090 Big Adventurer transcript (Paul Reubens aka Pee-wee Herman)

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Amit: This is Famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2023, age 70. A turning point in his career came shortly after a disappointing and unsuccessful audition for Saturday Night Live in 1980. Uh, Chevy Chase, not he [00:00:30] is still with us, still with us.

Months before he died, it was reported that he was working on a memoir and a documentary. He said quote, today, it seems to me it's a lot more difficult to stand out. If you wanna be weird, good luck.

Friend: Somebody weird who died in 2023. I mean weird All is still with us.

Michael: I'm happy to report that as of this recording, weird Vic is still with us.

He had scores of acting credits in a career that began in the [00:01:00] 1960s, including roles on Murphy Brown. The Blacklist and many other television series, and in movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Burt Reynolds, not Burt Reynolds, who was not in any of those things, but yeah, no, Burt Reynolds and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a movie I would see though.

He was in a feature film directed by Tim Burton in 1985, after which he created a popular Saturday morning kids series. Peewee Peewee Herman, [00:01:30] real name

Friend: please. Um. It's Paul Rubins. It was Paul Rubins.

Michael: Oh, that's so embarrassing. Today's not celebrity. Is Paul Rubins also known as Peewee Herman?

Archival: Whatever I was interested in, I would always think to myself, don't.

Question what that is. Like Don't, don't go. Like, is this something I should be spending my time on? Even though, even if it was something really [00:02:00] weird or abstract and I couldn't figure out what the connection to it was, and so whatever I would be interested in, I felt I had this kind of calm sort of.

Thing within myself of just going, it's gonna be revealed what you're doing and what you're supposed to do with all this stuff in your brain. You're gonna know what it is at the, at the right time. And luckily for me, that's, that's exactly what happened with p Herman.[00:02:30]

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm Amit Kapur. And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century and present a new narrative. Most biographies focus on legacies and accomplishments, but we are interested in the journey, the process, the experiences. What didn't we know?

What could we not see clearly? And what does the Celebrity's Life story teach us about ourselves today? [00:03:00] Paul Rubins, also known as Peewee Herman. Died 2023, age 70.

Amit: Lemme just say, I am glad our word of the day is not category because we'll be screaming. We're be screaming quite a bit

Michael: throughout the next one hour. I think we should make it word of the day category. All right, category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Paul Rubins, the comic actor whose bow tied childlike [00:03:30] alter ego.

Peewee Herman became an unlikely if almost Uncategorized movie and television sensation in the 1980s died on Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 70. What stood out to you

Amit: on it? So one comic actor. Uh, I like that they led with that, how Paul was actually a comic actor and was not actually peewee. Yeah, I think that's a huge distinction to make that is not as obvious as we think.

Archival: Yeah.

Amit: I, I wanna talk about alter ego. I like that. That's a very [00:04:00] apt description. And then the words I really like, I like unlikely and uncategorized and sensation. If the obituary were just unlikely, unc Categorizable sensation, I'm happy.

Michael: I agree with all of that. Let's start with the alter ego thing. I mean, what do you understand?

An alter ego.

Amit: To be. It's a good question. I mean, and without a dictionary definition, it's basically you pretending to be somebody else, but it's that somebody else becomes so big that they are actually larger than you. I tried to find like world's most famous alter egos, [00:04:30] so I think Peewee liked to use Elvira as his best comparison 'cause they in fact knew each other.

Yeah, they came up together in Groundlings, but Time Magazine did have an article in 2009 of their. Favorite alter egos and they put number one, Sasha Baron Cohen for Bruno and Borot, obviously very timely. And Andy Kaufman, who had a few. Yeah, the Beatles, the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. They consider an alter ego.

Eminem Slim, shady. And then one I really liked that they did was Stephen Colbert as Stephen Colbert.

Michael: Oh

Amit: yeah,

Michael: [00:05:00] that's interesting. The officer ego

Amit: as a

Michael: as himself. So all of these are interesting examples. None of 'em are quite at the level that Paul Rubins and Peewee Herman are, in the sense he played the part in the movie and in the TV show, but also off camera for many years.

So much so that Peewee Herman is probably more famous than Paul Rubins.

Amit: Oh, not even probably.

Michael: Right. And so with, with any of those other examples, is that true? Yeah.

Amit: Only, only in the [00:05:30] non-listed one of Elvira.

Michael: Right. And I guess that's what I want to draw attention to is that what Paul Rubins did with Peewee Herman is just so.

Unusual. It's unlike any other story I can possibly think of. And like you, I was really racking my brain for who else pulled off this trick. This is all very accurate. Comic actor, bow tied, childlike, alter ego. That is a perfect description of Peewee Herman. I. Yes. Unlikely if almost uncategorized movie and TV [00:06:00] sensation.

That is perfect. I have a little bit of a problem with became a sensation in the 1980s and then they just kind of leave it there. I mean, certainly that is the peak of his, I. Fame and importance, but there is a kind of cult-like interest in Peewee Herman and it almost makes it sound like it's a one hit wonder to me.

No.

Amit: Correct. He was revered for a long time. Right. He was a revered Paul.

Michael: He was a revered Paul. Well said. So the two issues I take with this obituary are one. [00:06:30] That it feels a little limited in terms of legacy, and then alter ego, I guess is probably the best way of capturing the character was more famous than he was.

Yeah, but I think that there's another way of saying whose character Peewee Herman. Transcended its creator alter eco, transcended its creator, or something like that, that doesn't quite get the story. The enormity of the alter E ego. Totally. And the accomplishment of it. Like,

Amit: wait, is it Paul or is it Peewee?

Do we even really [00:07:00] know? I've got no problem with alter ego. That's how he described it himself. I see what you're saying on the level of transcendence, how it's above and beyond. Yeah. Some of these other alter egos, but I'm at peace with it. So I actually have my score. Let's hear it.

Michael: I have an eight outta 10.

You have an eight outta 10. I think it's very good, but because it falls short in terms of hinting at a more interesting story, I'm a little disappointed. So what's your score?

Amit: I'm gonna go a nine. So the only fly I see I, I didn't even fully see it before until you pointed out, was the lack of [00:07:30] timeline, the extension of the appeal of both the man and the character.

Michael: Shall we move on? Yes. Category two, five things I love about you here, Ahmad and I develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived. All right. Number one, this is pretty obvious, but I think it's so important. It has to be called out permission structure for weirdness.

Yes. More than anything else, like the legacy of Paul Rubins and at Peewee [00:08:00] Herman is the message. It is okay to be. Weird. It is totally okay to be different. It is okay to be a nerd. It is okay to defy norms and to defy expectations, and to indulge in idiosyncrasies. He created room for all of us to be a bunch of weirdos and to love weirdos.

Archival: Today's secret word is. Store now. You all know what to do whenever we hear the secret word, right? [00:08:30] Scream. That's right. For the rest of the day, whenever anybody says a secret word. Scream me alone.

Michael: You know, one thing I love about PeeWee's Playhouse, which I have been rewatching with my kids, and oh my God, does it hold up?

Is what a pastiche of inspiration. It is. It's all pastiche. Yeah. I think that's, or montage? No, I just dunno what pastiche means. Well, I, I hope I'm using the word right, grabbing from a lot of little places, you know, there's Rocky and Bullwinkle and I love Lucy. Yes. And old Disney and he's. You know, [00:09:00] cobbling together all these weird sources of inspiration and it all adds up to something very original.

I like to think our show can do this at times. You and I draw a lot of inspiration from a lot of different podcasts, and then this is kind of what I was hinting at a second ago. The whole story is just so a typical, it is really closer to almost like a musician or a rock star. I, I wrote, he created his own platform and that sounds so Silicon Valley and corny.

But he [00:09:30] created Peewee in a theater in the Groundlings. And then, you know, the

Amit: Groundlings you

Michael: should define as a LA based, uh, improv comedy. Yeah. Improv troupe. Right. And a lot of SNL cast members have come out of it. It's got a long storied history, sort of like Second City. So he creates the character in the Groundlings, manages to make it onto Letterman.

Then gets the HBO special, then gets the movie, then gets the TV show. Like all of this was just bootstrapped in this unusual way and it's [00:10:00] all because he commits to this one character. So I guess what I'm linking here is the weirdness of the character and. PeeWee's Playhouse and his interests and his idiosyncrasies, but also entertainment as performance art.

There is no comparison to what Peewee Herman is and was,

Amit: that's why I really liked the word unlikely in the obituary. Mm. Because it speaks to that story. And just add a few years to, to what you just said, like the Groundlings in the creation of the character was in the seventies. [00:10:30] Then he started doing Letterman and got the HPO special around 81.

The movie came in 85 and then the playhouse was 86 to 91. So you've got, you know, 16 plus years of full commitment to this character. Really, part of the reason for the sensation was because he got cut from the SNL auditions.

Michael: Yes. I want to talk about

Amit: that more later. Yeah.

Michael: Without

Amit: that, there might not have even been this, but I love your point and I've detracted from it.

Michael: Well, not really. I think you added to it, and thanks for outlining the story. We talked about this in Johnny Cash. You had Johnny Cash. One of the [00:11:00] things you loved was town crier. I hadn't thought about that before, but there is permission structure. Johnny Cash represents this very masculine western man, and he's crying all the time in every other song, you know, there's nothing but tears, you know, great artists.

Expand possibilities for us more than anything. Paul Rubins as Peewee Herman, made a lot of niche interests. Okay. In a way that is such a gift and such a value add to society and to, [00:11:30] you know, the history of entertainment.

Archival: Hey. Um, it's fun time. It's. That's right. Peewee. It's time to play with me. There we go.[00:12:00]

Amit: Okay. What do you have for number two? Uh, number two, creator of community. Oh, I love it. Okay. Um, so this was in, this is specifically a PeeWee's Playhouse reference. Yeah. So the origin of peewee in the Playhouse, you don't really know, you kind of assumed he's this orphaned kid, but he created all of these characters to have this family around him constantly.

Right. And so to me, I love this because it speaks to the idea of belonging, connection, community, but to do it in. [00:12:30] Atypical ways, not necessarily in a mom and dad and brother sister type of structure. And so I did bother to go down and find all of the Peewees Playhouse characters. And so we had Tito, miss Ivan, captain Carl Cowboy Curtis, who I'm gonna come back to, the king of cartoons, Reba, the male lady, the.

John B. The Genie Terry, the Terry Dal, conky, the robot, Randy the Marionette, and Glo the Globe, Mr. Window Cherry, who was quite beloved, Flory and Chandelier. All of these were characters that had actual voices and actually [00:13:00] had a relationship with Peewee. Yes. Some of them were pure animations, such as the Chair, and some were actually people like Larry Fishburne playing Cowboy Curtis or Phil Hartman playing Captain Carl.

Right. So I'd love that he encouraged community in creative ways.

Michael: I saw a quote that said one constant of his life has been his abiding affection for the inanimate. I mean, half of the characters you describe here are, what do you call it? Um, anthropomorphizing or, you know, creating, it's not anthrop Personified.

Yeah, personified, yeah. [00:13:30] Right. I mean, inanimate objects brought into characters and so you're calling that what Commitity what?

Amit: What did I say? I think I'd, let's just call it creating community. Well, let me, lemme change that to creative community.

Michael: Oh, that's even better. Uh, I, where I thought you were gonna go was kind of the comedy traditions in creative community.

He exists in. Like his, who his friends are, I mean, him, Phil Hartman's come up a few times. I I knew those guys kind of knew each other. I didn't know that they were like friend friends.

Amit: [00:14:00] Yeah. They were practically business partners leading up to the big adventures.

Michael: Yeah. And, and when he was at Cal Arts, uh, like did you see this David Hassel off was part of his cohort?

No, I missed that. Yeah. I mean, well, and there's, there's a lot of kinda weird pop culture touchstones. You know, he is in Blues Brothers, he. Hosted Saturday Night Live. At one point he and Conan would exchange texts like he is in the comedy inner circle, but it's not just comedy. So yeah. So I said he truly practiced what he preached.

Yeah, absolutely. [00:14:30] Creative community. All right. And number three, I wrote, I. Resilience, and this comes up in a few different places. He was rejected from Julliard and Carnegie Mellon and wound up at Cal Arts, which is where he really found his people. You hinted at this, he suffered a lot of rejection before he found his way into acting circles and later into comedy circles.

In 1981, it was 80 or 81, I think it was 1980. He's rejected from SNL.

Archival: The Peewee Herman show was a hundred percent created out of spite for [00:15:00] not getting Saturday night Live. Um, and terror and panic. Um, because I really felt like I, I was in this kind of up and comer category at the time where I was being spotlighted in little sections of magazines and stuff, like a guy to watch out for kind of thing.

Yeah. And, uh. I flew to New York to be one of the 22 finalists in the season that included, uh, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy and those people. And on the plane on the way back, I totally panicked. I thought like, I'm gonna go from up and comer to [00:15:30] nothing. And, uh, I just thought you better. You better really do something about this and take control.

Michael: One thing I found really interesting was the way he and Phil Hartman had conversations where Phil Hartman was saying, don't only do this character. You have greater range, you're capable of more. Phil Hartman, you know, became synonymous with range and with playing a range of comedic characters and so that.

Tension between the two of them is so interesting to me in terms of just nerdy comedy history. [00:16:00] Yeah. And then the last thing under resilience, we will get to it more later. If you really get into the story of post scandal, post 1991, arrest an incident, he. Really gets to a deep place of surrendering and accepting.

I know you and I are gonna have to kind of tap dance around this topic, but in some ways that scandal is one of the most embarrassing possible things anybody could ever imagine for themselves.

Archival: Peewee Herman is played by actor Paul Rubins. Friday night he went to a Triple X theater in [00:16:30] Sarasota and watched Nancy Nurse undercover agents say he exposed himself twice.

And, uh, while in the theater in plain view, basically how do parents answer their children's questions about a Saturday morning hero being arrested for indecent exposure?

Michael: I. He talks about it when he finally gets into therapy around it as saying, as a therapist saying, you are in a state of shock. You know that.

And he was absolutely in a state of shock and had to wake up and face the music and navigate fame, and navigate [00:17:00] humiliation for years and decades, and it never totally left him. Where he gets to it and how he describes his journey with handling that is. Astonishing. After researching it, I came away. Not just impressed, but like if I had high hopes that he would get to a good place for himself.

He achieved that and then some. Yeah. So I know resilience is kind of a corny term. No, I like it. It's a very Michael term. I. Yeah, I hope so. I look, it's on my mind a lot lately, [00:17:30] man. You know? Yeah. I, I like, I, I just, I sometimes wonder, am I ever gonna just be okay? Am I ever just gonna have a sense of like semi stable security Yeah.

With who I am and where my life is going. And I love finding these examples of deep resilience from what I found extremely evident and. The Paul Rubin story.

Amit: I love it. I wanna add two pieces of data, just 'cause I found them fascinating. Okay. Uh, in your, your resilience examples. So being cut from SNL, he was cut for [00:18:00] Gilbert Godfrey.

Yeah. Right. So I never knew that and I found that fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. And then post the 1991 arrest for public indecency, he found refuge in the house of Doris Duke. Yes. Who was a good friend of his. And this is Duke, as in Duke University's daughter. The legacy of the. Tobacco fortune. Right. Billionaire who, yeah.

Yeah. Just so many, just fascinating characters throughout this story of resilience. Okay. Number four. OGH. Original gangster, hipster. Um, so Peewee [00:18:30] was fully old schooled and not just peewee Paul. So he was a very old school vintage type of guy. Yes. So if you go back to the creation of the entire character and PeeWee's Playhouse, the character himself dressed like this sort of vintage.

Forties, fifties looking, you know, forget about the makeup and the hair and the androgyny, but just the actual costume. Everything was a throwback. It was very, very odd to have a non-animated Saturday morning series that was a kids program starring adults. Yes, I mean like very analog. If you will, as opposed to [00:19:00] like the digital cartooning that was happening.

You know, he was a collector of lots of vintage stuff. He said that he had to stop collecting in 1995 once eBay was launched, because he would just end up buying everything.

Michael: Go crazy. Yeah. I mean, I, it, it really does sound like his house is not so different from the house we see in PeeWee's Big adventure.

Correct. Which remind me of Bis Marque a little bit.

Amit: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And, and then the one fact that everybody liked is he created his own Christmas card. Oh. So every year he, and this is, you know, from me, a family of printing business owners [00:19:30] Indeed. So he created his own Christmas card that was custom and, and designed and sent it out every year to his list of 4,000 people.

So speak of creative community. But all these kind of like throwback analog hipsterish retro things were the mark of Paul Rubins and the mark of Peewee Herman. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if I need to explain why I like that, but I think it's pretty obvious in today's era that just the slowdown aspect of an analog retro world, and I love it.

Well,

Michael: okay, so I have a [00:20:00] number five. I wrote down Object of Academic Study, so I went to Google Scholar and typed in PeeWee's Playhouse and Peewee Herman and saw what kind of articles had gotten the most attention. Here are some of the titles I collected, Peewee Herman Unmasks, our Cultural Myths about Masculinity, Peewee Herman, and the Postmodern esque.

I had to look at what pick a esque means. Uh, I still don't. Really understand it. Queer criticism and the sexual normativity, the case of Peewee Herman. There are [00:20:30] scholars from a lot of different traditions in the humanities who are like, I have an argument to make and I'm gonna make it via Peewee Herman and PeeWee's Playhouse.

It's so open to interpretation in a very interesting way. This was my favorite quote, Bernard Welt, a professor of humanities at the. Cora Ken College of Art and Design wrote that the series, this is PeeWee's Playhouse, was the first popular television show to build self-consciously on the anti traditions of installation and performance art, [00:21:00] while boldly exploring the inherent qualities of televisual form itself.

Ruben said, I don't even know what the second half of that means, or the first half. But it was performance art, uh, which I think sort of sums it up. Like, I love how I, I guess this goes back to the obituary thing. I just love what an anomaly this is as a story.

Amit: Yeah. The learning journey I've gone on in the lead up to this episode was much, much more vast than I would've expected.

Michael: Totally. I mean, I think Bowie is an [00:21:30] interesting point of reference here. You know, when we did the Bowie episode, I encountered 30, 40, 50 different biographies. I would like to see a flood of Paul Rubin's biographies and deconstructing the peewee story in the coming years. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good way to sum it up.

Okay. Yeah. Uh, alright, let's summarize. So number one, I said permission structure for weirdness. Number two, you said. Creative community. Uh, number three, I said resilience. And number four, you went with original hipster old school. Well said. And number [00:22:00] five, object of academic study. Alright, let's take a break.

Okay. Category three, one love. In this category, Amin and I each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. Before we select our word or phrase, we review the family life data. This will go pretty fast, at least the data part. No marriages, no kids. Other relevant info. I always leave a space for this in my notes.

Striking lack of info is what I have. Yes, there is [00:22:30] very, very little information on Paul Rubin's interpersonal relationships, and especially on his love life. On his love life. Yeah. I do wanna say this about the research journey. Okay. I try to respect boundaries, but for our show, I want to know boyfriends, girlfriends, loving relationships, and so forth.

I started Googling around about Paul Rubins, and in places you will see people say words like he never did come out as gay. And I'm like, oh wait, was he gay? Did I not know this? Is this an open secret? Yeah. There [00:23:00] was a girlfriend, uh, Debbie Mazar, who she's actually pretty famous in this. Yeah, she was Shauna in um,

Amit: uh, in

Michael: Goodfellas.

Amit: Yeah, that's what I was, no, not in. Well, I wasn't thinking Goodfellas. She in, um, entourage. An entourage, right? Yeah. She had, she was really, his girlfriend was in good fellas too, and

Michael: he kind of describes this deep love, although she lived then later says sort of a platonic relationship. So it is not clear at all.

I reached out to some of my queer friends and gay friends and said, do I need to know something [00:23:30] here that I just don't know 'cause I'm not exactly finding it. And I do think. Paul Rubins is something of a queer icon and he never outed himself as queer or anything else. So we don't know anything really.

And that that was our starting point for coming up with one word. Yes. I have my phrase and I'm curious to hear yours. But I wanted to kind of lay that groundwork.

Amit: Yeah. I do wanna add one thing is the family life of his own as a child. Yeah. So there would be a lot of assumptions with the [00:24:00] creation of this weirdness that is Peewee Herman that you had a strange childhood or a weird childhood.

Yeah. He had a very, very loving. Relationship with his parents? Yes. They like nurtured his creativity. There was no broken home, no signs of anything like that. They

Michael: supported him when he decided to go all in on Peewee Herman after the SNL rejection. They helped support him as he's putting that show together and investing in himself.

Amit: Yeah, and they in like, and they invested in his creativity when he was younger, like letting him take circus classes and doing other things around the theater. He went on the howdy duty. [00:24:30] Show to be in the pen or whatnot. Right, right, right. So really, really supportive parents in like really kind of normalish household, which I didn't really expect to find.

Why don't you tell me your word or phrase? Uh, my phrase is, I know you are, but what am I?

Archival: You're crazy. I know you are, but what am I? You're a nerd. I know you are, but what am I? You're an idiot. I know you are, but what am I? I know you, you are, but what am, am I? I know. I know you are, but what am I? You're what?

Am am. I know you're, but what am I? I know you're, but what am I? [00:25:00] Infinity.

Michael: Oh, I was gonna use that later. Maybe. Okay. Really? Okay. No, I wasn't. So obviously that's a big something that was come, that's a big P quote, and

Amit: this is just why pretend to know what we don't know. I'm using that phrase kind of. Tongue in cheek, but we don't know what peewee was sexually.

He could have been just completely asexual, and I don't think that that's impossible. Well, there's one big data

Michael: point against that, but to call him asexual doesn't seem quite right. So what, what is a

Amit: word for somebody who just doesn't necessarily have interest in romantic partners? Uh, you want to hear my word?[00:25:30]

Yeah.

Archival: I'm a loner. Daddy A rebel.

Amit: Okay. Was that gonna be your word or phrase? It

Michael: was along. Oh, so I just like perfectly teed that up. Yeah, you totally did. I really racked my brain with, how would I characterize this? You know, I like that this category forces us to overlay some kind of framing. He was ultimately alone.

There's no life partner. He's also in a community of rebels. I mean, I think your thing about creative community, certainly that's very evident in PeeWee's Playhouse, but it is. [00:26:00] Yeah. Terry was. Just off the chain to start with. But I think the other artists of his generation and those of the generation before and after embrace him.

You know, you sometimes hear about standup comics having this kind of tribe, it's like that except expanded out and on steroids. I think the musicians really admired him. I think the actors really admired him. I think the comedians, the late night hosts, like the way people. Love him [00:26:30] and he's able to feel that love.

I I say a loner and a rebel, but actually to me looks like relational wealth. It's not solitude and desolation or even despair. Quite the opposite, right? I mean, he looks to me to be like a person in deep community in a way that's really heartwarming, but it is still a loner and a rebel. Yeah. Did I not elaborate enough or did we not talk enough about your word or phrase?

I know you are, but what am I, I mean, that [00:27:00] kind of sounded to me like we only know so much, so let's not speculate. Yeah, exactly.

Amit: The guy did have a gift to being private, right? Yeah. So for example, the, the whole smoking thing, so he was a pretty heavy smoker throughout all of the playhouse, but he had basically John Singleton as his.

Bouncer to make sure no one ever saw him smoke.

Michael: Totally. I love that. John Singles, I love that you got that in that John Singleton, like hounded Larry Fishburne on the set of PeeWee's big adventure so that boys in the hood could become possible.

Amit: Yeah. So maybe, maybe. And God bless you, Paul, if this is the [00:27:30] case, maybe he just.

Kept his relationships and sexuality just so immaculately private. I would find that hard to believe given how public his life became at certain times.

Michael: Well, yeah, I mean, this is what's so interesting actually about the story beyond Peewee Herman, is that it does seem like part of the reason he embraced the alter ego of Peewee Herman was as a.

Coping mechanism for dealing with fame that he saw it both as a pathway to fame and as a [00:28:00] persona that he could hide behind. He would give interviews as Peewee Herman. He would make guest appearances as Peewee Herman. He never actually had to be Paul Rubins. In that way. He was able to protect his inner identity.

Yeah. Until this scandal, and even after that scandal, he did. More or less like still go down that pathway and it opened up some doors, but closed a lot of others. That's a hard category for this figure, you know? It is. Yeah. But I love that we both chose quotes from PeeWee's Pig Adventure. [00:28:30] Okay, shall we move on then?

Yes. All right, category four net worth. In this category, Amin and I will write down our numbers ahead of time. We will then look up the net worth number in real time and the person closest to the actual net worth number will explain their reasoning. Finally, we will place this person on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard.

Ahmed Kapur wrote down 11 million. Michael Osborne wrote down 15 million Paul. Okay, we're pretty close. I actually originally had 8 million. [00:29:00] Uh, so, uh, it's funny that you landed at 11 'cause That's right. Paul Rubin's net worth 5 million. 5 million. I was very tempted to go lower, so, okay. This was a hard one to game out because there really is only one thing that made any money.

And it's Peewee Herman, the movie was successful. The first movie.

Amit: Yeah, it was a $40 million box office based on like a $2 million budget or something.

Michael: I tend to think overall there's [00:29:30] more money to be made in TV in the eighties than in movies. Sort of have to build credibility as a bankable star before you get those really big paychecks.

We learned that in the Patrick Swayze episode, so I kind of thought that, okay, if PeeWee's Playhouse runs for five years on CBS, that's gotta come with a pretty big windfall. But then there's more or less nothing. Substantial after the 1991 Indecent exposure scandal.

Amit: Correct. There's a revival solo tour that [00:30:00] was just in Los Angeles.

There was the Judd Apatow movie. Yeah. That was made for Netflix in 2016. I don't think either of those came with a big payday.

Michael: There were acting roles. Blow Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Murphy Brown, like, I mean, he's not totally outta work, but every time he shows up, everybody's like, oh, it's. It's peewee, I mean,

Amit: Paul Rubins, you know, so the, the money makes sense.

I mean the, the playoffs, which ran for 45 episodes, the budget for it, I'm not saying the revenue, the budget was $325,000 per episode. So that goes to about a $15 million budget. You can imagine at [00:30:30] least 10% or so. That went to Paul Rubins himself. Yeah, that's still not that much money. You know, we're talking about one to $2 million over a course of five years.

I thought there could be a lot of merchandising money that was coming his way. There was for a

Michael: time.

Amit: Yeah. And so I thought maybe he had that plus being a loner, a rebel. He didn't have a lot of dependences, with the exception of his collections. There's not a lot of evidence that he lived lavishly. Yeah.

So I thought it just might have been banked and accrued and which is why I ended up at something like 11, but five [00:31:00] makes perfect sense to me.

Michael: So where does this place Paul Rubins on the famous and Gravy leaderboard?

Amit: So at 5 million, he is in a four-Way tie now for 65th Place, which places him basically in the bottom 12% of Famous and Gravy episodes.

Contemporaries include Yogi Berra and Fred Willard. He is just, just below Bob Einstein, who ended up at 6 million and just, just above Nelson Mandela. Bad 4 million. So else. I like that. So [00:31:30] there's comic greats and civil rights leaders and

Michael: old baseball players down there at the bottom. 12%. Yes. Okay, let's move on.

Category five. Little Lebowski, urban Achievers. They're

Archival: the little Lebowski urban achievers. Shit. Yeah. The achievers. Yes. And proud. We are. Of all of them.

Michael: In this category, we choose a trophy and award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hot tip. Lot of candidates here, there were a whole bunch of cameos.

There's a ton of like all righties in that. Blues Brothers. Yeah. Buffy the Vampire. [00:32:00] What did you go with? I. I'm gonna lead with

Amit: my favorite flight of the Navigator. Oh, wow. I, I haven't seen this movie in decades. This was huge. So he was the voice of the flying machine. The machine's name was Max. So he was the voice that led the navigator around.

And I loved this movie. I did too. This came out probably just not too long after Big Adventure. And there was a few interesting things about this movie. One, it was one of Sarah Jessica Parker's first ever roles. It was one of the first movies to use CGI, if you remember that scene in which the steps [00:32:30] appeared.

It's a very memorable scene. So Paul Rubins was, was basically the key voice of this machine that went around the planet. Well, I guess I'll just come with the, the plot. Uh, there's this kind of alien life form that has realized that we only used 10% of our brains. So they're on this interplanetary mission to basically collect specimens and figure out how to use more of our brains.

And so that's the reason I love it, is that it just fits into this whole peewee mysticism. Yeah. Of like expanded creativity and [00:33:00] so forth. I. But I also like that he kind of got this role to be a leader, to fly the plane around and to be a robot voice.

Archival: Will this hurt? You will feel nothing. Will I remember everything?

You'll retain all that. What if you fry my brain? I will not fry your brain. How do you know I have been programmed with superior intelligence?[00:33:30]

That's it. That's it, baby. Davy, if you wanna learn to swim, you've gotta jump in the water. Don't forget to feed bruiser. Do all these patties. Special thoughts, lettuce, cheese, pickles on these side sesame need bun. Whoa.

Amit: Like I said, it's a big counter to this analog peewee that we had. There's just a lot of contrast.

The other cool thing about this cameo is he actually didn't even bill himself on it. 'cause this is pretty peak peewee time. Mm-hmm. So he did in the credits, it didn't even say Paul Rubins as the voice of Max, it said Paul Mall. As the voice of Max. [00:34:00] Oh really? And part of the reason for that is I think Peewee, as you know, as you said, as a singular alter ego at the time, was too valuable.

No one wanted to see or know Peewee outside of that. But I also thought it was just a really cool thing that he had this key role in this huge film. Did it semi anonymously.

Michael: I wanna pause just for a quick second 'cause I think we've probably explained it, but it is sort of difficult to explain when you talk about his billing in this, like it was as if Paul Rubins didn't exist from [00:34:30] 1985 to 1990.

Right? I mean, he has. A Hollywood star. It is Peewee Herman, not Paul Rubins. And when you see the credits for, I think it's Big Adventure, I'm pretty sure it's big Top Peewee. It is Peewee Herman as Peewee Herman. Nowhere does it say Paul Rubins. This is the part that is most Andy Kaufman like that he is all in on this character and is totally blurring the lines of performance versus actual person.

I didn't quite. [00:35:00] Appreciate that he took it to that level. Yeah. Okay. Again, I struggled here for my little Lebowski. I wanted a cameo, so he's in a couple of Chee and Chong movies before Pee Wee Herman is really, you know, the, the character he's playing everywhere. Do you remember Next movie at all? And the Howie Hamburger dude, and the whole, I'm sorry, scene.

I don't, it's a little hard to set it up and explain it. I don't remember

Amit: any Cheech and Chong with the actual content.

Michael: I, I'm not sure Chee and Chong, remember, I don't think anybody does. I [00:35:30] stop their job that would

Amit: ruin their brand if they remember a

Michael: hundred percent. So the plot setup is a little hard to explain other than Peewee Herman or.

Character is in an insane asylum with them. And he had stolen some money from them, from some heist, and they had been committed. And there's a woman there with Paul Rubins saying, you need to say I'm sorry. And so he's like, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. And the way he does it is, uh, I'll just play the clip.

Archival: I'm, I'm enough.

[00:36:00] That's enough, Howie. That's enough. Dear I'm That's fine. Now boys, all the money is here. Come along Howie, I just want to apologize to you again, tell you how, I'm sorry I am terrible about the mistake. If there's anything at all I can do. For you. Please don't hesitate to ask. Come along Holly. Sorry. Time for your lobotomy.

Michael: I'm not sorry. I took the money. [00:36:30] It sort of speaks to the kind of underground weird cultiness origins of Paul Rubins and Peewee Herman that he is in a couple of Cheech and Chong movies. Like that's just so. Weird. You know, it's like if you could go back 40 years and Phil Hartman and Paul Rubins are having a debate about whether or not this is a good idea to take the Peewee Solo show on the road.

Yeah. And, and inhabit the character so much that the [00:37:00] only time you're ever Paul is when you're at home.

Archival: One of my closest friends at the Groundlings was Phil Hardman, and Phil was like, tortured by that, that I was gonna stop doing all my other characters. Mm-Hmm. We argued about that all the time. And he would always go like, you're totally wrong.

That's wrong. You shouldn't do it that way. And I mean, we both had different paths and different careers. I mean, he got to be known for all those amazing characters he did. I have characters no one's ever seen or people, people [00:37:30] remember them from. 150 years ago,

Michael: you know, was Phil Herman, right? Yeah, I think so.

Was he? He just work? Yes. I don't know. I kind of think Paul Rubins is right. I kind of think the more interesting story is the Paul Rubins playing Peewee Herman for many decades. Story rather than you didn't get to do the things you could have done creatively. I

Amit: don't know. Yeah, I, I see what you're

Michael: saying.

Point. Do you see the question I took the, not I trying to

Amit: pose point. Yeah. I was taking it more on the level of, are you right to just have a work self and a personal self? [00:38:00] Which I think when you deal with fame and acting, which is what he successfully did. Yeah. Is he got to just keep his personal self away from it, even when he went on Letterman and Leno and all of that.

Michael: But I think he's in an interesting way pushing the boundaries and saying, that's not just what I'm doing. I. That I'm trying to do something else and I don't even know what it is. It's instinctual and I'm following it. And I don't know that there's a statement here, but that it is pushing boundaries in a way of how we understand art and entertainment.

Tragic death aside, who has [00:38:30] the more enviable career? On some level you'd say Phil Hartman, 'cause he was hilarious and got to do all these different things. On another hand, I kind of think that Peewee Herman's more interesting.

Amit: Oh yeah, totally. But it's, you know, that was the path, Michael. It really wasn't that long.

From the launch of the movie to the end of this TV show was six years. There were only 45 episodes of PeeWee's Playhouse. It wasn't that long. The plan, I think, was for him to expand those creative boundaries and be a more serious actor. He just had this really, unfortunately, [00:39:00] timed incident that came at the end of, of PeeWee's Playhouse back when he was ready, you know, he had left PeeWee's Playhouse.

Sometimes people get the chronology wrong. Thinking that PeeWee's Playhouse got canceled because of his incident and his arrest. Right. But no, he had actually left or taken a break from it. 'cause he was burned out. Yeah. And ready to kind of creatively refresh. He just no longer got that opportunity because of the media exposure of that arrest and the way that it

Michael: was.

Well, and that's the thing that needs to be said is that, you know, the, the fact that there was something. Sexual about it [00:39:30] and that he was entertaining children, just made everybody uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that people were probably in this very homophobic era questioning his sexuality.

Right. Yeah. It was a,

Amit: it was a career killer in many ways, and no one can come to the defense of something I deep would iron me

Michael: too. Like if he is performing the role of Peewee Herman. For most of the eighties, you say six years. I'd put it, I'd, I'd go further back. I'd say from 19 one. I'm just saying

Amit: that No, no, he totally was.

Yeah. I'm just saying in the mega spotlight.

Michael: Yeah. And the, in the, in the heyday. Sure. And [00:40:00] that we knew so little about the real man, and this is the only bit of information we get about the real man allows people to fill in the blanks and a lot of different, complicated. Places. I mean, he, he even said in an interview that the news about the indigenous exposure charge broke the same day or weekend as the Jeffrey Dahmer story, and he displaced it.

Like the Peewee Herman scandal time and the Paul Rubin scandal was more important to readers of the newspapers than Jeffrey Dahmer. What does that say? Yes.

Amit: And it's, it's just, [00:40:30] it's so hard to take a contrarian position to it because of his position, but I think we can at least agree he is not a predator.

Michael: Yeah. I think that is very clear. And, um, there is that. Second charge that comes up. The more I looked at that, the more I thought, there is nothing to this, but I, I guess it should be acknowledged that there was a allegation that he had obscene material that all got dismissed and scheduled down to a misdemeanor.

But it also was like, it it, one thing that's even about the inion exposure story, he, he. Claims that there actually was [00:41:00] no indecent exposure. Yes. He maintains his innocence and he was ready to testify about it. And then like there's a, didn't want

Amit: the media circus

Michael: Exactly. At some point he is like, just gimme the bill.

Let's make this go away. And he could never make it go away. And it, you know. Yeah. Here we are talking about it. Okay. Let's pause again. Category six words to live by. In this category, we choose a quote. These are either words that came outta this person's mouth or word that were said about them that resonated in a certain way.

Amit: I think you go, I've gone first, the last several categories I think.

Michael: [00:41:30] Okay, so I was gonna say, shh. I'm listening to Reason 'cause I love that quote. I'm gonna go with this one. I've always felt like a kid and I still feel like a kid and I've never had any problem tapping into my childhood and my kid's side.

Something that did not make my five things I love about you. List his childhood sensibilities. What are the values that. Pee's Playhouse communicates it's distraction, it's playfulness, and it's sort of small stories in the corner of the room. [00:42:00] My daughter has been going through a phase where she will take inanimate objects and create a whole little story, and when we're cleaning up the house at the end of the night after the kids are in bed, I'll find these little scenes in the corner of the room where she is.

Been acting out some story in her mind with inanimate objects. When I clean these up and I put the toys back in their proper place and clean up the area, I have this moment of deep gratitude that like, man, I forgot [00:42:30] what it's like to be a kid. I forgot what it's like to just freeform. Tell stories, and it's a quality we lose with adulthood.

It's a creativity that gets suppressed that every now and then an artist comes along who reminds us how important and joyful it can be. I talked about this with Maurice Sinek. I think that there's something to this with Bill Waterson and Calvin and Hobbes, the way he is able to articulate the mind [00:43:00] of a.

You know, six, 7-year-old boy is masterful and the way peewee has this, like, ha ha, you know, like, not bad, not bad love. Thank you. Like, like impulse to laugh and just like, let's play with this for a minute. Okay, that's done. Listen to the next thing I know and check this out. And there's a quality in him.

You know, I don't wanna get too corny, but inner child. And I think it is an important thing for us to acknowledge that under this layer of adult psychology is an inner [00:43:30] child, and that that child needs a channel and needs expression. Paul Ribbons reminds me of that. Peewee Herman brings that out, and in my view, those are words to live by.

That's great. Okay. What do you got?

Amit: Uh, mine is also a little similar. Doing something for someone else will make me feel good. Mm-Hmm. So the context of this is, this is a conversation that Peewee was having with Cowboy Curtis in one episode of the Playhouse and Cowboy Curtis's boots. Um, he comes in from working out in.

[00:44:00] The ranch, wherever the ranch might be, beyond the playhouse, right? His boots are all mangled, so he needs new boots. And so he says, I wish I had a new pair of boots. And that lights up the genie within the playhouse who can grant one wish per episode. The Genie says, oh, did somebody say wish? And Peewee said, oh yeah, can I give my wish?

Cowboy Curtis for his boots. The genie says, well, peewee, are you sure you only have one wish? And that's when Peewee responds with this quote of doing something for someone else [00:44:30] will make me feel good. So, so, so simple. Yeah. But part of the theme of PeeWee's Playhouse, especially I think in these academic articles that you talk about is the theme of reciprocity.

Archival: Yeah. Is

Amit: one thing that it was doing in teaching children that was not necessarily being taught throughout other Saturday morning programming. Have you ever read The Art of Happiness? By the Dalai Lama, uh, uh, passages I haven't, I haven't sat down and done a cover to cover, so you can pretty much summarize it in this sentence.

You know, do things for others, right? Yeah. It's one, the core tenet of most religions. Oh, it's one of the core

Michael: tenets of the [00:45:00] 12 steps. You know, salvation comes from being a helpful person. Relief comes from being a helpful person. And I love what you said about reciprocity, 'cause that's the core of friendship.

Amit: Well, I think it's validation and self-worth and, and maybe even joy. Yeah. Uh, yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It, it's probably the fastest route to joy, if not serenity, you know? Yeah. So I love that those words came outta Paul Rubin's, AKA peewee Herman's mouth. Okay. Good words to live by.

Michael: All right.

Category seven, man in the mirror. This category is fairly simple. [00:45:30] Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment, who? It's a tough one, Amit. Normally I make up my mind and write something down ahead of time. I have a lean and I'm gonna hold it back.

I wanna hear your arguments.

Amit: So, first of all, I wanna say that it was acknowledged he was asked if he looked in the mirror, and despite how much he does in the movie of PeeWee's big adventure, remember that scene where he tapes his nose? Yeah.

Michael: With the scotch tape. And so, yeah.

Amit: Uh, but he was [00:46:00] asked in an interview and he said, no, I, I don't look in the mirror.

He is like, how can I, 'cause I'll be like, I'll see a grown man playing a child, and I'll be like, oh my God. But that was, that was a bit of a joking answer. There were other things though that I saw. So he said many times that he found his calling and how lucky and grateful he was for finding his calling.

Yes. Like he really, really loved this character. And so to the extent that it is this special type of alter ego that we talk about, I see that as a, a lot of evidence of self-love. You [00:46:30] talked about resilience. Right. And he was, I mean, it was very, very tough for him after that, that scandal. But he did ultimately find his way out.

And not too long later he was back out there.

Michael: I mean, there's the famous MTV music award. It's hard to get jokes lately. But that was, this was less than a year after? Yeah. Oh, that was like weeks after the scandal. And then that was the last time we saw Peewee for many years. I think there was many years of depression.

I think that there was many years of seclusion and isolation, and he slowly tried to wade the [00:47:00] waters back into getting rolls and was able to lay on some parts here and there, but I think it was always hard for him to venture out. For most the rest of his life really up until the last few years.

Amit: Yeah, so, so I saw resilience and I saw him repeatedly say that he found his calling.

Yeah. Which to me is an act of self gratitude and self appreciation. Sorry.

Michael: So this is a Yes. You're a yes for the in the Yeah. I'm a Yes.

Amit: I'm a yes for Paul Remits.

Michael: Okay. I'm also gonna go yes, but it's a lot more on the fence because it's clear that there is some [00:47:30] self-confidence and self-acceptance. It's also clear that there is shame.

But I do think that the shame originates more from the world's reaction to him, not because of a. Gross mistake. Yes. I mean, it was a gross mistake, but this is an overreaction, right? Like this is one of the worst things that could happen, but it's also very forgivable. So I'm going, yes, for men in the mirror too.

Good. Great. Category eight coffee cocktail or [00:48:00] cannabis. In this category, we ask which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity? This may be a question of what drug sounds like. The most fun to partake with this person or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them.

We are most. Curious about,

Amit: uh, I'll go. I want to because I cheated. Okay. Uh, because I'm going both. I want a cocktail front with weed back, so I'll explain myself. So the cocktails one, he is a good hang. Yeah. Like if you listen to him on these interview shows, especially when he is with his pals, [00:48:30] if he's with somebody like Conan O'Brien or Chris Hardwick, he is sharp, he is quick.

He is funny. Brain storyteller. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean this, this arc of his career that he touched. So many different lives and so many different institutions. Yeah. I mean he's just, he's got a ton to talk about and he's just funny the way he talks about it.

Michael: Yeah. And there's a nice combination of proud of his work and humility.

He's aware of how interesting and how bizarre the whole thing is. There's a lot of self-awareness.

Amit: Totally. And he just, he comes across as the type [00:49:00] of guy you kind of want to hang out with. So you wanna get high and drunk with him. We go, no, no, no. That's when we're gonna get drunk. Okay. And then, you know, maybe later in the night, then we'll get a little high and then that's when I just want the quirky peewee side to come out, because I just wanna be goofy, you know, the same way I wanted to dance with Tina Turner.

Yeah. Like this guy just brings out the goof with you. When I was watching Playhouse like. Two nights ago. Yeah. I felt goofy just watching it. Yeah. You know, and so I think just being around him, whether it's in character or costume, it probably does need to be at least on a set, I want him to [00:49:30] bring that sort of childlike energy and fun and vibrancy out of me.

Yeah. And they would just. Be a really interesting experience to have all of the vis the visual sensation and really I just wanna get the giggles with him and that's a way to do it.

Michael: I was very tempted to go in that direction as well. I had a experience when I was 17 years old on on acid on LSD, where I hung out with my friend and we spent what felt like 45.

Yeah, I was pretty young into drugs, pretty young. We were on the, for front porch of a buddy's house, just making faces, like taking our hands and like going, whoa. And [00:50:00] like, and, and giggling. 'cause it, you know, psychedelics will take you back to that childlike state. And I would love to have a similar experience with Paul Rubins.

I actually went with coffee. I don't need. To him to dissect or walk me through the trauma and shame and all the other complicated emotions that would've come post scandal. I don't think there's anything I need to learn that he didn't already say in other places. And I have something on that in a moment.

What? I am really interested in actually is [00:50:30] having a really rich inventory list of his points of inspiration. All of the little bits of art that influenced him, that led him to a life in the arts as an actor, as a comedic actor. Then as Peewee Herman, you know, in some of these cameo kind of roles, he is.

Great in everything he's in, this guy could have had a character actor career, you know, in another universe. I like people who draw of inspiration from really, [00:51:00] really eclectic, unexpected sources. I'd love to just sit down and learn from him. What influenced you and what was it about that thing that made you want to incorporate it into PeeWee's Playhouse?

And the peewee persona overall. There's a really rich tapestry in the background, and it's a reminder to me of how vast the template for creative inspiration can be. There's so much to work with out there, and you can find it in the funniest, most [00:51:30] unlikely corners of entertainment history. Yeah. So I want a cup of coffee and I kinda just want to hang out and wander around the house, you know?

Yes. So part of your

Amit: coffee is similar to my first half of getting sloshed?

Michael: Very

Amit: much.

Michael: Yes. We really covered the gamut. 'cause you, you went to and I went won. Yeah. All right, let's do it. Final category. The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity Blues, I don't want

Archival: your life.

Michael: In that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on [00:52:00] a single characteristic or a single story. So here Ahmet and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Paul Rubin's lived his life.

Amit: So the word single that you use in that description is really apt here.

Yeah, that's what I think about, right? I think we talk about a single character and we talk about sort of a single defining moment that altered. The course of a career.

Michael: Yeah, I mean, I thought a lot about the Bill Buckner episode leading up to this in that there is a one-off incident that changes the narrative arc of a life story.

This [00:52:30] one is different. I mean, for a lot of reasons. You know, this. Life story certainly made me grapple with the question of personal inner life and public narrative, and how to find inner peace when the narrative about you is so in some places just flat out wrong, but also overbearing. Yes. When overwhelming.

That is without question, the obvious counter argument for why you would not want this life. Yeah, I, and I think if you wanted to add a, you [00:53:00] know, one B. You could make the case that like it is a little bit different rebellious, that there is no life partner and we don't know much about his love life overall.

There is a question that you kinda can't help but ask. Was part of him repressed in some fundamental way? Yeah, you worry about that. You worry somebody, you worry about that. Somebody who builds a career entertaining children with this very childlike character. You sort of almost presume something must be repressed, which is part of the [00:53:30] reason the scandal had such legs.

Um, yeah. Those are not insignificant. Counterarguments.

Amit: Yeah. One A and one B and I, I think two is the singular association of the alter ego. Yeah. If that wasn't already covered,

Michael: although that one is more complicated because I think that ultimately unbalanced in his final days. I bet he was like, I'm really glad I created Peewee.

Totally. Yeah. For all the challenge that it sort of locked into on and off stage, this was a great creative contribution to the stream of life, you know? So I think you've

Amit: already [00:54:00] segued into the case, the rebuttal. Yeah, I know. And, and it is that like, I think that's number one, the contribution, the end into the stream of life is unbelievable.

Is unbelievable. And it's appreciated on a much different level. The more. Time goes on.

Michael: Yeah, from

Amit: it.

Michael: I like it as a historical artifact too. I like the idea that if people want to go back and understand the 1980s, Peewee Herman will be the character that maybe unlocks the subcultures and cultures of that generation.

I've got another thing I'd like to add to this. [00:54:30] This is, I actually copied a quote from a Playboy article that was written in the 20 teens, I think it was before the Judd Apatow Peewee movie came out. But towards the last 10 years of his life, the interviewer asked, after everything you've been through all the bumps, plunges horrors, what do you think you've become?

And he says, this. At this point, the most interesting comment I could make to you is that I have no regrets. I really don't. Everything happened for a reason with insight and knowledge and growth involved, it [00:55:00] is a journey, and I will not accept a shitty ending. I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what in the fuck I was being prepared for.

What exactly am I being tested for? And I don't know the answer to that right now, but it doesn't matter. I'm going to be ready, whatever that is, I'm going to be really powerful. I mean, if I'm not careful, I could turn into Gandhi. I could be like a superpower. I don't mean that in any weird way, but somebody is going to be really impressed.

I think in addition to me. I won't be surprised, but I will be impressed. This has all been too powerful [00:55:30] and weird. To just be a schnook comedian's path. I loved this quote. I reread it several times. Yeah. I came across it as well. Surrender, you know? Mm-Hmm. I mean like, not to bring up too much, 12 step stuff, but this is a step three, like acceptance and surrender of this is who I am and there is a plan for me and it is confusing and I don't know what I'm being tested for, and I really love that he says.

I don't know the answer to that right now, but it doesn't matter. I mean, this speaks to the resiliency [00:56:00] and this speaks to the deep humanity of the guy that I wanted to be there before you and I committed to doing this episode, and that I found, man, he even talks about the journey in the process here. I mean, this is what it's all about.

Talks about fricking Gandhi for Christ's sex.

Amit: Yeah, I, I, I pulled a similar quote from Vanity Fair, not quite as, as deep as that one, but he said, beauty and art and sensitivity is what I hope for and strive for, and I hope people notice. Hmm. I think it's just kind of a little bit of a truncated version of that.

Yeah. Especially the [00:56:30] sensitivity. Yeah. And then the thing I pointed to a few segments back was that he repeatedly said over and over again, he found his calling. Yeah. I mean, not that many people can go through life and say that they truly found their calling. Yeah. And that is huge. Yeah. I think that is huge.

Michael: God, is there anything you can be more grateful that than, than that feeling? Whether you're right or wrong about a, I don't think so. About a calling, right?

Amit: Yeah. And then I if Yeah. If we're just gonna couch it on one point, it's just how, how much he was loved. And if, I would just wanna isolate a point, like when [00:57:00] Conan aired an episode after Paul died.

Mm-Hmm. Like, I, I think that's the most emotional I've ever heard. Conan.

Michael: Well, I remember when he died last year being really taken aback by the outpouring. And you and I have a certain attention to celebrity deaths. Yeah. I, I remember feeling way more moved. The normal when he passed away. And totally, I've been wanting to have this conversation and I'm really glad we've done a Peewee Herman Paul Rubin's episode because I needed to be [00:57:30] reminded of all of this.

So, okay. So should we recap the argument to James VanDerBeek? Yes. Okay. So number one, the contribution of Peewee Herman. I also went with resilience, self-acceptance, born out of surrender. I added, uh, he found his calling and how revered and loved he was. So that's a lot. And James VanDerBeek. I'm Paul Rubins and you might want my life.[00:58:00]

Speed round. Amit, what episode from our archives would you like to plug here?

Amit: I, I have to go. Bob Einstein Super Funk Hauser, just because of the alter ego. Bob Einstein played Super Dave Osborn for decades, appeared on TV shows as a character. They're very similar to the path that the early peewee played.

Michael: I am gonna go Maurice Sineck. Oh, nice one. Thank you. That's a personal favorite of mine. Wild thing. If there's somebody out there who also understands childhood sensibilities and an [00:58:30] interesting and boundary pushing way, it is Maurice Sineck. Alright, here's a little teaser for the next episode of Famous and Gravy.

He was a knowledgeable interviewer who focused on craft while avoiding gossip from 60 Minutes. It's gotta be somebody from 60 Minutes.

Famous and Gravy Listeners, we love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, [00:59:00] email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng Gravy is created and co-hosted by me, Michael Osborne and Am Kippur.

This episode was produced by Megan Palmer, original music by Kevin Strang. See you next time.