REMEMBERING PAUL REUBENS (PART 2)

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Last night, at my weekly pub quiz, I asked this question: “The American comedian/actor Paul Reubens, who passed away Sunday at the age of 70, was better known for what character that he portrayed on stage, television and film?” Only one team (out of 6) got the correct answer. Having been in UK for over 20 years now, I found there are many icons from the various arts that are most decidedly American and unknown here, just as there are many brilliant English acts that have had no success across the pond. In my UK comedy days, I remember mentioning to a couple Brit comics about my work with Pee Wee, and one of them asked, “Was he the one caught wanking in a theatre?” I told that story to Paul the last time I saw him in 2010, and he got a laugh out of it, though he regretted that he had never, in all his travels, been to England.

So anyway, in yesterday’s blog I left off at the beginning of 1981. Ruby and I had made our first moves toward Los Angeles, though by that time, she was 4 months pregnant. She assured she was good for at least the first three months of the year, which was lucky, since the Pee Wee Show was already pretty much written and ready to go into rehearsals, with the first performance booked for the second Saturday in January at The Groundlings Theatre. Good thing we worked on our medley in SF so we could just plug it into whatever space was available. The Groundlings, by the way, is an improv sketch group that is still going almost 50 years after its founding, and all the cast of the Pee Wee show except us were members of the group. Several of the members made their way into the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” though it was to everyone’s benefit that Paul had auditioned for that show in the summer of 1980 but was turned down.

We were booked at the theatre for every Saturday at 11:00 pm, and it only took a couple of weeks for the show to be a hot ticket. By the time Ruby, known in the show as Mrs Jelly Donut, took her pregnancy leave in March, there was a waiting list of about 1500 for a show in a 99-seat theatre. To accommodate the demand, the show’s producer was able to move the show to the Roxy Theatre on Sunset Blvd., a 600-seat venue, for Mondays and Tuesdays. I wanted to continue in the show, and Paul paired me with a musician/actor friend named Tito Larriva, who had a popular local band called The Plugz (he would later front an even more successful band called The Cruzados). Tito and I, though we’d never met, managed to put together a musical tribute to Louis Armstrong, as both of us could do a pretty decent impression. Tito and I were also the only ones to have ever performed on a stage as large as that at The Roxy, so we acclimated well to the change. The pairing of me with Tito would only last until Ruby returned in June (her baby was born at end of April), while Tito found another role in the show as Pee Wee’s neighbour Hammy.

It was only a matter of time at The Roxy before Hollywood Elite began showing up. Steve Martin came several times, as did Robert De Niro. Somehow, the night Joan Rivers came, the only cast member she wound up talking to was me. She was very nice and complimentary, but I would never meet her again. More importantly, producers from HBO secured a deal to record the show in mid-July. It was amazing the energy that Paul exerted throughout the entire run, even during the time leading up to the days of filming that Paul completely lost his voice. In rehearsal he had to mime his lines while someone read from the script. Thankfully by the time of the actual taping, he was back to full voice.

The days of recording were a hassle for everyone, but the people I felt most sorry for were the audiences. Try as the producers might, to record the entire show in one continuous take was an impossibility. Most often they had to stop recording as our makeup would run under the hot lights. It was pretty frustrating for us, as they had to stop us about five times in our medley to either adjust camera angles or do a touch up on our faces. And every time we stopped, the audience would boo a little bit louder. I felt their frustration, but unfortunately there was nothing we could do under the circumstances. It was kind of a tribute that someone in the audience yelled out “That’s Rick and Ruby, stop fucking around with them.” Still, I gotta say, having seen the show many times, the final product is well edited, and something to be proud of. I’m sure the show will air a few more times in light of Paul’s passing.

I hope the trio that put this whole thing together are all making each other laugh in whatever after-life they’re leading. Paul co-wrote the show with two of the other cast members, Phil Hartman, who played the brash Captain Carl, and John Paragon, who played Jambi the eccentric genie. Hartman and Paragon would continue to write and work with Paul clear through the Pee Wee’s Playhouse TV show and the Pee Wee films. Phil was more successful than Paul in many aspects, having a hit sitcom after several years at Saturday Night Live, plus multiple voices on The Simpsons, only to be shot and killed in 1998 in a murder/suicide at the hands of his estranged wife. John died of heart failure in 2021, but had many film and TV roles, plus a long term deal with Disney. Paul went into a self-imposed exile for several years after the 1991 theatre incident, but prospered again as an actor after Hollywood came to their senses and forgave him. Working with those three was one of the most riveting experiences of my long career, and I felt honoured that they respected what Ruby and I did.

August 2nd, 2023



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