Pee-wee Herman Part 2 with Jamie Loftus

Feels like adults were more upset maybe than kids ever were. Welcome to Your Wrong About. I'm Sarah Marshall, and here we are in part two of learning about Pee Wee Herman, aka Paul Rubens. And we're, of course, learning about the character and the man. with author, comedian, and podcaster extraordinaire, Jamie Loftus. I'm so happy to be bringing you part two of this episode. I loved this conversation. I feel so lucky to have been able to have it.

and to pass it on to you. And now, here's the show. But we're getting ahead of ourselves because before that, before the TV show comes Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Oh, my God. Yes. 1985. So it's fascinating that it was a movie first and then TV. I think I really thought it was the other way around. Yeah. So it was a movie, then TV, then a movie and then nothing for a long time. Again, Paul has, as with everything he ever made, he was really, really involved in every...

part of production. But he gets into this in the documentary. A source of frustration for him is that it's starring Pee Wee Herman. But all the work is being done under the name Paul Rubens. So it's confusing. He feels like he he feels like and again, it's like one of his things of jealousy of. This is also Tim Burton's first movie that he ever directed when he was like 28, which try not to think too hard about it.

And the two of them get connected via Shelley Duvall, which is incredible, because she was in his short film, Frank and Weenie.

oh yeah yeah so they so shelly and and paul are friends because i don't know how but of course they are of course they are they go to the same juice place or something exactly and um so he gets connected with tim burton tim burton directs the movie and Paul feels that he gets most of the credit and that his career benefits more than Paul's because it says directed by Tim Burton, written by...

you know paul rubens who's that but no one knows who that is right because he's done it's that like classic thing of like he's done such a good job at becoming peewee that it becomes kind of a liability

And this is something that comes up for him again and again. But off of the movie, he gets the TV show that aired on Saturday mornings on CBS from 1986 to... 1990. It's the greatest kid show of all time. It's so special. And luckily, people generally agreed on this.

almost immediately successful it was the number two show on saturday morning this is like peak saturday morning cartoons it was um can you guess what was the one children's show more popular than peewee's playhouse in 1987 happen oh boy this feels tough um my little pony it is the smurfs of course yeah the smurfs were huge i guess yeah but i read a lot of the early like

writing and criticism around, I mean, there wasn't a lot of criticism, but part of the reason that parents really liked this, and I didn't really connect this, was it was refreshing because there were jokes that were just for the parents. And every time I hear that, every time I hear it, like and there's jokes for parents i immediately and embarrassingly am like oh like shrek you know that's that was the point yeah yeah but

Like Shrek, there's jokes for adults, but the real appeal of it for some TV critics was that it was not based off of existing intellectual property. Yeah. I mean, and if you look at 80s... Cartoons, it does seem like most of them were based on toys. Care Bears, G.I. Joe, like Smurfs. It's all of this like there's this feeling in all of the TV criticism I was reading from that time that most critics and parents were like.

Oh, my God. And the reason that was happening and I didn't know this is because there was a change to FCC laws in 1984. I'm pulling this from the Buffalo News. Yes. Buffalo News in 1987.

Until 1984, the FCC regulated programs and commercials for young viewers. Since it stopped, there has been an onslaught of commercial-oriented cartoon shows for action figures and other toys. Since deregulation, the National Coalition on Television Violence reports the number of war cartoons has jumped from a few hours a week to 43 hours a week.

The NCTV said the increase in is almost entirely due to toy companies using cartoons to sell various lines of war toys. How else will we brainwash children into supporting Reagan in the Iran-Contra scandal? Exactly. Maybe the government can do something to clean up kids TV. But if not, at least Pee Wee's Playhouse provides a worthwhile alternative to the other shows. So people are also just like, this is the one show on the Saturday morning TV block that isn't trying to sell me something.

But at least but it's like the bar is like, well, at least it wasn't conceived of so that it could be made into a toy. Exactly. Exactly. Like, so it's very, very successful.

It's the number two show. It has a really unusually high budget because Paul was really adamant that they... you know, keep the production budget high. It's really also the only live action show on a Saturday morning block as well. Yeah, so this this continues for basically all five seasons of the show. There's also a second thing. There's also a second movie that comes out that I've only seen once. It's not very good. It's called Big Top Pee Wee.

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't do great. Paul's disappointed, but ultimately it doesn't affect the success of the TV show. So we'll kind of glaze over that. And Peewee's Big Adventure is basically like... It's a big adventure. He kind of has a hero's journey, right? He has to get his bike back. Exactly. To travel across America.

Big Top Pee Wee is more based on like Pollyanna where it's like, we got to get the town together. It's very circus based. Like you can see why he was sad because he's pulling it from all the stuff he loved when he was a kid. But sorry, Paul, the movie was not very good. Love means telling the truth. But the show is super successful. Another one of my favorite fun facts about it is that, you know, they would do the king of cartoons would come and introduce.

the cartoon of the week, which sometimes would just be an old cartoon in the public domain. But it was also the first consistent animation gig for the creator of one of my favorite cartoons, Hey Arnold. There are these shorts called Penny Cartoons on Pee Wee's Playhouse that was created by Craig Bartlett as well. So there's like this very I feel like it's most often like the Dana Carvey show is considered like this launching point for all of these.

successful creative people. But PeeWee ends up launching a lot of people. Including Tim Burton, the creator of Hey Arnold. He's a big part of Laurence Fishburne becoming more mainstream successful. Like all these people, you know. Phil Hartman right because he's like a theater guy I feel like before that yeah

Well, and I was thinking of Hey Arnold earlier because Arnold is also like a child who also has like the most incredible, cool, basically adult living space that you could possibly imagine. Yeah.

of arnold is kind of like different where he's like a child who is an adult like he is yeah he's so mature he's kind of the bizarro peewee yeah and also that he like lives in a boarding house with his grandparents so he's like kind of a free agent you know who's like and he's like a kid about the city it's a little bit of a noir even it kind of is yeah arnold i mean

Also a show I loved, but he lived in the real world. Oh, yeah. Arnold had to like deal with bureaucracy and stuff. It was exhausting. It's brutal. It's the Hey Arnold Christmas episode where Mr. Wynn gets reunited with his daughter after they were separated during the Vietnam War. I'm like... because a callous adult won't do it unless Arnold can get Nancy Spumoni snow boots and because for adults everything has a price but oh my god yeah it's I love crying at that episode it's so beautiful

and yeah i guess very different for peewee which is weird which is why it's weird that they're connected but but they are yeah they support each other you know they're like each other's force soulmates like I don't know What's Her Ass and Kylo Ren. Oh, my God. Yeah. But so the show lasts for five seasons, including an incredible Christmas special. Have you seen the Pee Wee Christmas special?

No, I have not. And I can kick myself. You would fucking lose it for this Christmas special. I can't wait to lose it. Which is why it's so funny that in retrospect, people are like, I wonder if he was... Involved in the queer community because listen to the list of guests on this show. It also starts with him singing a welcome song in front of these like hot Navy guys.

of course so for moment one you're you're like okay we're we're locked in i'm here um okay here are the people who are in the christmas special that are not just peewee joan rivers dinah shore Zsa Zsa Gabor, Oprah Winfrey, Little Richard, Katie Lang, Cher, Charo, Whoopi Goldberg, Grace Jones.

yes Frankie Avalon there we go Annette Funicello like just queer icons top to bottom like oh it's he he made it to kind of bounce back from being disappointed about big top peewee and it is so worth and it's so good i feel like the weirdest part of the story is because that somebody got to do what they wanted to do creatively and that they were able to do it and it was just on tv and people loved it until until inevitably yeah

Until so I think one of the big important things to correct that I think is misremembered in general. I definitely remembered it. this way is that paul rubens is arrested in 1991 it is often portrayed that it was because of this arrest that the show was canceled that is not true even though As time goes on, that would be reported more and more, even though at the time it's not true.

paul decided it's just like the brain seeking cause and effect and then one newspaper does it so the others copy it or something i yeah or just i i don't or people just don't give a shit i don't know but like yeah as a historian i give a shit And Paul decided to end the show after five seasons. I love that. He was really burned out. He was exhausted and was like, I think that we had a good run, but I'm ready to end it. And I just love.

stories like that, ending a show on your own terms. It's like, oh, what a privilege. What an incredible thing to be able to do. Yeah. Yeah. And also to be able to resist.

you know, being sort of bribed to do more of it. And like, look, I know we all know Gary Seinfeld is terrible, but I do appreciate as, as you know, I dream in Seinfeld sometimes and like, Seinfeld is probably one of the only shows to have been ended on purpose by the people who made it when it was like... the top show in the country which it was you know yeah it's like you have to be able to walk away from something yeah I think and of course we're seeing like

the effects of you know and we really can really just blame studios and corporations for this mostly but this thing of like having something that audience is like and then giving it to them so hard and refusing to make anything else until everyone just like cannot stand you anymore movies are being made by like the worst kind of casino gambler which is somebody who just like stands at the slot machine for 14 hours because they

have to keep going because surely this will work out if we just keep doing it as opposed to like you know especially in in entertainment which is a creative field ultimately to sort of be like I am the person who makes this and I i i don't i don't have anything anymore and i don't want to do a final season of game of thrones i think it's just rare to be able to like have dignity

As a professional creative person at all. And this feels like a rare instance of getting like, I also think of like Nathan for you. I'm pretty sure insecure was ended in that way. Fleabag where you're just like, this is all there is to the story.

Yeah, the story is over. You can't make me make more story because you paid me too much. And I love that. Because stories really do like they just end. And then you if they're truly over, you cannot do anything more with them, I really think. And Pee Wee could have gone on forever, but it was. Like he was done. He was done. And he's peewee. So, you know, no one can replace him because and I know that because many have tried. And when you think about it, this is.

very clear because uh the show ends at the end of 1990 and paul um who Was never estranged from his family, but hadn't been able to spend a lot of time with them since becoming very famous for like basically 10 straight years. Yeah. Wow. Goes back to Florida to spend time with his family. And it is while he is spending time with his family.

in the i think the summer of 1991 that he is arrested in sarasota this is like the most famous incident and so i want to just get into exactly why i mean it's obvious he was arrested at a gay porn theater in sarasota possibly the same one he was arrested at when he was 18 years old but he is arrested of course as paul rubens but the public doesn't really know who paul rubens is

They know who Pee Wee Herman is. Right. He's the man who doesn't exist. Right. But now all of a sudden Paul Rubens does exist and everyone's mad at him. So what exactly happened here is and I. Do appreciate that the residents of Sarasota are like, no, hold on, because he is arrested allegedly, which he denies. And I believe him that he was.

exposed or like you're jerking off in a porn theater essentially which to be clear like even if a person does do that it is kind of the best place to do it yeah who fucking cares like he wasn't even if he did do it he wasn't the only person to do it that hour and also right if this were a straight porn theater it would be a very different conversation obviously

So there's already this homophobic witch hunt aspect to it. But the way they explain it is just so fucking weird. Because they're saying there are no fewer than three Sarasota undercover cops.

In this porn theater. Yeah. What's the story there? In the middle of the day, the two movies showing were called Nancy Nurse and Turn Up the Heat. And they were just waiting to... see someone jerking off like it's very unclear also at the time paul like paul denies that he he doesn't deny being at the theater but he was like i wasn't jerking off in the theater and there was if it had gone to trial which it didn't

His lawyer said that they had footage of like security footage of Paul in the lobby at the time that these three cops were for some reason. looking for people jerking off at a theater which should be illegal like it's it's so fucking weird um and i was like following this story like day to day because it unfolds over the course of a couple of days at First, it's just the news that breaks. And CBS is quiet about it because the show, they're no longer airing new episodes.

But they are still airing reruns. And so the decision is, do we continue to air reruns? At first, there's a CBS executive that's like, yeah, that's like... We'll probably keep airing it. But within a day, it's when his mugshot comes out that the tide changes on him significantly because he doesn't look like Pee Wee Herman. He's got longer hair. He's been he hasn't been working for a couple months.

he's a human man he's hanging out in florida he looks like a different person and it seems like that had a in that mugshot being so everywhere yeah is what interestingly and again I viewed this very differently it doesn't turn his fans against him really it doesn't turn his friends, family, or most TV critics against him. It turns the network against him. CBS, after the mugshot is released, polls.

reruns of the show which only would have been running for another two months so it's also very like manufactured crisis right disney i guess that he had uh like he had a video at one of the roller coasters or some shit They pull that and make a big deal about it. And there's these like classic Sarah Marshall canon, like two narratives that develop.

among tv critics uh one of which i have like a couple headlines here there's one in the el paso herald post that says help kids separate peewee herman and actor and i'm like help Paul Rubin separate Pee Wee Herman and actor. So why do your kids need to hear about any of this? That's a big question. Listen to how I was like, were these conversations happening? I certainly hope not. An elementary school child might be told.

that police say Rubens broke the law by touching his private parts in a movie theater, but that the allegation has to be checked out further. She noted that a child may reply, if the police said he did it, didn't he really do it? I would explain that this is very complicated. It's a weird way to teach civil rights. The point is that just because the police or media say somebody did something, that doesn't make it true.

Dr. Alberto Serrano, a child psychiatrist who is the medical director of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center, said parents should deal with children's disappointment that somebody they like is accused of doing something wrong. If a child wonders whether he can believe in anything, This is so interesting that they're like, how to talk to your child about Pee Wee Herman?

I don't know. And I mean, I get that it's like a very strange moment as a parent, presumably, because kids do hear stuff. I don't really think that they're having school year conversations involving the word allegations necessarily. But, you know, that like they talk and. the tv is on and everything but

A from an adult perspective, which I don't think we had at the time because we were in the sort of like George Bush family values. Murphy Brown can't have a baby era of like sex is terrible and we're terrified of it. Also.

Paul Reubens is on Murphy Brown. He has an arc. There you go. Fornicators. It does feel like we're at a moment at a nation of being like... particularly scared of sex and particularly puritanical yeah but also that like i imagine as a parent if you have a child who's like pre-adolescent you're like i don't really want to have to talk about this topic and like introduce it

this way because it's like not necessarily something that you can or should process depending on your age right as a fan of this show so it's like as an as adults we should have been able to be like well if you did do it then like who fucking cares who cares right but you're You're forced to sort of like have all these like weird parent conversations, I guess, as part of it. Although I don't know how many people had to be having. That's the other thing you're like.

Is this like adults were more upset maybe than kids ever were? It's it definitely seems that way. And that was another thing that I was learning through this because there are plenty of TV critics. who stand up for him and blame CBS. This is from the LA Daily News. Sorry, kids, but business is business. Sure, CBS had basked gladly in the acclaim accorded to the stylishly stylized postmodern children's show because it had won.

like at least a dozen Emmys in its run. It won a ton of awards. They were like, my God, we're doing great prestige. Sure. It was Rubens, not Peewee, who was arrested. Sure. There's room for debate as to whether what he is accused of doing is actually a crime. but it didn't matter. The lesson children can take from this is that if you make a mistake or are simply accused of making a mistake, you will pay dearly.

Even if the judicial system eventually supports Rubin's claims disputing the police version of what went on in the theater and he is found not guilty, the arrest ensures he'll never again be found innocent. And innocence was a big part of Pee-wee's charm. So he essentially blames the network for buying into the narrative, which I think...

And the media for buying into the narrative. We must immediately distance ourselves from this person because that communicates. Yeah. Like a worse outcome than what had happened so far legally. Yeah. And this is I mean, this is completely devastating for Paul because this is also tacitly outing him. Yeah. And in the worst way possible or one of them in the worst way. It's his worst.

nightmare uh his friends are extremely supportive they basically get him out of florida in disguise they're reassuring they're like we're gonna turn this around it's okay but immediately he He says in the documentary, the public has a memory like a steel trap, so don't kid yourself or me about how it works. 30 years later, I still feel those effects all the time.

he's right like that that was still how people and still is how some people talk about him yeah well and the way that I remember my dad describing it with his great grasp of current events was that the guy who played peewee herman was arrested for in reality doing what he was accused of in an adult theater but in my dad's version doing it like at a kids movie and there were kids everywhere because i think that was like not just

my dad but the sort of like homophobia of the time and of the time before of like if you're added as gay then that also you know and of course of today growingly um that means you're also added as someone who's unsafe to be around children or to even make media for them and that you know if you have any kind of allegedly deviant sexuality than like

it's all equally dangerous and that sort of what we were what we were still teaching kids as well at that time and still and still i mean there's so much i think that like the unfortunately the timing of this documentary and also unfortunately for paul because it doesn't seem like he wanted this his life to really exist within this narrative yeah but unfortunately it does where it's like we're seeing that

so frequently with any queer entertainer right now particularly if they're out it's getting harder and harder to maintain a platform as a queer creator because and i mean a parallel to this of course is norm mcdonald getting fired from saturday night live to my understanding because he made too many oj simpson jokes on weekend update and donald meyer golfed with oj simpson so you can't do that so it's like exhausting you know you will

sponge your name out of our records and stop showing your show if you're accused of doing something uh that's like a bit of a sex scandal but you can kill your wife obviously right i mean that's just a day at the park there that's i did not know that that's so fucked yeah and that you know and maybe nbc has a different story but

I don't believe it. Yeah. But I also just wanted to... talk about like the media narratives this was existing alongside obviously there's still a lot of queer panic in the early 90s but the specific queer panic that we're

looking at here and the story that you see beside this, not in conversation with it. First of all, this is like not funny but like here's this bill cosby did defend paul and i was like we don't need you we don't need you it is wild to see bill cosby uh what is among rubens defenders they are judging a man without the right of due process i was like well i wonder why that's on your mind uh totally different reasons um but the the other story

And then Alan Dershowitz takes the floor. But the other story that you see alongside this one, just because of timing, is Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, my God. Yeah. Jesus Christ. And the Silence of the Lambs is in theaters. Like queer panic is very, very high right now. And you'll often there were a few different examples I saw of. Paul Rubens and Jeffrey Dahmer mentioned in the same sentence. And this will happen to Paul again in the early 2000s, where it is just a hyper conflation of like Paul.

Obviously, even if he did what he was accused of, which it sounds like he didn't, didn't hurt anybody. But he's being held alongside a serial killer. And it's done very... Matter of factly, and he is right to say that this irreparably damages his career. Yeah. But.

His fans still love him. There are I didn't know this, but there were protests outside of CBS. They're here. They're queer. They're also afraid of what people are going to say about them and comparing them to serial killers. Well, what's interesting is Paul's queerness doesn't really come into the equation here. It's interesting that there are these protests outside of CBS for Pee Wee.

Not for Paul. There's families, there's kids, there's adult fans of the show that are like, bring back Pee Wee. I love that. I had no idea that that happened. Isn't that nice? Yeah, it was. I mean, there were thousands of calls.

and fan mail that he received. I think if the public had had their way, the show would have been back on. It seems like the network was really outnumbered. Which is interesting because then because of the network just being able to override that, we then... you know, until we go back and look at it more deeply, can easily remember something as like,

We can easily look back and remember it as if the American people spoke with the same voice as CBS executives, which in fact, they so rarely do. Exactly. Yeah, the public reception. I mean, I had no idea that I always thought the whole world.

turned on him right that wasn't even true it was just the people with power turned on him yeah and it doesn't take that many it turns out and i feel like yeah the public memory is so short that we are very quick to conflate the people with power turned on you to everybody turning you it's like all of the resources turned on him basically yeah there are a few moments for him like there is i again another thing i didn't know is that this all happens in

I think like July, that September, he appears as Pee Wee at the VMAs for like 30 seconds. Just and people are losing it. They're so happy he's there. All he says is heard Nika jokes lately and then present something. And it seems like there might be a road back for him, but it's very. unclear in his personal life he becomes really good friends with debbie mazar who's like a character actor who i'm always like what is she most famous for and you could say good fellas but I think of her as, yeah.

hot girl in goodfellas but she's i feel like she's just like her younger too she's i really like what oh well she's like she's an empire records iconically i feel like she's one of those people who's been iconic in like 30 different movies when you add it all up so she she and paul become really close at this time they're close friends till his death and it's it's at this time where he's obviously he's very depressed he's like in the house most of the time there's like the

windows are blacked out for several weeks to avoid paparazzi. And he really relies on his friends. And that I think is like an element of the back half of his life is he became very invested. in friendships i think similar to john waters like he was obsessed with making sure he gave everyone really thoughtful birthday messages which is just one of the most

The best qualities in a person. I wish I were better at it. I know. I tell myself that if you can get like a really thoughtful gift together at any other time of the year, then that kind of balances out. But I don't know. But yeah, it's and also like continuous with the show, you know, where it's like, it seems like if there's something that you learn by example from it, it's to invest in community. No, absolutely.

and he, I think like after having, I think just like honestly the youthful like rivalries and all this stuff, he really, he really sinks himself into.

good friendships because also all of his friendships are tested by this and the friends who stand by him are his basically become his his family um there is a lot of disappointment and still hurt it sounds like based on how he talks in the documentary on his peers who make fun of him there is a a former peewee's playhouse producer that sort of you know

denounces him after this happens. Phil Hartman makes jokes at his expense. Sam Kinison says he should be executed. Oh, get it together, Sam Kinison. I mean, just, you know, Kevin Nealon, Soupy Sales. jim carrey like there's all of these his peers because you become material suddenly exactly and paul I would say he neither forgives nor forgets in these situations. And so the friends who stick by him, he really does everything he can to care for them.

He becomes really good friends with David Arquette, which becomes important later in his life. Did you know David Arquette is bozo? No. Well, guess what, Sarah? David Arquette is Bozo. What iteration of Bozo? What's Bozo? The current one. My friend saw him as Bozo last weekend. What? He's around. This is huge. David Arquette is Bozo. is one of my favorite sentences. To be clear, Bozo is like an eternal being who is played by different people at different times, basically.

Yes. So I was, I was weirdly very, I don't know. I think it's because it's connected to the Bob Baker marionette theater, which is like in not my neighborhood, but I performed there a lot. And there was this big story. like last year, maybe a couple years ago, where David Arquette...

And Billy Corgan were trying to buy the rights to Bozo the Clown because you can't just perform as Bozo. You got it. You got to buy it. You got to franchise it. And so they were like really trying to buy the rights to Bozo so that David Arquette could be Bozo. And they did it. And now David Arquette is Bozo. And sometimes he's around town playing Bozo. That's just kind of what he's up to right now. He's doing Bozo, you know?

For the next couple of years, Paul very much like his career is never as big as it was in the late 80s again. But he continues to work and do really like he. does a lot of smaller iconic roles. He's in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's how he meets David Arquette. He plays the Penguin's father in Batman Returns with Tim Burton again.

So he kind of falls into his friends who stood by him and works with them. And that's how he's able to. He has an arc on Murphy Brown. He appears a lot on Joan Rivers show. And this is.

kind of how he continues through the 90s. And then so into the early 2000s, by the early 2000s, he is starting to step out more. It seems like the public is like... we miss peewee they they re-release peewee on dvd it's being shown on adult swim people are like maybe it's time maybe it's time for more paul he hosts this game show on nbc as a character

I don't know. I can send you a clip of it. But he plays a character named Troy Stevens. And people were like, hmm, okay. He's in the movie Blow. I remember that, weirdly. That's the first thing I remember seeing him in. I've never seen Blow. It's not that good. But like I people like that. And then he starts talking about coming back as Pee Wee. He talks about these few scripts that never come to pass. He has an idea for something that I was like, oh, man.

I wish he'd gotten to do that. He wanted to do basically a like black comedy mockumentary about how Pee Wee came to be. And had the script since the 80s. And he said that it's not dissimilar to Valley of the Dolls. I was like, what do you mean? He has one that is like a Wizard of Oz kind of journey thing. He has all of these ideas.

and he starts being like what if peewee came back you guys and everyone was like we would love that we would love that but uh that does not happen and this i don't remember at all even though it's the peewee indiscretion public narrative that I was alive for. But he's doing basically just mostly sitcom bit parts until late 2002. when he is in the middle of doing a bit part in an Elton John music video.

His house is raided by the LAPD. This was not something that I was familiar with until I think he passed. Like I definitely knew everyone knew about the porn theater.

narrative which by the way i should say foreclosure for that he pleaded no contest pay like paid a 50 fine was technically like you know they said if it had gone to trial he would have been found innocent because there was that footage of him in the fucking lobby oh my god but the public didn't forget so the first thing doesn't even go to trial he pleads no contest of course not

Yeah, I would apply to this. There was more children's education centered on this as a lesson and innocent until proven guilty. We can bring that up more in the curriculums. But man, yeah. And of course, that part of the story is the part we don't know. Yeah, right. But in late 2002, this is this is the one that I think really kind of breaks his spirit for. And it's on his mind for the rest of his life. His house is raided by the LAPD because there were reports of child.

pornography at his home the story that this is presented alongside is jeffrey jones these two these they're presented as again equal offenses right so i'm just going to read from the original report so you can hear how it was reported yeah A year-old pornography investigation has led to the filing of criminal charges against two Hollywood actors, Paul Rubens and Jeffrey Jones. Rubens was charged with one misdemeanor count of possessing materials depicting children.

under the age of 18 engaged in sexual conduct. He surrendered to authorities Friday and was released on $20,000 bail. Jeffrey. Jones was charged with hiring a 14 year old boy to pose for sexually explicit photos of felony as well as misdemeanor possession of child pornography. So these charges are. very different in their severity. Jeffrey Jones and Paul Rubens, it sounds like they had met the story. The story is honestly unclear, but...

With regards to Paul, I think it definitely hurts him that Jeffrey Jones committed a felony. He committed child abuse. Paul's is much... harder to kind of pin down and yeah so as he explains it as his lawyers explained it um and as david arquette aka bozo explains it as bozo himself and we must trust bozo and i want to be like careful with how i talk about this because i know that

I know your listeners know this, but I don't mean to minimize any of this, but I feel it does come back to a homophobic witch hunt for Paul. For years, he and... David Arquette, AKA Bozo were like, Paul was really into collecting vintage pop culture stuff. And so what they would often do is go to flea markets, go to whatever places where you could get.

boxes of old magazines and he would buy boxes of old magazines and he had a lot of old magazines at his house and it was uh the investigation involved The LAPD, in an incredible use of their time, as always. Once again, yeah, and to continue our theme. Goes through over 30,000 photos, bits of footage, all of this stuff.

after months and months of this they find two images that are considered questionable both of which are determined to not actually be photos of underage people okay and was very unlikely that paul had ever even accessed it because it was deep in these boxes of stuff so this is a far more complicated like the 1991 thing is

pretty fucking cut and dry like yeah this is a more severe accusation um but just from what i've been able to gather it it's there's there's nothing to it and and paul is is devastated

And basically, it's an attempt to sort of comb through everything in the hopes of finding something and ultimately, finally...

saying, well, I guess we didn't, but we sure did try. But it's too late. The damage is done. And then being connected to somebody who very manifestly... did it and was an abuser yeah and had a like pretty clear intent and also as you said actually took it out of that realm into actual child abuse and again to sort of be like connected or sort of positioned as if there is a connection between you and someone who is...

demonstrably very dangerous when yeah it's you know despite attempts nobody has uncovered that information about you no and yeah i would not i would uh i would go i would not seek out public life at that point either i'll just say a peewee innocent peewee innocent peewee is innocent but this breaks him it affects his life in every single way because now he is being accused of because he was a former

children's entertainer and now he's being framed as an abuser of children yeah he's really close with he had the same assistant for uh 40 years about um and is a huge part was a huge part of her child's life and had to like could only be supervised with her for years so so this

It seems like it really breaks the spirit. This does go to trial. And what happens, and I'm sure you have examples of this. I wish I had more time to do a little bit more research on the history of just obscenity laws. What ends up happening... is he is sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor account of, quote, possessing obscene materials of minors engaged in sexual conduct. Based off of these two pictures deep in boxes in his house, which he still objects to.

And his lawyers still object to because he was like, they were not photos of underage people and I had never accessed the material. But that is what he ends up pleading guilty to, which means. that he has to register as a sex offender. And again, like, I understand if people find that objectionable, but I would also, again, point out that, like, there's such a difference, you know, intent, I think, is...

meaningfully, at least in theory, such a big part of any functioning legal system, including this one. And there's such a world of difference between seeking out images depicting minors in such a context and buying publications especially at quantity that you don't have the capacity to before you purchase go through and evaluate or really anyway a lot of the time of determining

that everything was produced ethically and, you know, is on the up and up and that everyone is over 18. This is famously a problem with Tracy Lords, his career because she made so many porn movies before. I feel like an old person saying porn movies. I don't know. But she acted in a lot of porn before she turned 18. And so retroactively, all of that became, I think, technically child pornography, but nobody involved in making it. Well, probably, I mean, you know.

I'm sure people, I'm sure there were whispers, but she had forged materials. She had, you know, had an age that she was pretending to be. It's just what happened. It's how things went. And so retroactively things fall into a different category. Once people know what they know, then they seem to initially. So just to say that it's nothing about his intent, I think.

very clearly was proved by the case or what he had in his house. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, again, it's like, if you feel differently, that's totally, I mean, I. I think it's such a difficult thing to talk about because everyone's going to react to the story differently. It's very personal. But pursuing less detail is not the answer. Yeah. I think in a state of fear, we can be persuaded to consent to having less information, but we always need more.

And what I think is indisputable is that there were very political reasons for doing this. It was done by a recently elected city attorney named Rocky de Kadia, who had stated that child welfare was one of his big issues. And at this point, Paul Rubens was a, you know, proven to be a viable public punching bag. Like this was this was an easy win for the city attorney. And so I have a lot of cynicism about it.

And it was extremely difficult and painful for him not to mention that after this, he ends up his father who is in the IDF. His father's dying. Paul goes down to Florida and is his caretaker for the end of his life, which. Makes me cry. I didn't know that he did that. And I was like, we're like the same. But his dad is actively dying.

As this obscenity case is going on. And so he has to go back to his father passes away when he has to fly back to L.A. for a couple of days to deal with this. And so he's just at an extreme low. And for the first time, he really like he makes a big public appearance as himself to defend himself. Because in 1991, he goes on the VMAs as Pee Wee. But here it's like the crime he's being accused of is...

that he needs to show up as Paul Rubens. And he does. And he is emphatic of his innocence. He is asked directly, I think, on CNN. He says emphatically, no, I was not in possession. I feel like I live in a country where I can collect what I want to collect as long as I'm not hurting anyone or exploiting children, which I am not. So he publicly defends himself. But the damage is done for the next, again, 10 years or so. This haunts him. Towards the end of his life, he has a...

Late career resurgence in the mostly because of now there's this like, you know, the Judd Apatow's of the world who grew up watching Pee Wee are now making movies. I want to make movies with him. I think Judd Apatow, Paul Russ, like that whole kind of.

like gen x comedy guy they all want to work with peewee and they want peewee to get out of the house basically because you know paul's very introverted that's the thing about kids they grow up and they make movies and and don't we love that And so with the help of sort of that cohort, he brings Pee Wee's Playhouse to Broadway in 2011 with a lot of the original cast. It goes super well. He's very encouraged by it. There was a one last Pee Wee movie that is...

Okay. That came out in 2016 on Netflix, which is so it's like a sort of big return to pop culture. The movie isn't a big hit. It's not great, but... He's back. He's fully back. But even that, keep in mind, this is 12 years after the obscenity case. So there are large chunks of time where... He is mainly, it seems like, focused on his friends and his family. And then the last thing of mention is this documentary that he worked on or that he didn't.

It's complicated. It's directed by Matt Wolf, who is a queer filmmaker who grew up as a peewee kid and it was like his big dream to make this documentary about him. okay so so this documentary sort of starts taking shape i think like around 2020 ish matt wolf is sending messages he's like hey what if you did it like um He writes apart a whole section of this because this documentary was in production right up until and after Paul Rubens died.

And just to like really pull into focus how private he was, no one knew he was sick. He was struggling with cancer for the last six years of his life, the entire production of this documentary. the director found out that he had died from the news. He had no idea. There's this incredible quote from Paul that is like, The key to keeping a secret is to tell nobody.

And he was really good at that because he was sick for the last half decade of his life, which explains and doesn't explain. I think some of it's just who he is. how he acts through this documentary. It's his first time, obviously, publicly stating he's gay. The director doesn't realize that this documentary is almost certain to come out once Paul isn't there.

Yeah. Basically, he and the director have this very complicated, drawn out relationship where Paul, as he always has been, is obsessed with control and is really threatened by. losing control of how he's perceived which given his history could not make more sense but he's basically feuding with this documentary director who loves him

The entire time because he's not comfortable with giving the creative reins or his narrative over to someone else because he's never shared any of this before. No one knew that his relationship with Guy existed. No one knew that he did drag. No one knew any of this. And yet he documented it all. Yeah, it was all in these boxes. Right. Like Matt Wolf wrote an essay about making this because you can see you should watch the documentary. Paul is.

can be very combative he sometimes kind of bullies matt and he's like why should i listen to you i've watched all your documentaries and i only liked one and it was only sort of and i was like whoa i would uh walk into traffic uh like Matt Wolf, spiritually strong. I would not have survived that. Change your name, move to another country. Yeah, right. But...

He's very irritated that he cannot have the control over this documentary. He tells Matt Wolfe, I don't want to be depicted as a gay icon, but I do want to come out in the documentary. He's very particular about how he wants his story framed in a way.

that is unfortunately kind of impossible, right? Eventually, by the time the documentary is done, he's being... a pill about signing the release so he's done about 40 hours of interviews but he still is holding on to maybe i won't let you wear it well he and the director have a falling out He and Paul stopped speaking for five months. It seems like the documentary is not going to happen. And then Paul sends him a happy 40th birthday text because even the like.

pettiest thing in the world will not stop the birthday text from coming from paul rubens which i think is so beautiful yeah and then at that point paul says okay, I'm ready to talk after five months. He says to Matt Wolf, I might not be able to stay as involved as I hoped, but I know you'll make the film we discussed. I'm sorry that I was so emotional these past few years.

It's so sad. I'm sorry if I did things that upset you. You didn't do anything wrong. I trust you. And he died the next day. Wow. Wow. And so the last thing I wanted to share. But our friend Paul is or sorry, I don't know that he died shortly after. But the day before he died, he never gave another interview. They never finished the interviews that Matt Wolfe wanted to do.

But Paul recorded a video on his phone at his house the day before he died. And I wish I could give you a hug, Sarah. It's so sad. But I think it's just best listened to. Yeah. More than anything, the reason I wanted to make a documentary was to let people see who I really am. And how painful and difficult it was to be labeled something that I wasn't. The moment I heard somebody label me as, I'm just going to say it, a pedophile.

I knew it was going to change everything moving forward and backwards. I wanted to talk about and have some understanding of what it's like. Be labeled a pariah. To have people scared of you or unsure of you or untrusting or to look at what your intentions are. through some kind of filter that's not true. I wanted people to understand that occasionally where there is smoke, there isn't always fire.

I wanted somehow for people to understand that my whole career, everything I did and wrote was based in love and my desire. to entertain and bring glee and creativity to young people and to everyone. And that's it.

What can be said is that at the end of his life, Paul was in a good relationship. He was surrounded by his friends. He always had his community. He was never alone. That footage just came out a couple weeks ago. How people found out he passed at the time was from an Instagram post that I think his assistant posted.

And his message at the time was, please accept my apology for not going public with what I've been facing the last six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans, and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you. And I don't know, but I think that the message that he sends Matt Wolf is so telling of like where he was at the end of his life and what was on his mind.

It makes me really sad for him in some ways, but also like he lived a really rich life in spite of how terribly he was treated sometimes by. the media by other people. I don't know. That just really struck me. And I love him. And I love him too now. That's Paul Rubens. Thank you. Thank you for sharing everything. I do. It is. I don't know. Like now, unfortunately, more relevant than ever that if you have queer people in any sector, but certainly working with children, working to.

you know, do what he said to sort of work from a place of love and entertainment and creativity and whimsy that you will be the one who is more frequently accused of being dangerous to children than people who actually are.

yeah i don't know like any life is is complicated and there's often great things lying right next to awful things um that you can't really imagine going through but i feel like I think what sticks out to me of what you've told me is that you have someone who was so well-known and so beloved, but also unable to, I don't know, maybe more able to express his true self through character than in his actual life.

Having those outlets, at least for the time that we have them, is the creativity and the sort of worlds we create through this discomfort in our own lives can be so beautiful and give so much. to the people who grow up with them and who need them. But also there's still, I don't know, to me that core sadness of just for whatever reason needing to live in sex secrecy until the very end and also being encouraged to do that at various intervals by the world.

You put it so beautifully and I think of like how many seminal creators of children's work. were closeted queer people i think of my favorite i mean my favorite artists as kids was like edward gory maurice sendak arnold lobel all queer men. Tommy DePaola. Tommy DePaola of a similar generation that I think also what Pee Wee was, that Paul was experiencing.

still can't uh separate it um yeah was generational where even though by the time he died it was not easy but but easier and quite different to live as an out queer person as it would have been when he was the same age i feel like he was still because of the media narratives that existed around him he was treated with the same level of homophobia that existed in 1991 forever yeah yeah and yeah the narrative around him was so persistent and it

didn't grow or really reevaluate in the way that you would, that he deserved for it too. And so like all of those quotes that he has about like, you know, he was kind of frozen in time in this. in this weird way. It's heartbreaking. I think that all of the fans of his work ultimately lost a lot of other creative creativity from him because it wasn't possible it wasn't accepted and i don't know yeah i i i don't know um yeah he deserved better he deserved better

And he still managed to do so much. It's like, I think Pughie is like one of the greatest comedic creations in the history of the world. And you can feel his influence. in so much and i don't know i just i just love him the secret word is paul rubens forever What we've learned is that we love Paul Rubens. See, I'm doing it too. We do. And we love Pee Wee Herman. And I don't know, I think artists, art kind of shows, especially when we're young, shows us how many different...

ways life can be and how much more there is to the world than what the people in our community are willing or able to show us. And I feel like you're... Much like the Holy Spirit carrying Paul Rubens within you now and whatever you do. Oh, I mean, watching the documentary, I'm like, I don't know if he would have liked me, but I like him so much. I don't care. The Julian Julia effect. You're like, I don't care. I don't even care if you like me because you've inspired me for my whole life.

and you can't even take it back now so haha it's true what are you gonna do so yeah that that's that's the story of Paul uh long may he live Jamie you do so much great stuff tell us about some of that stuff. Oh boy. Um, you can, I, my book just came out in paperback, raw dog, the naked truth about hot dogs. I have several podcasts, one of which is currently on hiatus, but 16th Minute of Fame is where every week I interview a past main character of the internet.

It is a show very inspired by this, as are so many things I've done, because... All our shows are holding hands. You're just a brilliant ray of light, and it is the... I don't know, my way of trying to let internet characters of the day say their piece. Reflect on what it's like to be overexposed. And then there's the Bechdel cast where we talk about movies every week.

And there's also, I am the producer of a show called We the Unhoused that is biweekly. My friend Theo Henderson hosts it. It is one of the only podcasts, I think possibly the only podcast that is about issues that affect the unhoused. told by currently or formerly unhoused people. If you are curious about that, which you should be, you should check it out. It's a great show.

Thank you just for doing what you do. And yeah, everybody read Raw Dog if you haven't yet. Get a nice paperback. It's such a good gift. Just give it to everybody. Fold it up. Fuck it up.

that's what it's for it's a travelogue it's a feelings book it's a food book it's a funny book it's a book that'll make you cry it's everything you want from a book it's the Jane Eyre of hot dog books I don't know what to tell you thankfully there's just the one it's whatever you want it to be i love you sarah i love you jamie you're the best you're gonna go do another show right now and you're

Amazing. And thank you for telling me this story. And if you weren't so busy, I would have you on the show 25 times a year. I mean, I could always just quit my job, you know? Yeah. I'm always on the brink. Just let me know. Just come live on this couch with me. And that was our episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much to Jamie Loftus for guesting and for sharing this story.

and her dedication and love to this subject and to anything else that she explores in her work. You can find her at 16th Minute, The Bechdel Cast, My Year in Mensa, so many other great shows. Ghost Church is another one. We are a very ghosty show and boy does she do great work with ghosts and the living too. And of course you can read her book Raw Dog, now out in paperback.

Thank you, of course, to Miranda Zickler for editing and producing. And thank you to Carolyn Kendrick for editing and producing.