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Comment by lr4444lr | Hacker News Reader

The Peewee Herman show was a fond memory of my childhood, and I tip my hat to everyone involved.

I wonder if he’d be seen as a Mr Rogers Lite if not for the unfortunate movie theater incident. He did help raise a generation of us in a more 80s/90s style compared to the reserved styling of Rogers.

I don't think so. His stuff by today's standards was very un-woke (John's genie character itself would probably be considered an offensive stereotype) and there are YouTube videos compiled of clips that show unambiguous double entendres that would be considered child-corrupting.

What happened to Rubens for the movie theater incident was incredibly harsh, I think even for that era, but I just don't think that a show as deliberately weird as Peewee's Playhouse would be well received today by parents and cultural stewards. A shame though, Rubens was a really great performing artist.

Artists always catch shit from the status quo supporting boring scolds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ22N3Y9f70

art that isn’t at least a little subversive is very rarely any good.

> unambiguous double entendres

An oxymoron if ever there was one?

I'd think an ambiguous double entendre was one where you weren't sure if the person making it wanted to do so or just did it by accident.

My mother was on the conservative-Christian side and didn’t allow us to watch PeeWee. I don’t really know what her reasons were.

Probably the movie theater incident. My mother wasn't a fan after that happened.

I think it was aimed at adults who grew up on Howdy Doody and Mr. Rogers.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sesame-street-for-adults-only/

First season of Sesame Street got rated R. Back when Oscar was orange.

iCarly cuses in the reboot: https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/icarly-reboot-cursing-fa...

Sort of like Adult Swim it was meant for grown ups but the kids watch it too. Too young to get the jokes, the kids love it.

Too weird for today? Have you seen Yo Gabba Gabba?

Parents of today like weird. And yes, maybe some stuff would be offensive in today's context, but not that bad.

We watched a couple of the old Pee-Wee movies with my kids and a bit of some of the old shows and they loved them. We're very lefty and I don't recall anything in them that raised any particular alarm bells.

He has actually done a remarkable amount of voice acting: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0000607/filmotype/actor?ref_=m_nmf...

I loved the 80s movie "Flight of the Navigator" where he played Max, the alien ship robot, remarkably well. You could tell it was him because Max's laugh was Peewee's laugh: https://youtu.be/fjv7k54YTa0

Slightly off topic, but Captain Disillusionment did a great video recently on Flight of the Navigator: https://youtu.be/tyixMpuGEL8

He was absolutely my Mr. Rogers.

I could care less about him masturbating in an adult movie theater.

Reubens' comedy is a little more subversive. Letterman had it right:

"What makes me laugh about (Peewee) is that it has the external structure of a bratty little precocious kid, but you know it's being controlled by the incubus -- the manifestation of evil itself."

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