DEVO co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh was present when the late Paul Reubens and late Saturday Night Live cast member Phil Hartman created the character of Pee-wee Herman.
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By the late ’70s, Mothersbaugh was dating original Saturday Night Live cast member Laraine Newman, who founded the improv comedy group The Groundlings. There, Mothersbaugh witnessed Reubens and future SNL-er Hartman create the character later used in The Pee-wee Herman Show.
Reubens kicked off the production of his character in 1980 after being rejected as an SNL cast member for the 1980–81 season.
“The character came from a [1950s] show that we both watched when we were kids—’Pinky Lee,’” said Mothersbaugh. “Paul wore something similar to what Pinky wore. There were three channels on TV in those days; there wasn’t much choice. You had ‘Captain Kangaroo,’ and then later in the day, you had ‘Pinky Lee.’”
Tim Burton and Cyndi Lauper
Several years into his Pee-wee phenomena, Reubens partnered with then-new director Tim Burton to bring his character to the big screen in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, which was scored by Danny Elfman.
A year later, CBS approached Reubens to bring Herman to television with Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The premise: Herman lives in a playhouse of eccentric inanimate and animate characters, including Cowboy Curtis, Globey, Jambi, Chairry, the King of Cartoons, and more all mixed in with haphazard stories, gags, and other comedic hijinks all centered around entertaining educational segments.
The first episode aired September 13, 1986, and the series featured ex-Groundlings members, including Hartman, Laurence Fishburne, John Paragon, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Lynne Marie Stewart.
Before it aired, the show needed an enigmatic, carnival-like opening, and Mothersbaugh rose to the challenge. Cyndi Lauper, who was already a pop star with her 1983 debut, She’s So Unusual and True Colors in 1986, came on board to sing the theme song but concealed her identity.
Credited as Ellen Shaw, Lauper took on the song using a more sped-up Betty Boop vocal.
Come on in, and pull yourself up a chair (Like Chairry!)
Let the fun begin, it’s time to let down your hair!
Pee-wee’s SO excited
‘Cause all his friends have been invited (That’s you!)
To go wacky at Pee-wee’s Playhouse!
There’s a crazy rhythm, comin’ from Puppetland (What that?)
Dirty Dog, Cool Cat, and Chicky Baby are the Puppet Band (Yeah!)
He’s got a couple of talkin’ fish
And a genie who’ll grant a wish
Golly, it’s cuckoo at Pee-wee’s Playhouse!
[RELATED: 3 Songs You Didn’t Know DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh Wrote for Other Artists]
In 1988, Reubens made a sequel to Big Adventure with Big Top Pee-Wee. Reubens revised the character again in Pee-wee’s Big Holiday in 2016.
Mothersbaugh said that writing the theme song to Pee-wee’s Playhouse completely shifted the course of his career. Outside of DEVO, Mothersbaugh’s other work veered into composing music for television, video games, and film, including scoring several Wes Anderson films—Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Throughout his career, Mothersbaugh also composed the first score for the animated series Rugrats, along with music for dozens of TV shows, including House of Lies, The Carrie Diaries, and the Apple+ series Hello Tomorrow!
“I’d never done a TV show before,” said Mothersbaugh of working on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. “That took me into the world of film and television and video games. It totally changed the trajectory of my career.”
Photo: Bobby Bank/GC Images
