8 years after The Incident, comic's back with new film
By BOB THOMPSON -- Toronto Sun
NEW YORK -- Eight years after his fall from grace, Pee-wee Herman's Paul Reubens tries to be thoughtful and philosophical.
"I love being famous and I don't, but there should be a little seminar to explain the possible problems," says 47-year-old Reubens, a less clownish version of Pee-wee, relaxing at a Manhattan hotel recently.
On July 26, 1991, Reubens was just plain infamous. The Pee-wee Herman creator was arrested in a Sarasota, Fla. adult theatre "caught in the act." Reubens was subsequently fined $50 for indecent exposure, and ordered to do 75 hours of community service.
His blossoming career seemed to be ruined.
Reubens and his comic alter ego Pee-wee Herman disappeared from public view after that. "I definitely did," admits Reubens. "Yeah, I needed to, and I had to."
Although he didn't disappear right away. Weeks after the arrest, Reubens, as Pee-wee, showed up at the MTV Awards and asked the audience: "Heard any good jokes lately?"
That kind of self-deprecating humour helped him survive for almost four years while he pulled himself together.
"Paul's life was destroyed by fame and the media," maintains Janeane Garofalo, a friend and co-star in the upcoming movie, Mystery Men. "He was crucified for no reason. It's always the nicest people, the lambs who are led to the slaughter."
His recovery process has been slow. Reubens appeared as a smarmy TV exec on Murphy Brown in a recurring role in 1995. He also had film parts in Dunston Checks In and Matilda.
Mystery Men, about loser blue collar superheroes, opens Friday, and is another step toward Reubens becoming high-profile again.
He's even in the early stages of developing a movie on the Pee-wee Herman Story. "It's a fake autobiography," he says, flashing that famous Pee-wee Herman grin.
He's also preparing a TV show called Meet The Muckles, dealing with a family of oddballs.
Meanwhile, Reubens is resigned to the fact that everybody loves Pee-wee Herman.
After all, he had two hit movies, and his TV series, Pee-wee's Playhouse, earned 39 Emmys, including three for Reubens' Pee-wee performance.
The Pee-wee character is still popular. For instance, the Mystery Men cast, including Garofalo, Hank Azaria, Greg Kinnear, William H. Macy and Ben Stiller, were always doing their best Pee-wee impersonations.
Fans would hang around the L.A. set, too. Despite his heavy makeup and bizarre costume as The Spleen, they'd always know who he really was.
"I'd have all the zits and the hair of my character, and people would still come up to me on the set and say, 'Hey, it's Pee- wee.' "
Then he'd go back to work as the superhero who uses gas-passing as his weapon.
"I'd feel so cheap and dirty because it's such an easy way to get a
laugh," he says. "Can you imagine? I'd spend the day farting in
Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush's face."