It's always crazy to me how some celebrities like this, David Bowie, and Chadwick Boseman are able to be so incredibly famous and keep their ailments so incredibly private. I guess it speaks to...
It's always crazy to me how some celebrities like this, David Bowie, and Chadwick Boseman are able to be so incredibly famous and keep their ailments so incredibly private.
I guess it speaks to what kind of great company they keep.
As for Reubens, I don't really think there's anything that can be said about him that hasn't already. Pee-Wee Herman is iconic.
I think they're pretty tight lipped to be fair. Reubens hasn't really been working much for the last few years. I assumed he was just retiring but I guess maybe he was focusing on treatment. Could...
I think they're pretty tight lipped to be fair. Reubens hasn't really been working much for the last few years. I assumed he was just retiring but I guess maybe he was focusing on treatment. Could always be both of course.
I believe Bowie told very VERY few people. He told his close family, he told Ivo van Hove (who directed Lazarus - he knew but the production staff and crew didn't), and the staff he was recording Blackstar with (because he had to, they'd be seeing him in person while he was dying of cancer so it would be impossible to hide it).
In Boseman's case, he looked and acted pretty normal up until the last 6 months or so of his illness. The thing is the last 6 months coincided with COVID hitting. So it was super easy to stay out of the spotlight. He actually made an Instagram story post or something a couple months before he died and he looked really rough, some people were wondering if he was sick as he'd lost a ton of weight but it was deep in the thick of COVID so you never know, lots of people were experiencing hard times.
I rarely defend famous people/celebs but I can't imagine going through cancer or any other terrible sickness and having a spotlight put on you anytime you step foot outside.
I rarely defend famous people/celebs but I can't imagine going through cancer or any other terrible sickness and having a spotlight put on you anytime you step foot outside.
As a kid in the 80’s I used to get up super early on Saturdays to catch the cartoons. I’d always make sure to tape Pee-Wee’s Playhouse for my siblings, who were teenagers at the time and thus...
As a kid in the 80’s I used to get up super early on Saturdays to catch the cartoons. I’d always make sure to tape Pee-Wee’s Playhouse for my siblings, who were teenagers at the time and thus tended to sleep in. Being so much older than me, my siblings and I never had a lot of crossover in our interests. Pee-Wee was always one thing we could all agree on, though. So I’d watch Playhouse at least twice every Saturday…once on my own and then again with my brother and sister. Great times.
I was a weird kid and Pee-Wee not only showed that being weird was okay, but that it could be celebrated. Thanks for that, Paul Reubens.
I live in San Antonio and have never seen a more hilarious parody of this damn city. I still quote the “basement in the Alamo” scene haha. Man this sucks.
I live in San Antonio and have never seen a more hilarious parody of this damn city.
I still quote the “basement in the Alamo” scene haha.
This sucks. Everyone has movies, books, music, etc. that are so entrenched in their mind that they inform who they are. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is one of those movies that is so core to my sense...
This sucks.
Everyone has movies, books, music, etc. that are so entrenched in their mind that they inform who they are.
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is one of those movies that is so core to my sense of comedy and my view of the world that I can’t remember a time before I saw it. It’s a movie that I can 100% get on the same weirdness level with and just enjoy. Pee-Wee was such a pure character.
Yes. The movie is iconic. I watched it more times than I can recollect. The reason, besides being so unique, were the imperfections that weren't hidden and I feel were intentional. A great example...
Yes. The movie is iconic. I watched it more times than I can recollect. The reason, besides being so unique, were the imperfections that weren't hidden and I feel were intentional. A great example is the moment where he takes the chain out of his bike's saddle compartment. You can see the chain come up through a hole in the bottom. Another fave are the roadside signposts being pulled by a rope.
Any fans should watch it again, and again.
I dunno, the possession of child based erotica that he agreed with the court was pornographic, doesn't qualify as "embarrassing" in my books. And the fact that he was a entertainer for children...
I dunno, the possession of child based erotica that he agreed with the court was pornographic, doesn't qualify as "embarrassing" in my books. And the fact that he was a entertainer for children makes it all the more creepy.
He was before my time so I just skimmed the wiki earlier, which didn't mention those allegations. It did mention the public masturbation in an adult theater. I'd heard of that scandal but not the...
He was before my time so I just skimmed the wiki earlier, which didn't mention those allegations.
It did mention the public masturbation in an adult theater. I'd heard of that scandal but not the adult theater part, so initially it was a little... underwhelming? Sort of like there is some implicit illicit social understanding that that is what is going to go on there. It's a bit weird and it's illegal, but arguably not doing any harm.
What you mentioned was much more damning:
Acting on a tip from a witness in another pornography case, police searched Reubens' Hollywood home. Inside, among the boxes of fake food and other kitschy memorabilia, they found what the city attorney's office would later characterize as a collection of child pornography.
...
Reubens acknowledges possessing a massive collection of what he calls "vintage erotica,” films and muscle magazines with titles like: "Boy Nudist" and "Shame Dame," as well as some photographic studies of teen nudes. But he says that what the city attorney's office views as pornography, he considers art.
...
Phillips: “Is it sensual, erotic to you, you acknowledge that?”
Reubens: “I think some of it is erotic. Some of it is sensual. Most of it I don't view like that. It seems so innocent to me. You would immediately look at that collection and to tell very, very, very quickly this is not a collection of child pornography.”
Phillips: “It wasn't obvious to the city attorney's office. They have characterized it quite differently. I mean, they say that in and amongst these magazines were photographs that depict people underage engaged in masturbation, oral copulation, in short, pornographic images.”
Reubens: “I know what they say. It depends upon whether it's you or the city attorney looking at them. It depends upon what one sees in those images for example.”
Phillips: “Well, it's pretty clear and pretty specific. I mean, were there photographs of young men, boys, underage people, performing, masturbating?”
Reubens: “No. Absolutely not. One hundred percent not.”
Phillips: “So what are they referring to when they describe it that way?”
Reubens: “One photograph for example has a young man with his hand on his thigh. It is close to his genitals, but not even that close. That's what they're calling somebody getting ready to perform a sex act.”
The city attorneys office told us the images involved are more graphic that what Reubens describes. Even so, last month the child pornography charges were dropped. Reubens agreed to plead guilty to possessing obscene images of minors.
Definitely watched my share of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as a kid. Never really followed him past that, I know he did something questionable later on, but good memories for me of his work overall. RIP.
Definitely watched my share of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as a kid. Never really followed him past that, I know he did something questionable later on, but good memories for me of his work overall. RIP.
It's always crazy to me how some celebrities like this, David Bowie, and Chadwick Boseman are able to be so incredibly famous and keep their ailments so incredibly private.
I guess it speaks to what kind of great company they keep.
As for Reubens, I don't really think there's anything that can be said about him that hasn't already. Pee-Wee Herman is iconic.
I think they're pretty tight lipped to be fair. Reubens hasn't really been working much for the last few years. I assumed he was just retiring but I guess maybe he was focusing on treatment. Could always be both of course.
I believe Bowie told very VERY few people. He told his close family, he told Ivo van Hove (who directed Lazarus - he knew but the production staff and crew didn't), and the staff he was recording Blackstar with (because he had to, they'd be seeing him in person while he was dying of cancer so it would be impossible to hide it).
In Boseman's case, he looked and acted pretty normal up until the last 6 months or so of his illness. The thing is the last 6 months coincided with COVID hitting. So it was super easy to stay out of the spotlight. He actually made an Instagram story post or something a couple months before he died and he looked really rough, some people were wondering if he was sick as he'd lost a ton of weight but it was deep in the thick of COVID so you never know, lots of people were experiencing hard times.
I rarely defend famous people/celebs but I can't imagine going through cancer or any other terrible sickness and having a spotlight put on you anytime you step foot outside.
As a kid in the 80’s I used to get up super early on Saturdays to catch the cartoons. I’d always make sure to tape Pee-Wee’s Playhouse for my siblings, who were teenagers at the time and thus tended to sleep in. Being so much older than me, my siblings and I never had a lot of crossover in our interests. Pee-Wee was always one thing we could all agree on, though. So I’d watch Playhouse at least twice every Saturday…once on my own and then again with my brother and sister. Great times.
I was a weird kid and Pee-Wee not only showed that being weird was okay, but that it could be celebrated. Thanks for that, Paul Reubens.
I live in San Antonio and have never seen a more hilarious parody of this damn city.
I still quote the “basement in the Alamo” scene haha.
Man this sucks.
This sucks.
Everyone has movies, books, music, etc. that are so entrenched in their mind that they inform who they are.
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is one of those movies that is so core to my sense of comedy and my view of the world that I can’t remember a time before I saw it. It’s a movie that I can 100% get on the same weirdness level with and just enjoy. Pee-Wee was such a pure character.
Yes. The movie is iconic. I watched it more times than I can recollect. The reason, besides being so unique, were the imperfections that weren't hidden and I feel were intentional. A great example is the moment where he takes the chain out of his bike's saddle compartment. You can see the chain come up through a hole in the bottom. Another fave are the roadside signposts being pulled by a rope.
Any fans should watch it again, and again.
I dunno, the possession of child based erotica that he agreed with the court was pornographic, doesn't qualify as "embarrassing" in my books. And the fact that he was a entertainer for children makes it all the more creepy.
He was before my time so I just skimmed the wiki earlier, which didn't mention those allegations.
It did mention the public masturbation in an adult theater. I'd heard of that scandal but not the adult theater part, so initially it was a little... underwhelming? Sort of like there is some implicit illicit social understanding that that is what is going to go on there. It's a bit weird and it's illegal, but arguably not doing any harm.
What you mentioned was much more damning:
Such great memories of watching his show as a kid. World lost a great human today.
Definitely watched my share of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as a kid. Never really followed him past that, I know he did something questionable later on, but good memories for me of his work overall. RIP.