Tomorrow, HBO Max begins airing the bio-doc Pee-Wee as Himself, from the acclaimed Silicon Valley native, New York-based documentarian Matt Wolf. Wolf has an uncanny gift for finding compelling stories that everyone else has overlooked: Teenage, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, Spaceship Earth and Rustin.
The delightfully wacky character Pee-Wee Herman sprang on the scene, seemingly from nowhere, sweetly celebrating his own weirdness. Pee-Wee was the creation of actor Paul Reubens. Reubens, of course, had a life before Pee-Wee, and he had a very private personal life distinct from his invented persona. Sadly, Reubens lost his privacy in a career-killing tabloid scandal.
Wolf had elicited permission from Reubens to make a film about Reubens’ life, and secured hours of on-camera interview footage. But the mercurial Reubens, highly ambivalent to sharing his personal story, kept pulling the plug on the project. When Reubens fell ill, Wolf was in a race against mortality to get Reubens back on board. Fortunately, Wolf succeeded.
Pee-Wee as Himself runs three hours and twenty-five minutes and will be aired in two parts on HBO Max, beginning tomorrow.