Paul Rubens, better known to the world as Pee Wee Herman, who died this week at the young age of 70.

He had cancer, which came as a surprise to everyone. He battled that quite privately.

I figure maybe now is as good time as any to get into the Pee-E-Herman part of the discussion.

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm surprised you're lionizing this guy who, uh, some of my favorite Twitter accounts are pointing out yesterday is actually

hashtag problematic. Oh, yes, yes. Well, we'll get, we'll get to that in a moment because much as I would

rather not linger on the, the scandal of Paul Rubens, I do think it will be important to recount as a way

of getting into the sort of political valence of what Pee-Wee Herman was.

Paul Rubens began as a comedian. He was character actor in tons of movies. You know,

early on he was in a Cheech and Chong movie. He was in meatballs to, you know, all sorts of things.

He auditioned unsuccessfully for the first season of Saturday Night Live that Lauren Michaels did not

produce. He dodged a bullet by not getting that. But as a member of the influential comedy troupe,

The Groundlings, I believe he was in the same cast as Elvira, Cassandra Peterson. That's two iconic

80s novelty celebrities in one cast. It was there that he hatched

the character of Pee Wee Herman, that sort of adrogynous man-childs that rocked the 80s. Originally

began as a character for adults, he did a million appearances on David Letterman, all of them

worth watching. He was a very, you know, much like Andy Kaufman on David Letterman. He always

did these very strange conceptual pieces that weren't really so much about jokes. You know,

much like the way early Letterman's show was very much about the idea of doing a network talk show.

He had his own HBO special, The Pee We Herman Show.

Of course, Tim Burton's debut film, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, took his career into high gear.

That movie was a beautiful marriage of Tude Sensibilities.

I've never seen Peewey's Big Adventure.

...