The Dark Pee-Wee Herman Movie That Never Made It To The Big Screen
Paul Reubens' Pee-wee Herman wasn't always kid friendly.
My introduction to the most lovable dweeb in the history of dweebs came via "The Pee-wee Herman Show," the stage show that, in 1981, announced Reubens as the most inventively bizarre comedic talent since Ernie Kovacs. The production caught fire at Los Angeles' Groundlings theater, and eventually moved to the Roxy, where a performance was taped as an HBO special. I was eight years old when I saw a promo for the special, and I was both excited and perplexed. Why was something this zany and childlike airing at 10 PM, which was, with few exceptions, exactly my bedtime?
Fortunately, one of those exceptions was the weekend, when I was allowed to stay up for "Saturday Night Live." While 11:30 PM was a tall order for an eight-year-old who woke up early for cartoons, 10 PM was doable. Honestly, any excuse to skip "Fantasy Island" was welcome. Also fortunate, it looked so silly, my parents didn't see the need to be content monitors.
While I wouldn't call "The Pee-wee Herman Show" dirty, it was most definitely risque. I was especially struck by the shoe-mirrors bit where Pee-wee and his pal Hammy affix reflectors to their sneakers to look up Hammy's sister's skirt. When she announces she's not wearing underwear, they recoil in disgust.
Reubens, who passed away from cancer today at the age of 70, wasn't afraid to go a little dark with Pee-wee, so it made sense that, when Judd Apatow came calling in 2010, the comedian wanted to take the character back to his R-rated roots. But I'm still surprised by just how dark he wanted to go.
The druggy downfall of Pee-wee Herman
In a 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Reubens revealed that he clashed with Apatow over the concept for 2016's "Pee-wee's Big Holiday." This was to be the character's triumphant return to movies, so Apatow wanted something more in line with the campy joviality of the previous films, especially "Pee-wee's Big Adventure." Apatow eventually got what he wanted, which resulted in a nice if not particularly memorable sequel.
Had Reubens won out, we would've gotten "The Pee-wee Herman Story." According to Reubens, the screenplay, a draft of which he completed in the late 1990s, would've been wildly dark. The story begins with Pee-wee being released from prison, whereupon he becomes a yodeling superstar. Movie stardom beckons, and Pee-wee successfully answers Hollywood's siren call. Alas, our beloved Pee-wee gets addicted to pills and booze, which transforms him into a horrible, abusive human being. Reubens told THR that his reference point for this project was Mark Robson's adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's garishly cautionary showbiz novel, "Valley of the Dolls." "It's about fame," he said.
An unrealized (potential) masterpiece
But it wouldn't have been a betrayal. The brat who dreamt up shoe mirrors clearly had more than a bit of cad in him. And the way he berated his friends who attended a meeting to help him recover his stolen bicycle hinted at a monstrousness that could go positively nuclear if fed by the ego-inflating toxicity of movie stardom.
Pee-wee Herman could be a bastard, which I think was a crucial part of his appeal. We're all the center of our own universes, but none of us could ever inhabit this space as gleefully and brazenly as Pee-wee. For a time, Reubens found this charming. As he got older, he saw the potential for Pee-wee to be a sad, awful, overgrown child. I don't know how this would've played out, and I hate not knowing. Reubens was a genius, and his masterpiece will forever remain incomplete.