After a years-long, secret battle with cancer, we lost Paul Reubens this week. His groundbreaking Saturday morning TV show, Pee Wee’s playhouse was unlike anything we had seen before - raucous and freaky, with a chair that hugged you, a pterodactyl, a puppet who was a bully, Captain Carl, Cowboy Curtis, and Jambi, the blue faced genie who lived in a jeweled box.
Aside from Reubens’ colossal talent, what made the show work was his assembled team of behind-the-scenes collaborators, which included artists Wayne White and Gary Panter. Both artists collaborated on unbelievable set designs and characters like the aforementioned bully puppet named Randy. The set was explosive with unusual electric colors, a jagged front door, crazy carpets, shapes galore that screamed a do-it-yourself, punk aesthetic.
In very quick order, the team of White and Panter changed design as we knew it. Album covers, fashion, graphics, print advertising, TV commercials, you name it—all adopted the new flair. We also saw more humor introduced into contemporary art of the 80s and 90’s. And I still don’t know what to call the style. But I’m extremely thankful for all the show and its creators did for and to art. Artists everywhere owe the team a real debt of gratitude.
I will miss Paul Reubens.
Mekka Lekka Hi Mekka Hiney Ho.
