To me, it is fascinating.
The program (two long-ish episodes) was made with Pee-Wee's (Paul Rubens) permission and input, and started well before his death two year ago.
The filmmakers did not know that Rubens had been fighting cancer for six years.
Rubens was extensively interviewed and while he's not running the documentary, he's kind of running the show.
During his interviews, he somewhat takes over and is naturally funny, but in a Rubens way, not necessarily a Pee-Wee one.
And that differential is important.
Rubens toys again and again with the director on his confidence in this process. As it turns out, there is truth in humour.
I happened upon Pee-Wee in multiple David Letterman appearances way back in the early '80s. He was a delight to watch and loved Letterman's interactions with him. But from there it was to his movie, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and then to his Saturday television show.
I'd probably seen Rubens before on one of his many appearances on the Gong Show (but not as Pee-Wee).
Admittedly, I tried watching his first HBO special from the early '80s, before the movie or series, but I didn't find it that funny or that watchable. And it was poorly filmed.
But in this doc, it shows how Rubens became Pee-Wee. And I mean, BECAME Pee-Wee. To a point there was no Rubens.
They do the rise, the peak, the fall, all the things documentaries are made of. But it's a well-paced film and was interesting to me. And 710. I was glad they touched on post Pee-Wee, like Rubens in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie, not the show) and some other things. Sadly, they did not have his 30 Rock appearance, which was HI-larious.
Rubens's family was very supportive of him when coming out (before he admittedly went fully back into the closet for Pee-Wee). It was great to see that kind of emotional support back then.
Rubens opened up all his personal affects and collections to the filmmaker. Unfortunately, they never said what happened to all the thousands of times after his death. It'd be a great museum.
I loved how they went into the creation of the Playhouse. They did a lot of detail on the first episode, but that was it. They left out how the writing and creation came to be. There is a lot on the visuals. They also never reveal (here) that Cyndi Lauper was actually the one singing the show's theme song. Lauper finally admitted it around the time of this film's release.
Of course there are a number of people talking about Rubens and Pee-Wee. Reba the Mail Lady. Cowboy Curtis. Jambi. Captain Carl. King of Cartoons. Miss Yvonne. Chairy. Or the woman / puppeteer inside of Chairy. Many of them post-mortem at this point. ......oh, and for some reason Debi Mazar.
She's a great hanger-oner. Pee Wee and Madonna. I was kind of annoyed at her talk on how Rubens was finally back to himself years after the bust in the Sarasota adult theater, when she didn't know Rubens before that.
Overall, this was extremely well done, but I think you'll find, like most things Pee-Wee related, Rubens has almost total control, including this documentary - whether the director agrees or not.
The two episodes are a little over three hours long, but I found it entertaining and worth it.
Movie: 04 of 12
Song by: Rosanne Cash
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