“Broadway” was the secret word for this evening’s conversation between Paul Reubens, the creator of Pee-wee Herman, who is bringing “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” to Broadway (Aaaaaaaaah!) this month, and Susan Morrison, the articles editor of The New Yorker, before a few hundred hard-core Pee-weeheads—including one blonde who, at the end of the evening, showed the rest of us a portrait of Pee-wee tattooed on her right calf.
Over the course of the conversation, Reubens described the roots of various aspects of his best known character:
The voice? Reubens said it evolved over a few months, while he was playing the second-oldest son in a production of “Life with Father,” in Florida, where he grew up after spending his first nine years in New York State. “After three months I had this cartoon voice,” said Reubens. “It was further proof I was a bad actor.”
The suit? Gary Austin, the founder of the Groundlings, the Los Angeles comedy troupe that Reubens belonged to, gave him a gray glen plaid suit as he was beginning to develop the character.
The shoes? They first appeared in a sketch Reubens performed with John Paragon, who played Jambi on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” It wasn’t from the early Reubens-Paragon sketch screened this evening, in which they played Al and Arnie, two obese men just back from the day-old-bread store. That sketch did, however, contain an early example of Reubens’s penchant for the -y suffix: “Chocolatey!” he exclaims after eating a cupcake.
Jambi? It was the name of a sandwich shop on Hollywood Boulevard, Reubens said.
The dance? “No, never mind,” Reubens said. Without waiting for us to protest, he went on: “My dad had a dirty joke and I don’t remember the punchline, but it involved switching—are there kids in the audience?” There were, a couple, but he kept going. “The joke was something you put one thumb in your”—Reubens mouthed a word and pointed behind himself—“and one in your mouth, and then you switch.”
Photograph: Blake Eskin.