Pee-wee Herman on HBO, old friends bring happy memories, preview

By April MacIntyre Mar 19, 2011, 18:11 GMT

HBO airs a bit of nostalgia tonight with the Broadway show of Pee-wee Herman filmed for the smallscreen.

Pee-wee is not everyone's cuppa, as some never got his eternally sexless, innocent yet prankster persona and felt the show was constant code for something subversive and bad.  But my son loved Pee-wee and so did I, and we always watched the show together when it ran on TV back in the 1980s. We still snicker over his "Alamo" joke and "Tequila" scene in the biker bar from his first film.

Watch Pee-wee's Tequila dance here

Paul Reubens talks Pee-wee at SXSW

Those of us lovers of the candy colored world of Paul Reubens' character delight that this nearly 60 year-old man fits into his costume and is still going strong. These heavy news days spark a need for respite and some optimistic nostalgic, and Pee-wee fills the bill.

The playhouse series and Reubens' Big Adventure films were a celebration of boyhood and wonder and all the silly things that occupy a child's life: Making a rubber band ball, joking around in a good-spirited nature and even marvelling at ultra giant underwear, seen on rolling racks at Wal-Mart.  This is the pressure valve antidote to real life and all the sadness saturating the airwaves.  It's cotton candy TV, but once in a while, we need to immerse ourselves in something so light and airy.

“The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway’’ is 90 minutes of familiar friends, Jambi (John Paragon) Cowboy Curtis (Phil LaMarr), King of Cartoons (Lance Roberts), Miss Yvonne (Lynne Marie Stewart), and my favorites, Pterry the pterodactyl, Globey, Conky the robot.

“The Pee-wee Herman Show’’ was recorded for HBO and is to air tonight, Saturday at 10.

If you a hard-hearted playa hater and find no delight in this character, it's best you stay away.

For those of us who fell in love with Pee-wee in younger days, it's like seeing old friends gone for many years, back in fine form.   Reubens is older, but his spirit is eternally trapped in this pre-adolescent moment. He was missed.

Funny or Die BONUS exclusive, Pee-wee Herman embarks on a new big adventure at 70th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. Along the way, he gets a tattoo, meets some new biker friends and hitches a ride with a Renegade.