Documentarian Matt Wolf on 'Pee-wee as Himself'

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Jesse Thorn

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What was it like to work with Paul Reubens? The man behind Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee as Himself is a beautiful, touching documentary about one of the most talented and unique voices of our time. He died in 2023. We're joined by filmmaker Matt Wolf. He talks about what made Paul Reubens a dream subject for a documentary and how he got Paul to open up about difficult topics. Plus, Jesse talks about his own experience working with Paul on the Pee-wee Herman Radio Hour for KCRW.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Fall in love with new music every Friday.
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0:12.1	Make the hunt for new music a part of your life again.
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0:22.1	Bullseye with Jesse Thororn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR. It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Forn.
0:43.5	What's it like to work with Pee Wee Herman?
0:46.5	I mean, you probably know what it's like to watch Pee Wee.
0:50.1	Whether it's Pee We's Playhouse or Pee We's Big Adventure or Big Top Pee Wee or just maybe
0:56.2	peewee on Letterman or something.
0:57.9	It is a unique kind of magical experience, a world where anything can happen.
1:03.0	You talk to a chair, you dance and sing with Little Richard, marry a bowl of fruit salad.
1:08.6	But what was it like to work with Paul Rubens? The man behind Peewee. He passed away a couple of fruit salad. But what was it like to work with Paul Rubens, the man behind
1:12.0	peewee? He passed away a couple of years ago. Well, between something like 2017 and
1:18.5	2021, I got to work with him. We made a radio special for the public radio station,
1:25.1	KCRW, one hour of radio, and it took four years.
1:30.2	It was exciting, stressful, frustrating, bizarre, and frankly, nothing in the world could make me
1:37.5	regret all that time and effort that it took.
1:41.2	Both a nightmare and one of the highlights of my career.
1:46.2	My guest Matt Wolfe got to work with Paul right around that same time. Only Matt wasn't making one hour of radio. He was doing a feature
1:52.5	length documentary about the life and legacy of Paul Rubbins. Pee Wee as himself premiered on HBO
2:00.1	a few weeks ago.
2:01.6	It's a beautiful movie about one of the most brilliant comedy voices of our time.
	...

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