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The Shark. Deck Rubens, the actor who made pee Wee Herman famous, has passed away at age seventy. Him Johnny Macken. That is Today’s Daily Comedy News. Paul passed away after a private battle with cancer.
A statement on his Instagram on Monday said that Ruben’s privately fought cancer for six years. He put out a posthumous statement which read, please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing these last six years. I’ve always felt a huge amount of love and respect from friends, fans, and supporters. I loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you. His character Peewee was created in the nineteen seventies as a ten minute bit when he was with the Los Angeles comedy troupe of the Groundlings.
Paul auditioned unsuccessfully for Saturday Night Live in nineteen eighty. He then went about creating The Peewee Herman Show, which was billed as a live on stage TV pilot and had its premiere in early nineteen eighty one at the Groundlings. A national tour followed, and in nineteen eighty one HBO broadcast a version of it as a comedy special. I remember watching that back in the day. Nineteen eighty Rubens had a small part as a waiter in the Blues Brothers movie.
In that same year, he played a put upon hotel clerk who deals with Cheech and Chong in Cheech and Chong’s next movie. Peewee started turning up on late night talk shows, including Late Night with David Letterman, where Peewee doing his thing and Letterman doing his too cool for school thing was comedy gold writes The New York Times. Then in nineteen eighty six, Peewee’s Playhouse, a children friendly version of Peewee’s World that aired on CBS for five years. May recall some of the characters, including Cherry, a talking arm chair that gave hugs. There was a word of the day, there were bizarre toys, and one episode, Pewee married a fruit salad.
In nineteen eighty nine, Rubens told Newsday, I never set out to do a big educational show. We’re trying expose children to as much creativity as we can muster in half an hour, to be entertaining, and to transmit some subliminal messages like nonconformity isn’t bad. His career came to pretty much a halt. In nineteen ninety one, Rubens was arrested on a charge of indecent exposure at an adult movie theater in Florida. That led to a small fine, headlines, tons of jokes, and was pretty much over from there.
CBS had a ready canceled the Saturday Show, but upon this scandal ended all reruns of the program. Rubens pleaded no contest. He was sentenced to community service, and as part of that service, he produced two anti drug public service announcements. He had some acting credits Murphy Brown, The Blacklist, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in nineteen ninety two, Batman Returns, and The Movie Below in two thousand and one. On social media, Jimmy Kimmel wrote, Paul Rubens was like no one else, a brilliant and original comedian who made kids and their parents laugh at the same time.
He never forgot a birthday and shared his delight for silliness with everyone. He meant my family and I will miss him. Conan O’Brien on social no tweet can capture the magic, generosity, ortistry, and devout silliness of Paul Rubens. Everyone I know received countless nonsensical memes from Paul on their birthday, and I mean everyone in all caps. His surreal comedy and unrelenting kindness were a gift to assault.
Damn this hurts. Kathy Griffin wrote, the great Paul Rubens would send me hilarious gifts every year on my birthday. I didn’t know he was ill. The last time we spoke. I invited him to one of my dinner salons, and he expressed that he didn’t want to come because he was worried about COVID.
Came to my house after my Trump photo scandal and spent time with me. Danny DeVito said, really loved working with him. Sander Bernhard said, a true genius. Glad I got to work with him. So sad.
Scott Ackerman wrote, incredibly sad in to hear of Paul Reuben’s passing. Watching him on Letterman and then seeing Pee’s big adventure in nineteen eighty five was like a lightning bolt into my brain, waking me up to what was possible in doing comedy. It was the greatest throw of my life to first interview him, then work with him on the TV show, then befriend him socially. I’m sure he did this for all his friends, but he would send me text and funny gifts on my birthday every year. Wow, everybody’s saying the same thing.
And then last year, out of the blue, he sent an incredibly touching personal birthday video message. He also went out of the way to send several variations of blurbs for the book, which were all hilarious and different. You would always tell me on the phone or an email, we had to get together in person, after all, we’re neighbors, he’d say, But then he’d politely declined any invite I would send him, and I had no idea what he was going through the whole time. Treat yourself to some of his work today, this week, and your whole life rip to a true artist and rebel. I almost worked with Paul if you’re a drive by listening saying you haven’t heard the podcast before.
I ran Serious XM comedy for ten years two thousand four to early twenty fourteen, and we used to do these pop up radio stations where we would just create a radidio station and salute one artist for three four days. And we had a plan to do a weekend celebrating Peewee I think in conjunction with a DVD release maybe, And two members of my staff, specifically Mark and Jason, were very very big Peewee fans. So we were going to do this thing. We’ll celebrate Peewee for the weekend, all right, what are we going to do? And the guys came up with the idea of we would play a sound effect which would randomly generate what category of clip we were going to play, you know, something from the show or something from a movie.
How where it was going to work. The sound effect that the guys picked was for a slot machine, so you’d hear a quarter go in, you’d hear I don’t know, and you’d hear some wheel spin you go ding ding ding, and then a voice would have said something like Peewee’s playhouse. All right, so ding ding ding movie clip. Something like that was idea. So we sent it off to Paul’s camp for approval, and they thought we were being a holes and that something something pulling the lever of a slot machine.
They thought we were being coy and eluding and making fun of something you might do in an adult movie theater. Involving pulling, you know, never occurred to us in a million years. The station never happened. We tried to explain, Paul, I’m sorry, that’s not what we were doing. It was just a slot machine to get into which clipper are we going to play?
So it never happened somewhere maybe unless somebody threw it out. I haven’t worked there in ten years. There’s an interview sitting there. There’s all these clips, there’s a production, serious guys. Somewhere in the computer.
There’s a Paul Rubin’s special waiting for you to air if you can get somebody to clear it. But it never aired. Paul Rubens seventy years old. See you tomorrow. Hi.
I’m Mark Francis and host of a new podcast, The Messy Effect. Join us as we take you into the exciting new road of Argentine soccer phenomenon. Lionel Messi and his new life at Inter Miami will bring you into the glitz, the glamor, the star started events along with the exciting journey to a new world of US soccer and international football with news and stories three times a week. Come along for the ride as Messy Miami and Major League Soccer experience the journey of a lifetime. Get the messy effect Wherever you get your podcasts,