Paul Reubens, the actor, comedian and filmmaker better known to most as Pee-wee Herman, died on Sunday at age 70 after a private six-year battle with cancer.
Reubens came up though the L.A. underground of the late ’70s where the outcasts of comedy, music, theater, and film co-mingled. He brought a punk subversiveness to everything he did, especially the epitome of 50s clean-cut wholesomeness, Pee-wee. He also brought a few punk musicians along for the ride when Pee-wee took off and started getting film and TV offers. When his shows and movies became popular, Reubens also hired some of his heroes to go in front of and behind the camera.
In tribute to Reubens and Pee-wee, we’ve put together a list of 10 musicians, musical moments, and sonic connections, some you may be aware of, some you may not, from punk and metal to ska, new wave, garage rock, and beyond (aka Grace Jones). Head below for our list.
Danny Elfman got his big break with Big Adventure
Paul Reubens was raised in Sarasota, Florida, which in the ’60s and ’70s was the winter home of the Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus. The freak shows and other oddities made a huge impact on his life. When he moved to Los Angeles, Reubens immediately clicked with theatrical art-punk band Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, who made cult film Forbidden Zone, and later evolved into new wave group Oingo Boingo. When Reubens’ bow-tied alter ego got a movie deal with newcomer Tim Burton attached to direct, they took a chance on Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman — Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was his first major studio film score. Elfman’s love of Looney Tunes composer Carl Stalling and his manic orchestral arrangements was a perfect fit for PW’s brightly colored world. Elfman also scored 1988’s Big Top Pee-wee and went on to compose for some other things you might have seen (1989’s Batman, The Simpsons, Good Will Hunting, Men in Black, etc). “I wouldn’t be where I am today without you,” Elfman wrote in tribute. “Please know that I will always miss you and I can’t thank you enough for your friendship and everything you did for me.”
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Cyndi Lauper Sang the Pee-wee’s Playhouse theme song (uncredited)
Did you ever think while watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse that the synthy carnival-esque theme song sounded like Cyndi Lauper imitating Betty Boop? Well that’s actually what it was, though she kept it a secret and never admitted it was her until she published her 2012 memoir. The vocals were officially credited to Ellen Shaw, which was the name of Lauper’s assistant. Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, who wrote the music, told Yahoo Music, that it almost didn’t happen at all due to a fight with Lauper’s manager/boyfriend the day of recording. “I put an effect on her voice and it just kind of garbled her voice so you couldn’t tell it was her. And then they had us put the name of her assistant down as the singer. But when she left, we just took the effect off the voice — and nobody even noticed!” You listen now and of course it’s Lauper. “He was a nut and I just love that about him,” Cyndi wrote in tribute on Instagram. “We had the same sort of sensibility.”
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Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh also got his big break with Pee-wee
Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh is one of the most in-demand composers in Hollywood, with children’s entertainment being one of his specialties (Rugrats, The Lego Movie, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, lots more). His first gig, though, was for Pee-wee. He and Paul Reubens were friends via the L.A. underground scene of the late ’70s and first worked together on 1980 cult comedy Pray TV, which was Reubens’ first screen credit and featured Devo as a religious band called Dove. Rubens originally wanted Mothersbaugh to do the Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure score, but he was busy with Devo, so that gig went to Oingo Boingo’s Danny Elfman. But when it came time to hire a composer for Pee-wee’s CBS Saturday morning kid’s show, he called Mothersbaugh. “It totally changed the trajectory of my career,” he told Yahoo Music, saying the pace was trial by fire. “I’d write 12 songs’ worth of music on Tuesday, record on Wednesday, put a tape in the express mail on Thursday, they’d mix it into the show on Friday… and on Saturday morning, we’d all watch it on TV. ” Thirty years later, Mothersbaugh would score comeback film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, and says they were working on an animated version of Playhouse before Reubens’ death.
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Grace Jones and everything else about The Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special
One of the strangest things ever to air in the 70+ years of network television is Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse, a 1988 holiday special set in the same universe (and set) as Playhouse. The idea was simple and nearly as old as TV itself, playing off the style of countless other celebrity holiday specials, with Pee-wee celebrating the holidays with lots of special guests. But only P.W. would have a guestlist like this, including iconoclast Grace Jones, who arrives wrapped in a box — “I hope it’s not fruitcake!” Pee-wee exclaims — that was supposed to be sent to The White House. (Details beyond that are never explained; the mind boggles.) Grace kindly sticks around for an amazing electro-pop version of “The Little Drummer Boy.” The Christmas Special also features k.d. lang, quirky country sisters Del Rubio Triplets, plus Oprah, Magic Johnson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joan Rivers, Charo, the UCLA Men’s Choir, and more. Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks worked on the original music. At the time it all probably felt innocent to the average viewer, but seen through a 2023 lens the whole thing seems like Reubens was being more subversive and showing his stripes more than usual. Christmas at Pee-wee’s Playhouse has to be seen to be believed — you should, it’s amazing — and should be a part of everyone’s holiday viewing.
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Rob Zombie worked on the original Playhouse set
The first season of Pee-wee’s Playhouse was shot in New York, not Los Angeles, in an un-airconditioned loft on Broadway. The iconic set design was led by artist, underground cartoonist and punk musician Gary Panter, and among the crew was 21-year-old production assistant Rob Cummings, aka Rob Zombie of metal band White Zombie. “Back in 1986 I was lucky enough to be working at a place called Broadcast Arts in NYC when they announced they were doing his new show Pee-wee’s Playhouse. It was a very unconventional set up with the playhouse built in a loft space on Broadway, not a sound stage,” he recalled on Instagram. “I can still remember his first day in the office. Everyone was waiting for Pee-wee to step off the elevator when the doors opened out stepped Paul looking exactly like his mugshot. He took one look at the live band playing Tequila, rolled his eyes and walked straight into a meeting. Everyone was bummed. I thought it was hilarious. Only talked to him once. He asked me where the restroom was and I said ‘ right over there.’ After the first season they moved the whole show to California and the rest is history.”
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Fishbone, Fishburne, and Pogo Dancing
Fishbone worked with Paul Reubens on two movies: 1987’s Back to the Beach, and then the 2006 David Arquette-directed horror comedy The Tripper. The former was a “comeback” movie for beach movie royalty Frankie Avalon & Annette Funicello that had Fishbone backing Annette (!) on “Jamaica Ska” and Pee-wee covering The Trashmen’s classic “Surfin Bird.” Fishbone paid tribute to Pee-wee by posting a clip from Playhouse where he and Cowboy Curtis (a young Laurence Fishburne) put on punk wigs and go pogo dancing. Fishbone’s Instagram clip has them bouncing to “Party at Ground Zero” but originally it was some original, instrumental “punk/new wave” music. In their little tribute, Fishbone note that Pee-wee was an influence on the band, especially Angelo.
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The Residents, Todd Rundgren, Dweezil Zappa, and more guest composers
Mark Mothersbaugh was not the only rock / pop musician to compose music for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, as the sheer number of episodes didn’t make it feasible for one human being to pump out so much original score. Among the others who helped out: Eyeball-headed oddballs The Residents worked on three episodes, Todd Rundgren wrote music for two, and Dweezil Zappa scored one episode. Danny Elfman also made time for a few Playhouse pieces, as did onetime Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Cliff Martinez (who went on to score Drive, Sex Lies & Videotape and more), Mark Snow (X-Files), and Steely Dan / Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter.
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Twisted Sister’s Big Adventure burning in hell
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure climaxes with a wild chase through the Warner Brothers Studios backlot, as our bowtied hero is pursued by bratty child actors, Santa and Godzilla in a sleigh pulled by a motorboat, nuns, and more. The havoc wreaks across various film shoots and a music video for Twisted Sister. Pee-wee narrowly misses the convertible singer Dee Snider is on the hood of, but Santa and Godzilla are not so lucky. “I was a real big fans of his,” Snider told Robb Flynn on the No Fuckin’ Regrets podcast, “and we met at the MTV New Year’s Party and it was a mutual admiration thing. A year later, we were doing five nights with Maiden at Long Beach Arena and Paul called me and said ‘I heard you’re in town, would you do a cameo?” They jumped at the chance and were even more excited when Paul suggested the song should be “Burn in Hell.”
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Au Revoir Simone got their name from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure
Pee-wee’s universe inspired the name of at least one band, ’00s-era Brooklyn synthpop trio Au Revoir Simone, who took their name from a scene in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure where he meets a waitress named Simone who dreams of Paris, and they have a sunrise heart-to-heart talk inside a giant dinosaur. “I remember coming up with the name so clearly,” Au Revoir Simone’s Annie Hart tells us. “We started as a keyboard club in Erika (Forster)’s living room and then we unexpectedly got offered our first show with her piano teacher. He needed a name for the flyer and we hadn’t even thought of that element of our music until then. The pressure was on for the show announce, and Heather (D’Angelo), the organized person she is, watched Pee-wee’s Big Adventure with her notebook out and came in the next day to practice with a long list of quotes from the film. It felt like such a great idea because that film meant so much to me, I watched it so many times that I even had all the dialog memorized! We all finally agreed on ‘Au Revoir Simone.’ For one, we were intent on finding something original that was easily searchable on the internet, and we really loved its romantic feeling with the secret undercurrent of complete weirdness. We also connected with the embodiment of the scene and how Pee-Wee is encouraging someone he cares about to get out of a bad situation, believe in themselves, and not be afraid of the world. It’s really beautiful when you think about it. It was pretty hard for a lot of people to say and definitely to spell, but it always felt so special to us and we are all wishing the best to Paul’s friends and family.” And yes, Paul Reubens was aware of the band.
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Jack White and Paul Reubens became “instant” friends on a Raconteurs video shoot
Paul Reubens did do some work not as Pee-wee, including memorable roles in The Blues Brothers, Blow, and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, to name three. He also co-starred in the video for “Steady, As She Goes,” the debut single by Jack White & Brendan Benson’s group The Raconteurs. Directed by The Malloys, it has the four members of the band competing in an old-fashioned soap box racer challenge at Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. Bassist Jack Lawrence is determined to win and doesn’t think twice about cheating with the help from his pit boss, played by Reubens. Oil slicks and poison darts are used, and we won’t spoil the ending but…sometimes foul play works out. “He had incredible taste in music and was very funny in everyday life,” Jack wrote in tribute. “I first got to witness his gift while filming a video for the Raconteurs together, and we became friends instantly.”
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Reubens asked that any expressions of sympathy be made in honor of his late parents, Judy and Milton Rubenfeld, to Stand Up to Cancer or organizations involved in Dementia and Alzheimer’s care, support and research.
No article about Pee-wee Herman and music would be complete without this, the “Tequila Dance”:
Or this: