Yup. He was credited as Paul Mall.
Ok, I was today years old when I learned this. But I can still hear the voice and how I never put that together is beyond me.
Google tells me that he had a relationship with Debbie Mazer, but she has described it as dating without sex. And he apparently pretended to marry Chandi Heffner.
So who knows?
Wow, you spelled both her names wrong. Impressive!
Especially considering the only reason he was there was because he was visiting his parents and was just getting out of the house.
LOL. Because that’s where everyone goes when they’re just getting out of the house.
It’s about as “un-mom and dad” as it gets.
I read a piece about him, maybe in The New Yorker(?), that said the same thing. You’re stuck visiting your aging 'rents in Florida, and you want to get out and attend to your own needs. Where else are you going to go? Had he gone to a strip club, nobody would have batted an eye.
I’d like to add something positive. I’ve often bemoaned that no one would ever dropped the incident 20, 30 years later and I made my first joking reference to it. I found this a while back. It’s his first appearance and is probably the purest example of the concept behind the character. He was supposed to be a new stand-up comedian and wasn’t that good at it yet. This is the only video I’ve seen of it that actually references it yet.
So, if you visited a strip club, it would be fair for others to infer that strip clubs were the extent of your sex life? Or does this logic only apply to movie theaters?
Part of that did not age well.
“Peanut gallery” is an old theatrical term for the cheapest seats in the highest balcony. Howdy Doody definitely employed it (I know; I was there). I can’t say which of the two TV shows used it first.
On Wednesday, the NY Times had a brief article on the Pinky Lee connection.
I was lucky enough to see Rubens before his Pee-Wee character was fully developed. He was an improv actor at the Goundlings on Melrose in Los Angeles. He was part of the regular cast, not as Pee-Wee, but just another improv cast member for the first half of a show. Then the second half was devoted to Pee-Wee entirely. He obviously had improv talent, whether in or out of special costume!
I saw both that his toy dog was named “Speck” which was his dog’s name in Big Adventure, and the beginning of what became the Tequila dance. Amazing!
And this is so early, he still has the black bow tie. He’s pretty much fully formed already. I love how he gets impatient with the audience for laughing.
Never a big fan of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse…heart in the right place but just too sophomoric for my tastes…but his run as the snippy Andrew J Lansing III on Murphy Brown was really good. Seeing the man seamlessly transform from an awkward overgrown boy to a corporate shill with a vindictive streak a mile wide was eye-opening. Really showed just how good an actor he was.
Aw, heck, MAYBE I’ll pick up Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Maybe.
I don’t think I ever watched an episode of *Pee-Wee’s Playhouse". I did see Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, once, on VHS, when it first came out. I decided to retry it this past week. It was okay, I guess. Big Top Pee-Wee wasn’t, though.
I found a tiny stray dog years ago. My gf’s coworker ended up taking the dog, who I’d been calling “Speck” and they kept the name.
Years later she asked if I’d named the dog after PeeWee’s dog. I told her no, I’d named him after Richard.