Paul Reubens Never Got the Critical Reappraisal He Deserved
On Monday afternoon, the official Instagram account of writer and performer Paul Reubens released a statement that he’d passed away the previous day, the lamentable conclusion to a cancer diagnosis he’d kept private for six years. The tragic suddenness of his death at a still-too-young 70 was matched by the ardor of his many swift tributes, as fans and comedy luminaries alike waxed sentimental on all that the singular oddball best known for the hyperactive man-boy Pee-wee Herman meant to them. Anecdotes recalled his random acts of kindness, far past the scope of celebrity noblesse oblige to a steadfast, true magnanimity. Conan O’Brien and Scott Aukerman took to social media with heartfelt words reiterating that neither O’Brien’s various late-night stints nor Aukerman’s cult-beloved Comedy Bang! Bang! TV series could exist without the influence of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Just about everyone he ever met fondly recalled Reubens’ diligent tracking of birthdays, which he always commemorated with a barrage of texted memes and vintage cartoon clips of cakes to the face. By all accounts, he never missed a Christmas card.
The horrible thing about death is how it always makes the resultant outpouring of affection for the deceased feel insufficient and tardy. For Reubens in particular, the homage paid to him comes with the sad sting of too little, too late. He’d kept himself occupied in the period prior to his illness with a steady-ish stream of lower-profile TV gigs, cameos, and voice work, some of it decidedly memorable, like the Hapsburg prince deformed from generations of inbreeding that he played in one episode of 30 Rock. But it was all a far cry from his ’80s heyday, when he appeared in cinemas, on magazine covers, and, while keeping character as Herman, on the Saturday Night Live stage that rejected Reubens’ own audition years earlier.
As a burnt-out Reubens prepared to turn out the Playhouse lights, his career arc was thrown off course by one arrest in 1991 and then permanently derailed by a second in 2002, both of which sullied the mainstream image of a wholesome children’s entertainer. Pee-wee Herman was never Mr. Rogers, however, and the narrative of his downfall isn’t so clear-cut either. Regrettably, if any significant revisions are to be made, they’ll now have to be posthumous.