Man, today sucked. Paul Reubens died.
Apparently he'd been battling cancer for the past six years, and you never woulda known it.
Pee-Wee's Playhouse especially was a childhood favorite of mine. He was that rare soul that told kids that it was okay to be weird. In the words of a tweet I saw earlier today: "If it weren't for you, I'd be normal."
The Christmas Special is weird aplenty, and it's a must see no matter what time of year it is.
The man was the very definition of a One Scene Wonder. If he wasn't a lead in something, he'd be in a single scene or two in a show or movie and you'd say "hey, isn't that Pee-Wee Herman?"
Be it Bat-Mite
or as The Spleen in Mystery Men
Or in a Cheech & Chong movie
Or in Flight of The Navigator
As so on. The answer was always "Yes, it was." And his moment was always the best part.
I'm glad I got to meet him a few times at cons.
Here's when me and my friend Danny met him at Monster Mania back in 2018. We only got this photo op because his autograph line was three hours long.
That was a most of the line, as seen from my spot on Cassandra Peterson's line. Her line was only 2 1/2 hours.
And here's a candid shot of him at NYCC in 2019. That time I didn't make the same mistake and got on his line the moment I could. I think I was the seventh person on it? Either way, he was just as cool as you thought he'd be.
And I got this beauty signed by him. You know, I was flipping a coin whether to get this one signed,
Or this great piece by Dave Perillo. The first piece obviously won, and I planned to get this one signed eventually. But, alas.
