Pee Wee Herman (aka Paul Reubens) turns 66 years old today. That’s not a typo. Pee Wee is 66 freakin’ years old. He was already 40 years old when the infamous porn theater arrest took place.

Brandon quizzed me on my Pee Wee knowledge this morning. One of the questions I got right (truth be told, I got them ALL right) was that Cyndi Lauper sang the theme song for “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. The reason I knew this (other than the fact that it sounds just like Cyndi Lauper) is that I very vaguely recalled seeing an entertainment show from the early Eighties profiling Cyndi Lauper when she was the hot new star on the music scene. I couldn’t specifically recall if it was “Entertainment Tonight” or “Access Hollywood” and I also didn’t know if Pee Wee was a boyfriend or not. But I distinctly remember the story involved Cyndi Lauper playing Putt Putt golf with a very odd man named “Pee Wee”. At the time, Pee Wee Herman was relatively unknown (he’d appeared on the Dating Game and had an HBO special back when almost no one had HBO) and Cyndi Lauper was one of the most famous new music stars in the world.

I just wouldn’t let it go and after the show I had to satisfy my curiosity. Through the modern miracle of YouTube I found the video I barely remembered. It turns out it was “Entertainment Tonight” and it was from 1984, a year before “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” was released in theatres. Notice that Paul Reubens seems to be doing the Pee Wee character but he’s not wearing the Pee Wee suit we all would soon come to know.

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