years passed
from when he was arrested.

1090
01:14:26,545 --> 01:14:28,213
God, that thing is so small.

1091
01:14:29,298 --> 01:14:30,299
Okay, okay, okay.

1092
01:14:39,600 --> 01:14:42,186
Paul was shooting the Elton John video.

1093
01:14:43,854 --> 01:14:46,648
And so, I just thought
it was like a normal day.

1094
01:14:47,649 --> 01:14:49,985
And all of a sudden,
we got a call from the neighbors

1095
01:14:50,068 --> 01:14:53,197
saying, like,
"There’s police driving up to the house."

1096
01:14:54,364 --> 01:14:57,159
And there were probably 25 officers
in the house.

1097
01:14:58,577 --> 01:15:02,664
I was petrified.
I didn't know anything about any of it.

1098
01:15:02,748 --> 01:15:04,833
I was just like,
"Oh, my God. Like, what’s happening?"

1099
01:15:05,417 --> 01:15:08,337
The actor better known
as Pee-wee Herman is being investigated

1100
01:15:08,462 --> 01:15:11,798
tonight after Los Angeles Police
confiscated his art collection.

1101
01:15:12,174 --> 01:15:14,009
CBS News’ Mark Coogan
live in the newsroom

1102
01:15:14,092 --> 01:15:15,552
with the latest on this story. Mark?

1103
01:15:15,761 --> 01:15:18,555
Harold, the issue here
is alleged child pornography.

1104
01:15:18,805 --> 01:15:21,517
Acting on a complaint
from a former Reubens acquaintance,

1105
01:15:21,642 --> 01:15:23,644
LA Police searched Reubens’
Hollywood home.

1106
01:15:23,769 --> 01:15:27,272
They reportedly took away boxes
of erotic videos and pictures.

1107
01:15:28,273 --> 01:15:34,196
I got a call from Paul and he told me
it absolutely wasn’t true.

1108
01:15:35,948 --> 01:15:37,366
He knew Jeffrey Jones,

1109
01:15:38,283 --> 01:15:42,454
and Jeffrey Jones
was being accused of improprieties.

1110
01:15:43,622 --> 01:15:46,667
And that person who accused him

1111
01:15:47,793 --> 01:15:51,630
had been to Paul’s house
with Jeffrey and other people.

1112
01:15:52,923 --> 01:15:57,135
And that person accused Paul
of possession of child pornography.

1113
01:15:58,470 --> 01:16:01,431
And then, of course, the raid happened
as a result of that.

1114
01:16:03,141 --> 01:16:06,520
I asked him straight out,
like, "What the fuck's going on?"

1115
01:16:06,603 --> 01:16:07,771
You know, "What happened?"

1116
01:16:07,938 --> 01:16:09,940
You know, I got all the,
like, clear answers.

1117
01:16:11,316 --> 01:16:14,319
They found vintage homoerotic art,

1118
01:16:14,403 --> 01:16:18,156
but it’s, like, you’re going to, like,
ruin this guy’s life for art like that?

1119
01:16:20,325 --> 01:16:23,870
I immediately went to Paul's home
in Hollywood

1120
01:16:24,413 --> 01:16:28,500
to directly communicate
with law enforcement.

1121
01:16:29,710 --> 01:16:34,047
It was an extraordinary
and unusual thing to participate in,

1122
01:16:35,674 --> 01:16:41,722
mainly because Paul’s residence
was also, in many ways, like a museum.

1123
01:16:43,140 --> 01:16:46,268
He had extraordinary
collections of things,

1124
01:16:47,436 --> 01:16:51,898
including materials that the police
decided they wanted to seize.

1125
01:16:53,567 --> 01:16:59,364
And these photographic collections
of early gay erotica,

1126
01:16:59,865 --> 01:17:05,871
including literally hundreds
of thousands of old photographs

1127
01:17:05,954 --> 01:17:09,082
and old eight-millimeter film.

1128
01:17:12,961 --> 01:17:16,340
Some of these archival boxes
had not even been opened.

1129
01:17:17,299 --> 01:17:19,593
Throughout the execution of the search,

1130
01:17:19,718 --> 01:17:23,388
there was no indication
that this was material that Paul

1131
01:17:23,472 --> 01:17:26,058
regularly accessed or reviewed.

1132
01:17:27,851 --> 01:17:29,144
Shortly thereafter,

1133
01:17:29,269 --> 01:17:33,106
we found ourselves getting a call
from the Enquirer.

1134
01:17:34,316 --> 01:17:37,653
A story had been leaked to them
about the raid by the LAPD.

1135
01:17:37,903 --> 01:17:40,614
Now, actor Paul Reubens
is the subject of an investigation

1136
01:17:40,697 --> 01:17:42,741
into alleged child pornography.

1137
01:17:43,033 --> 01:17:46,286
The investigation is ongoing.
No charges have been filed,

1138
01:17:46,370 --> 01:17:49,289
and the actor’s representative
is condemning the entire business.

1139
01:17:51,249 --> 01:17:56,213
I could find the exact collections
in some of the biggest universities

1140
01:17:56,296 --> 01:18:00,509
in the country in their LGBT archives.

1141
01:18:02,761 --> 01:18:06,848
I had defended folks
in child pornography cases,

1142
01:18:07,265 --> 01:18:09,601
and this just was not child pornography.

1143
01:18:12,854 --> 01:18:15,273
...Pee-wee Herman’s house.
ET broke the story.

1144
01:18:15,357 --> 01:18:16,983
Now, we have new details.

1145
01:18:17,234 --> 01:18:20,028
The press coverage about this case
was not that extensive.

1146
01:18:21,238 --> 01:18:24,574
We were asking people to wait
for the results of the case,

1147
01:18:26,118 --> 01:18:28,286
not take the bait of the leaks.

1148
01:18:28,704 --> 01:18:31,623
He’s getting some celebrity support.
Right? Courteney Cox and her husband,

1149
01:18:31,707 --> 01:18:34,501
David Arquette, are stepping up
and speaking on his behalf.

1150
01:18:34,876 --> 01:18:36,753
And you know what?
I was a little surprised

1151
01:18:36,837 --> 01:18:39,214
because these are big-time Hollywood stars

1152
01:18:39,297 --> 01:18:42,300
and really voiced support
for Paul Reubens.

1153
01:18:42,384 --> 01:18:44,428
Paul stayed with us, and...

1154
01:18:45,178 --> 01:18:48,390
I think for him to be able to be there
during such a tough time

1155
01:18:48,473 --> 01:18:52,018
was really kind of peaceful.
Like, we’re going to get through this.

1156
01:18:53,770 --> 01:18:57,315
As far as Paul’s sexuality goes,
he’s guarded about it.

1157
01:18:57,399 --> 01:18:58,525
He's private about it.

1158
01:18:59,818 --> 01:19:03,280
Paul's old-school, so he doesn't want
to talk about his personal life.

1159
01:19:05,907 --> 01:19:09,661
I said, like, "This may be the universe
telling you to live your true life."

1160
01:19:09,745 --> 01:19:11,997
I was trying to encourage him
to sort of come out.

1161
01:19:13,874 --> 01:19:16,668
Paul was not out in the public
at that time.

1162
01:19:17,919 --> 01:19:20,172
So he was an easy target in that regard.

1163
01:19:21,923 --> 01:19:23,592
This was a homophobic witch hunt.

1164
01:19:25,343 --> 01:19:29,598
You know, there’s a trope, obviously,
that’s quite dangerous about pedophilia

1165
01:19:29,681 --> 01:19:33,810
and LGBTQ community. It goes on today.

1166
01:19:35,687 --> 01:19:39,733
When a children's entertainer is accused
of possession of child pornography

1167
01:19:39,858 --> 01:19:42,652
and those words, "Paul Reubens,"
"Pee-wee Herman,"

1168
01:19:42,736 --> 01:19:46,281
"child pornography," are in a headline,
the damage is done.

1169
01:19:48,283 --> 01:19:54,456
It became very evident that
they were trying to mess around with him,

1170
01:19:54,539 --> 01:19:55,916
like, make trouble.

1171
01:19:56,291 --> 01:19:59,711
Okay, good. Okay.
Now, wave at Paul. Wave at Paul.

1172
01:19:59,961 --> 01:20:02,714
The police took all of Paul's photos,

1173
01:20:03,340 --> 01:20:06,343
but once we started getting things back,

1174
01:20:06,468 --> 01:20:09,596
it turned out that they had taken
all of these photos of my daughter,

1175
01:20:09,679 --> 01:20:11,848
Elida, from when she was young.

1176
01:20:13,475 --> 01:20:18,522
They also went to her school
and talked to the school.

1177
01:20:19,022 --> 01:20:22,442
Which I didn’t know that at all
until after the fact.

1178
01:20:22,567 --> 01:20:23,652
Who are you waving at?

1179
01:20:23,735 --> 01:20:29,199
And then, and I also had to sign a letter
that allowed Paul to be alone with Elida.

1180
01:20:30,450 --> 01:20:32,077
It was just so devastating.

1181
01:20:34,538 --> 01:20:41,336
The district attorney participated
in that first year of the investigation

1182
01:20:41,461 --> 01:20:44,714
from the search warrant
for the next 12 months.

1183
01:20:45,131 --> 01:20:49,553
And based on their investigation
and their review of the material

1184
01:20:49,886 --> 01:20:52,514
and any evidence seized,
they made the determination

1185
01:20:52,722 --> 01:20:54,474
that no charges should be filed.

1186
01:20:56,685 --> 01:21:01,523
And at the very last minute,
literally a day before,

1187
01:21:02,065 --> 01:21:04,693
prosecutors could no longer bring charges,

1188
01:21:05,026 --> 01:21:08,905
the LA city attorney announced
that they were gonna file

1189
01:21:09,030 --> 01:21:12,826
one count of misdemeanor possession
of child porn.

1190
01:21:14,536 --> 01:21:18,248
You wanna talk about LA champions?
Well, here’s one you should know.

1191
01:21:18,540 --> 01:21:20,333
His name is Rocky Delgadillo.

1192
01:21:20,458 --> 01:21:25,505
Rocky Delgadillo was the newly elected
city attorney.

1193
01:21:25,881 --> 01:21:28,174
He was very ambitious,

1194
01:21:29,593 --> 01:21:34,639
had announced that
he was particularly focused

1195
01:21:34,723 --> 01:21:37,809
on child abuse issues.

1196
01:21:39,769 --> 01:21:44,482
It was increasingly clear to us
that this was a political case.

1197
01:21:45,191 --> 01:21:47,444
Had Paul been a regular citizen,

1198
01:21:47,819 --> 01:21:51,072
none of this attention
would have been given to him.

1199
01:21:54,951 --> 01:22:00,123
Happy birthday, dear Milton

1200
01:22:00,248 --> 01:22:04,920
Happy birthday to you

1201
01:22:05,003 --> 01:22:06,087
Help me blow them out.

1202
01:22:09,925 --> 01:22:12,218
His dad started to go downhill,

1203
01:22:13,053 --> 01:22:17,182
and so then, from there,
he went to Florida.

1204
01:22:19,434 --> 01:22:24,689
When my dad was declining,
Paul was helping my mom do everything

1205
01:22:25,607 --> 01:22:26,983
and just basically lived with them

1206
01:22:27,067 --> 01:22:29,152
and took care of my dad
the last several months of his life.

1207
01:22:31,780 --> 01:22:33,031
My dad was real macho.

1208
01:22:33,114 --> 01:22:35,617
And that was an issue,
I think, between him and Paul.

1209
01:22:36,952 --> 01:22:40,121
Paul really worked on his relationship
with my dad.

1210
01:22:40,664 --> 01:22:41,831
That really impressed me

1211
01:22:41,915 --> 01:22:43,792
how much effort he put into that,
and that paid off.

1212
01:22:48,588 --> 01:22:51,174
It was a choice that Paul had to make.

1213
01:22:51,257 --> 01:22:52,717
Does he go to trial

1214
01:22:53,718 --> 01:22:59,224
and potentially be completely
exonerated and vindicated

1215
01:22:59,766 --> 01:23:04,020
but, with that,
take on this being in the public eye?

1216
01:23:05,563 --> 01:23:08,233
It was decided
that we would find a misdemeanor,

1217
01:23:08,316 --> 01:23:10,026
literally find a misdemeanor,

1218
01:23:10,652 --> 01:23:14,781
that addressed this being material
that was offensive somehow

1219
01:23:15,532 --> 01:23:19,953
but on an obscenity standard,
not anything to do with child pornography.

1220
01:23:23,748 --> 01:23:26,835
A month after he was charged
with possession of obscene material

1221
01:23:26,918 --> 01:23:29,462
and had to turn himself in,
his father passed away.

1222
01:23:37,887 --> 01:23:42,267
Shortly thereafter, Paul needed
to go on camera and clear his name,

1223
01:23:43,309 --> 01:23:48,064
because he had nothing to hide,
and he needed someone credible,

1224
01:23:48,189 --> 01:23:51,151
like Stone Phillips, to ask him
all the tough questions.

1225
01:23:51,484 --> 01:23:54,654
Were you in possession
of child pornography?

1226
01:23:55,321 --> 01:23:58,742
No. I mean, emphatically, no, I was not.

1227
01:23:59,284 --> 01:24:01,494
And where do you draw the line?
I mean, to you, it's art.

1228
01:24:01,578 --> 01:24:05,623
To somebody else, it may be offensive,
objectionable, obscene.

1229
01:24:05,957 --> 01:24:10,003
I guess where I draw the line is
I feel like I live in a country

1230
01:24:10,086 --> 01:24:13,298
where I can collect
what I wanna collect. And...

1231
01:24:14,299 --> 01:24:18,511
as long as I'm not hurting anyone,
as long as I'm not exploiting children...

1232
01:24:20,680 --> 01:24:23,058
I think I should have the right
to collect whatever I want.

1233
01:24:24,350 --> 01:24:26,936
After they’d gone through 30,000 images,

1234
01:24:27,062 --> 01:24:31,274
it came down, ultimately, to one image
in one vintage magazine.

1235
01:24:32,025 --> 01:24:37,572
They agreed that the photograph
was not of someone underage.

1236
01:24:37,822 --> 01:24:42,285
Once the child pornography charge
was thrown out,

1237
01:24:42,452 --> 01:24:45,413
I was willing to take responsibility
for my collection.

1238
01:24:45,538 --> 01:24:50,293
-Which included?
-Which includes saying and agreeing

1239
01:24:50,418 --> 01:24:53,171
that there were images that were obscene.

1240
01:24:53,546 --> 01:24:57,175
His penalty, a 100-dollar fine,
mandatory counseling,

1241
01:24:57,342 --> 01:24:59,677
no unsupervised contact with children,

1242
01:24:59,803 --> 01:25:03,681
and, for the next three years,
he must register as a sex offender.

1243
01:25:04,349 --> 01:25:06,184
You can say lots of things about me.

1244
01:25:06,392 --> 01:25:09,604
And you might, and so might lots
of other people,

1245
01:25:10,313 --> 01:25:14,943
the public may think I'm weird,
they may think I'm crazy,

1246
01:25:15,026 --> 01:25:18,988
or anything that anyone
wants to think about me,

1247
01:25:19,322 --> 01:25:22,575
that’s all fine, as long as one
of the things you’re not thinking about me

1248
01:25:22,659 --> 01:25:25,120
is that I’m a pedophile
because that’s not true.

1249
01:25:45,974 --> 01:25:48,101
Paul's very resilient.

1250
01:25:49,644 --> 01:25:53,815
Those were some scary times
and you have to be

1251
01:25:54,399 --> 01:26:00,780
willing to allow for that pain
to be there, you know,

1252
01:26:01,197 --> 01:26:03,950
and to actually express it
a little bit, also.

1253
01:26:05,743 --> 01:26:11,249
That took a lot of day-to-day work,
but Paul knows how to, like,

1254
01:26:12,792 --> 01:26:14,460
come back from things.

1255
01:26:16,921 --> 01:26:18,464
Please welcome Paul Reubens.

1256
01:26:26,055 --> 01:26:29,225
I’m just curious. I know it’s been
a while since you were Pee-wee Herman.

1257
01:26:29,767 --> 01:26:32,312
We actually found a Pee-wee outfit.

1258
01:26:33,146 --> 01:26:35,315
This is the real Pee-wee Herman outfit
we have right here.

1259
01:26:35,398 --> 01:26:36,900
We were curious
if you would fit into it.

1260
01:26:36,983 --> 01:26:38,860
Do you think he could fit into it?

1261
01:26:39,527 --> 01:26:41,613
No, I can't.

1262
01:26:42,322 --> 01:26:44,324
-Come on. Give it a try.
-I can't.

1263
01:26:44,407 --> 01:26:45,408
Beg me.

1264
01:26:48,244 --> 01:26:49,370
Just...

1265
01:26:54,709 --> 01:26:56,544
-Yeah.
-Do you feel yourself becoming Pee-wee

1266
01:26:56,628 --> 01:26:58,630
-as you put it on?
-It's not about the pants.

1267
01:26:58,713 --> 01:27:01,591
-Pee-wee is really in me, you know?
-Yeah.

1268
01:27:01,674 --> 01:27:02,675
Right.

1269
01:27:02,926 --> 01:27:05,637
Paul had the opportunity
to bring back Pee-wee,

1270
01:27:06,429 --> 01:27:07,972
which he was thrilled about.

1271
01:27:09,015 --> 01:27:13,019
And I think that that was a little bit
hard for him.

1272
01:27:13,102 --> 01:27:17,315
And realizing that he was older
and that time had passed.

1273
01:27:18,733 --> 01:27:21,069
But I think he always had faith
in Pee-wee.

1274
01:27:27,116 --> 01:27:31,204
Paul called me up and said,
"Well, we’re doing the stage show again,

1275
01:27:31,454 --> 01:27:35,667
and I’d like you to be in it."
And I said, "Really?"

1276
01:27:36,751 --> 01:27:38,628
Here’s some mail for you, Pee-wee.

1277
01:27:39,629 --> 01:27:44,259
Paul, I thought for sure you’d want,
like, a 25-year-old Mailman Mike,

1278
01:27:44,342 --> 01:27:46,761
not a, you know,
60-year-old Mailman Mike.

1279
01:27:46,970 --> 01:27:52,558
It’s the most beautiful woman
in Puppetland, Miss Yvonne.

1280
01:27:54,727 --> 01:27:58,564
I mean, when I opened that door
as Miss Yvonne and came out,

1281
01:27:58,648 --> 01:28:01,192
I could have done anything. I could
have peed, and people would have said,

1282
01:28:01,276 --> 01:28:04,737
"Miss Yvonne made
such an incredible statement."

1283
01:28:04,946 --> 01:28:07,448
"She peed on stage. I love her."

1284
01:28:07,657 --> 01:28:10,576
Oh, did we already find out
today’s secret word?

1285
01:28:11,369 --> 01:28:15,415
-Yes, we did, Miss Yvonne.
-Darn, I missed all the fun.

1286
01:28:18,751 --> 01:28:21,254
Come on, everybody, let me in on the fun.

1287
01:28:22,046 --> 01:28:25,049
It was a thrill, and it was a built-in

1288
01:28:25,633 --> 01:28:29,262
love affair with the audience
because they had watched us as kids.

1289
01:28:32,724 --> 01:28:34,475
The live version of the Pee-wee Show

1290
01:28:34,559 --> 01:28:37,770
on Broadway really was everything
you wanted it to be.

1291
01:28:38,146 --> 01:28:43,484
I met with Paul, generally,
just praying that he might want to do

1292
01:28:43,609 --> 01:28:44,777
a Pee-wee Herman project.

1293
01:28:45,945 --> 01:28:49,991
And it literally took years
to convince him to do it.

1294
01:28:50,783 --> 01:28:54,954
There seemed to be a lot of anxiety
around the idea of bringing

1295
01:28:55,038 --> 01:28:56,456
Pee-wee Herman back in a movie.

1296
01:28:56,914 --> 01:28:58,499
We’re writing Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.

1297
01:28:58,833 --> 01:29:01,210
Paul spends too much time in the house.

1298
01:29:01,336 --> 01:29:05,798
Paul isn't out and about that much.
Paul needs an adventure.

1299
01:29:05,882 --> 01:29:08,176
Hello. And I'm helping write it.

1300
01:29:10,178 --> 01:29:12,180
He needs to go make another movie.

1301
01:29:20,480 --> 01:29:21,481
Appley!

1302
01:29:24,609 --> 01:29:25,610
Cool.

1303
01:29:26,110 --> 01:29:30,531
There was always a feeling like
Paul had gone through so much,

1304
01:29:30,990 --> 01:29:34,786
and as a result, we didn’t get this
for so many decades.

1305
01:29:37,288 --> 01:29:38,498
-To friendship.
-To friendship.

1306
01:29:38,998 --> 01:29:43,169
As fans and people who admire him,
we wanted to give him the confidence

1307
01:29:43,252 --> 01:29:45,755
to take a big run at another project.

1308
01:29:46,964 --> 01:29:48,424
And he loved the movie.

1309
01:29:50,468 --> 01:29:55,765
-Pee-wee. Pee-wee. Pee-wee.
-Pee-wee. Pee-wee. Pee-wee.

1310
01:29:56,933 --> 01:30:01,062
It really was pandemonium.
People went crazy for every joke.

1311
01:30:02,397 --> 01:30:03,689
I told you, I told you.

1312
01:30:04,732 --> 01:30:05,942
I told you it was good.

1313
01:30:06,275 --> 01:30:11,072
Then you realize how tuned in
he was to his fans and what they like

1314
01:30:11,197 --> 01:30:13,199
and his relationship with them.

1315
01:30:13,533 --> 01:30:18,079
He really got a special moment
of total appreciation.

1316
01:30:23,918 --> 01:30:27,213
If you were gonna make this documentary
yourself, what would it be?

1317
01:30:29,424 --> 01:30:33,636
I would have taken all the footage
that I shot over all these years

1318
01:30:33,803 --> 01:30:37,515
and all the photos I took
and all the stuff

1319
01:30:38,224 --> 01:30:40,184
that people aren't getting
to see right now,

1320
01:30:41,102 --> 01:30:45,898
all that too, and made something
that would have been very dreamy

1321
01:30:45,982 --> 01:30:50,194
and very kind of, like I would have talked
a little bit on camera and just gone,

1322
01:30:50,278 --> 01:30:52,864
like, "Now, I’d like you see this,
and then this happened."

1323
01:30:52,947 --> 01:30:56,325
"And then I made this,
and then I did this." Me, me, me, me.

1324
01:30:56,909 --> 01:31:00,329
"And then I got arrested,
and it was horrible."

1325
01:31:01,706 --> 01:31:07,253
And then, you know, "Life was good-o,
and then I had to take care of, you know,

1326
01:31:07,336 --> 01:31:09,589
people that were close to me
that were fucked up."

1327
01:31:09,672 --> 01:31:12,258
And, you know, I don't know.
I don't know what it would have been.

1328
01:31:12,383 --> 01:31:14,927
We’ll never know,
or maybe we will. I don't know.

1329
01:34:42,802 --> 01:34:45,680
Paul kept his illness a secret
from almost everyone.

1330
01:34:49,183 --> 01:34:52,561
He was someone
who'd been so private all his life.

1331
01:35:06,033 --> 01:35:08,994
It was challenging for him
to do the documentary.

1332
01:35:12,039 --> 01:35:13,624
But at the end of his life,

1333
01:35:14,083 --> 01:35:18,671
he took a leap of faith and decided
that the film should be finished.

1334
01:35:26,095 --> 01:35:27,763
He wanted people to see...

1335
01:35:29,932 --> 01:35:31,475
who he was as Paul.

1336
01:35:39,567 --> 01:35:44,613
In the last months of Paul's life,
he was in a loving relationship.

1337
01:35:47,825 --> 01:35:50,369
He was surrounded by his closest friends.

1338
01:35:53,164 --> 01:35:54,957
He had a lot of joy.

1339
01:36:01,338 --> 01:36:06,552
I think he was embracing the fullness
of his life in those last days.

1340
01:36:09,096 --> 01:36:13,100
And in awe of the life that he had lived.

1341
01:36:18,981 --> 01:36:20,858
Paul was incredibly brave.

1342
01:36:56,936 --> 01:36:58,312
All this different stuff...

1343
01:37:00,105 --> 01:37:01,524
all these different emotions,

1344
01:37:01,649 --> 01:37:04,985
all these different influences
and factors...

1345
01:37:06,111 --> 01:37:08,113
stuff that I saw when I was little...

1346
01:37:09,198 --> 01:37:13,911
I felt like I could somehow
give that back.

1347
01:37:15,871 --> 01:37:19,834
I felt like a good collector of it all.

1348
01:37:22,753 --> 01:37:25,172
I was like a good vessel for it all.

1349
01:37:27,716 --> 01:37:30,761
Nothing would, like, stop me.

1350
01:37:30,845 --> 01:37:34,390
Nothing would deter me
that it would be pure in every way

1351
01:37:34,473 --> 01:37:39,979
and I think that’s what it was.
That’s part of why I feel so proud of it

1352
01:37:40,062 --> 01:37:41,730
is because I...

1353
01:37:44,441 --> 01:37:46,819
I delivered that. I lived up to that,

1354
01:37:46,902 --> 01:37:51,282
not just for you, but for myself.

1355
01:37:52,241 --> 01:37:53,534
I'm flying.

1356
01:38:02,459 --> 01:38:04,003
I am the luckiest...

1357
01:38:05,087 --> 01:38:07,798
Boy in the world

1358
01:38:08,257 --> 01:38:09,884
The birds all envy me.

1359
01:38:10,593 --> 01:38:13,512
Because I’m Pee-wee

1360
01:38:14,471 --> 01:38:19,101
If you’re lucky like me, boys and girls,
all your dreams are going to come true.

1361
01:38:20,519 --> 01:38:22,104
Because guess what, kids?

1362
01:38:24,273 --> 01:38:25,858
I said, guess what, kids?

1363
01:38:26,025 --> 01:38:27,651
What?

1364
01:38:28,569 --> 01:38:30,905
I'm gonna share all my luck with you.

1365
01:38:32,990 --> 01:38:34,283
I’m Pee-wee Herman.

1366
01:38:35,534 --> 01:38:37,494
I’m the luckiest boy in the world.

1367
01:38:39,914 --> 01:38:42,708
Goodbye. Goodbye, boys and girls.