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OK, it goes like this -- David Hasselhoff, Mark Mothersbaugh, Dr. Drew, 3 Arquettes and Sheila E walk into a bar...
No joke, it's almost a true story.
Instead of a bar, however, this unlikely arrangement of celebrity gathered at Club Nokia in Downtown last week to support Paul Reubens' highly anticipated Playhouse return to The Pee-Wee Herman Show.
After delaying the launch and switching venues from the Music Box at the Henry Fonda, the stage reinvention is now underway with Reubens building audience as he builds the case for a large scale Pee-wee revival.
Sensibly, the show's limited-run is debuting on home turf. TPwHS got its start in Los Angeles in the early 80s when Reubens was a member of the Groundlings. He turned attention to Pee-wee (when dreams of SNL were Gilbert Gottfried-ed away), and kicked off the character's film career with a cameo in Cheech and Chong's Next Movie. As Pee-wee, Reubens held down the Roxy with months of sold-out stage gigs, teamed up with Tim Burton to create the cult epic Pee-wee's Big Adventure (Burton's first film), and conquered childrens television with Pee-wee's Playhouse.
Then in 1991, he had a wee scandal -- Reubens was accused of public sexytime in
It got quiet. For a while. When Reubens began to surface again, it was exhilarating -- like a bigfoot sighting. Was that Paul Reubens??! Yes, yes it was.
He was taking smaller, unexpected parts and appearing as non Pee-wee characters. We collectively rose to the challenge of accepting him out of familiar context. We stood by him as a 'fabulous' drug dealer in Blow, we were with him as a sassy vampire in the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie that we viewed un-ironically on prom weekend, and we're with him now.
These folks are with him too:
Marisa Tomei, David Arquette, Ellen Page, David Hasselhoff, Eric Idle, Mark Mothersbaugh, Alexis Arquette, Drew Carey, Andy Samberg, Adam Shankman, Josh Meyers, Seth Meyers, Cheri Oteri, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Sheila E., Mike Moody, Christopher Atkins, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Camryn Manheim, Jim Parsons, Diva Zappa, Marianna Palka, Judy Tenuta, Jason Ritter, Thomas Jane, Patricia Arquette, Dylan Sprouse, Cole Sprouse, more...
