I had this exact same freakout when another posted said "I'm 40 and I loved him when I was a kid" I'm like yeah, he must have been around for a while beforehand then, this is reasonable... Then I realised I'm 38 1/2
Man either the guy really thought he was going to beat this or he just needed a reason to hang on:
"...he recently penned the first draft of his upcoming memoir. He had also put the finishing touches on two more Pee-wee movie scripts and was developing projects for television, including a variety show and a western called Fancypants."
I remember him telling Philip Rosenthal that the reason he developed Pee-wee Herman was that Reubens had a horrible memory for jokes, and so he just built a persona that was inherently funny without them.
I'm 40 now. I freaking loved PeeWee when I was a kid. This hurts. I'm hoping when I get to the pearly gates I hear "Ha ha! Ahhh!". Probably want to see my grandma first now that I think about it.
Man WTF I idolized him as a kid growing up watching PeeWee's Playhouse and the PeeWee movies. Even though he was as old as my parents, it feels like a childhood friend died. I did not expect to be so upset by this.
Pee Wee's Big Adventure has gotten even more absurd and hilarious to me as I've gotten older; it both aged well and has grown funnier with time (nearly 40 years!)
Then in 2004, Reubens was sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor obscenity charge involving photographs of minors engaged in sexual conduct were seized from him
No, he was caught jerking off in a porn theater and charged with public indecency. In my opinion the whole thing was blown out of proportion and a stain on his legacy that doesn't deserve to be there. People just hear "sex crimes" and "children's performer" and come to that assumption. (No shade to you, its a fair assumption. I more have a problem with how the media handled it at the time)
It was the 90's, before the internet and he had a thing for pornography. The pussycat theatre was specifically an adult theatre that showed pornography, three other men were arrested with him, presumably because that what people went to the theatre for.