According to Google, there were 3.1 million births in 1976, and that includes me! Flash forward 10 years to any Saturday morning in 1986 between September 13th and December 6th and I truly feel you’d be hard-pressed to find any one of those kids that didn’t watch Pee Wee’s Playhouse at some point, all yelling the secret word of the day on full blast at their parents. That show was a keystone to almost every 80’s kid’s Saturday morning TV line-up. It balanced extreme silliness and absurdity and fun, with sincere emotions in a way that hadn’t been done on TV before. The sounds were loud, the colors were loud, and the people were even louder! It sported an opening theme song by Cindy Lauper (credited as Ellen Shaw), and a score by Mark Mothersbaugh from DEVO. And even if you hadn’t seen Pee Wee’s Big Adventure which came out the year before, there was something about the show that pulled everyone in, even my curmudgeon of a dad, as we’d often repeat Jambi’s magic words together, “Meka Leka Hi Meka Hiney Ho”. And I distinctly remember him using Pee Wee’s ultimate argument weapon, “I know you are, but what am I?”, against me when I was being a butthead and had just called him something that was going to decrease my Commodore 64 play time for the night.

The show was very much a child of Paul Reubens’, something he created for the stage in 1980 when it was simply The Pee Wee Herman Show. And it’s bonkers how many awesome things and people came out of it. He gave us Lawrence Fishburn, Phil Hartman, and Blackula as the King of Cartoons! He taught us how uncool temper tantrums were, and how to take care of sick plants and animals, even if they were pterodactyls. I learned that even monsters needed friends, how to make giant balls out of different types of garbage, and that for some reason women with really big hair were always attractive even if they were wearing more makeup than a clown.

And as for the movie, I’m not breaking new ground by calling it timeless. It was the first time a lot of people, especially kids, saw a dork own being a dork and win. Pee Wee was the coolest, revered by everyone, and the envy of many. His house was a quirky, contraption-filled version of what you’d imagine Willy Wonka living in if he retired to the suburbs. The movie was the first time I remember understanding how important a relationship with someone could be. And I was simultaneously shocked and envious every time he brushed Dotty aside in favor of an adventure. It was also the first time I saw Twisted Sister. It launched so many iconic, non-action hero one-liners into the ether that are still not only relevant but very useful. “I love that story” will always be a go-to for my brother and I when someone is blabbering on about how they’re boycotting Michael Keaton’s amazing return as Batman because of how crazy Ezra Miller is, or how Arby’s put cheese on their beef when they just wanted it plain. And who hasn’t gone on a road trip and wondered if Large Marge was driving one of those eighteen-wheeler cabs as 10-year-old you awkwardly signaled them to honk their horn as you pass in the family station wagon?

And that bike. For 80’s kids, bikes were life. And dirt bikes were king. Not tassels, not red and white, and definitely not banana seats and high-rise handlebars. But you add an ejector seat, oil slick button, and rockets to it and you get something only Pee Wee Herman could make cool.

Paul Reubens was one of those actors that was best known for one character, and most of the time you’d say “Oh, but he did so much more.”, and he did. But Pee Wee Herman was one of the last characters that only one person could play. I think about Martin Short’s Ed Grimley or Matt Frewer’s Max Headroom. Two characters I absolutely love, and that paved a pretty influential road through 80s pop culture themselves. But if the suits got ahold of them and wanted to bring them back, there’s a slim chance it could work with new actors. But not Pee Wee Herman. Paul Reubens is Pee Wee, and anything else would be a mockery.

His impact on the kids of that time was like a meteorite having made its way through the crowded 80’s pop culture atmosphere and crash-landing directly into our brains. And that’s mostly how Reubens will be remembered. But he actually did play some other great, and surprising characters. I’ll never forget seeing him as a vampire in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and thinking “Wait, Pee Wee can’t do that!” Or when I found out he voiced Max the robot in Flight of the Navigator, a movie I’ve probably seen more than any other in my life for some reason.

But something that’s always vexed me a bit is the ending of Pee Wee’s Playhouse… until today. We all know the show is pure bananas with its words of the day, screaming, giant-headed salesman, and raucous and outrageously fun adventures and scenarios (not that it didn’t have some pretty great social lessons for its time as well). But as the show wraps up there’s an oddly placed bit of melancholy. As Pee Wee sits on his scooter and says goodbye to all his friends, he’s launched out onto some random highway in the middle of the desert while Mothersbaugh’s gentle and tame score sends him down some road and across the country all alone. And even though wrapping my head around Pee Wee Herman being gone is as hard as a Christmas fruitcake, I now feel like that ending might have been a bit prescient. I watched a couple of episodes today, and now that ending really is a perfect way to say goodbye, and at the same time, marvel at the big adventure you know Pee Wee is about to have.

Thanks for showing me that salad is cool and how to make ice cream soup, you were a fun guy. “I know you are, but what am I?”