Sup Doc: A Documentary Podcast · Sup Doc

PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF

·56 min·5 clips

Paul Reubens was secretly resentful that Tim Burton got all the credit for Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

Paul Reubens is rarely just Paul Reubens here. Paco and George start with the pull of Matt Wolfe's two-part HBO documentary, which catches Reubens speaking outside the character after years of being seen mostly through Pee-wee. They both liked it. George hears the film as something close to a final statement, since Reubens died in 2023 and there is not much footage of him talking out of character. Matt Wolfe becomes a side road, naturally. The hosts clock his other documentary subjects, including Arthur Russell, and catch the queer throughline without turning it into homework. San Jose gets its small laugh. Then the fun texture starts, because Pee-wee's world sends them toward the artists who built the show's handmade, candy colored oddness. Gary Panter is not treated like background decoration. The talk spends real time on his early Pee-wee graphics, the live-show set, and even the Screamers logo. Rick Heitzman comes in through a gallery story. George remembers meeting him at a gallery show, then ties that to Heitzman's work with Panter and Wayne White on character and set design. The look matters to them. This is less nostalgia for a kids' show than a map of how comics, fine art, animation, and oddball scenes all fed the same machine. Wayne White sends them into another documentary detour. Beauty Is Embarrassing gets remembered fondly, along with a fuzzy correction over whether it came out around 2015 or actually 2012. That is the show's natural gear: a half-remembered date, a quick lookup feeling, and a hunch that this kind of weird Americana may be circling back. Even the ending drifts sideways. With WTF ending and Mark Maron retiring from that show, they joke about room in the podcast space and whether Julie Seabaugh might bring him around.

As heard by us

A strong Pee-wee conversation that treats the character, the craft, and the culture as one tangled whole.

The piece frames Paul Reubens as a singular public figure, not just a costume or a catchphrase. It stays with TV as Himself, the two-part HBO documentary directed by Matt Wolfe, and the way the film turns into a closing account after Reubens' death in 2023.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a smart, digressive look at Pee-wee, Paul Reubens, and the people around him?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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