Pee-Wee Herman makes stage comeback

After dropping hints in this year’s interview with Swindle, Paul Reubens has officially announced The Pee-Wee Herman Show: Live on Stage in which he’ll be reunited with Miss Yvonne, Cowboy Curtis, Jambi, Chairry, Pterri and other Pee-Wee’s Playhouse characters. (No confirmation on whether Laurence Fishburne will be involved.) The limited-run show debuts the 8th of November at the Music Box in the Henry Fonda Theater. Speaking of theaters…

This is the first new P.W. production since since Paul Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure in a pornographique theater in 1991. Following this media debacle that could only happen in puritan America, our beloved Pee-Wee Herman character had taken an extended retreat from the public. Then, in 2006, Adult Swim launched late-night airings of his original Saturday morning show Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, targeting the nostalgia of a generation that doesn’t really think it’s a big deal to watch porn and beat off. In the following year, Reubens stepped into the role for a couple brief public appearances and announced that a new Pee-Wee full-length film is in development.

This will be the third P.W. movie, and Reubens has apparently said that if he does not perform the role himself, he would cast Johnny Depp. An interesting choice — could it be a roundabout way to get Tim Burton to direct again? (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure from 1985 was Burton’s debut feature-length film.)

While we might have to wait until 2011 for a new movie, we can at least be satiated with this new stage iteration. Although this production will feature characters from the family-friendly Playhouse, the original 1981 Pee-Wee Herman Show — shot live and aired on HBO — was full of adult humor, as exemplified in the clip below. So we’ll just have to connect the dots (la la la la la) as November approaches to determine this show’s tone.