"Twenty-nine years after a notorious run-in at a Florida adult movie theater derailed his career — which was heading toward becoming the biggest children's-programming phenom since Mister Rogers..."

"... he's still hoping to pedal his red Schwinn back into America's hearts... [H]e's been pitching studios on The Pee-wee Herman Story, a very un-Pee-wee-sounding screenplay that takes his puckish TV persona into dark and unexpected territory (Pee-wee gets sent to a mental hospital for shock treatment for his alcoholism, no joke).... In today's overstuffed entertainment landscape, it's hard to imagine a lane for a sexagenarian man-child who talks to his furniture.... 'People have argued I've done everything consciously or unconsciously to destroy [the character],' he says. 'But it's the brand that won't die. It's still around.'"

"Pee-wee Herman's "Dark" Reboot: Paul Reubens Is Ready to Stage a Comeback"

On creating the Pee-Wee character:

At first, he was conceived as a super-geeky stand-up comedian who cracked extremely blue jokes. But the character evolved, with Reubens drawing inspiration from the children's entertainment of his youth — Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo and Rocky and Bullwinkle in particular. And then one day Reubens slipped into the now-iconic costume — the suit was a loaner from Groundlings founder Gary Austin, the bow tie he grabbed from a pile of accessories backstage — and something inside him clicked.

"It dawned on me that I could actually become Pee-wee Herman," he says. "I could do something that was conceptual art, and the only person who would really know it was conceptual was me."