Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Pee Wee's Big Documentary Edition.

It's Wednesday, June 11, 2025, and this week we'll be discussing, first off, the new documentary on Max about

the life and the unique career of Paul Rubens, aka Pee-Wee Herman.

Next, we'll talk about Stick, a new comedy series on Apple TV Plus that stars Owen Wilson

as a washed-up golf pro, who finds a new lease on life when he meets a teenage boy who's a

prodigy on the golf course.

And finally, we'll talk with the writer Katie Weaver about her new story in the Atlantic that

attempts to retrace the steps of Mark Twain in Paris in his book, Innocence Abroad.

I'm joined today by Julia Turner, a fellow at the Annenberg School of Journalism in Los Angeles.

Hey, Julia.

Hello, Dana.

Hey, great to have you on. And as always, by Stephen Metcalf, man about town.

Critic extraordinaire. Hey, Steve.

Hey, Dana. Hey, great to be speaking with you both again. So let's make a show, shall we?

And one note before we start recording, for some reason, my mic is behaving strangely today and only mine, so it may be that my audio track is a little bit lower quality than Julius and Steve's in some moments. But I'll try to keep my insights on far.

They'll no doubt be much higher quality, and so it'll even out.

The actor and comedian Paul Rubens died in the summer of 2023, almost two years ago now,

since Rubens had spent the previous four decades known almost exclusively by his comic persona,

Pee Wee Herman, who he inhabited not only on stage and in movies and on his Saturday morning

children's show Pee Wee's Playhouse, but in talk show appearances and basically all public

scenarios. There was a lot that even Peewee fans who grew up but in talk show appearances and basically all public scenarios, there was a lot

that even Peewee fans who grew up with Rubens didn't know about him at the time of his death. That included

...