Pee-Wee's Playhouse closed to public

Remember when children's programming was your programming? Back in the days when you knew all the words to the songs on Sesame Street, waited with eager eyes for the train to roll into Mr. Roger's living room to take you to the land of make believe? These shows-along with the late great Electric Company, Smurfs, 3-2-1-Contact (who could forget the Bloodhound Gang?)-all compromised a large part of my life. Despite the fact that I loved these shows almost as much as I loved my Wonder Woman Underoos, they were all weekday shows. They could be seen morning or evening, Monday through Friday. What makes a show really special when you're a kid is not necessarily the quality but the frequency with which it is shown.

Remember how early you got up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons? These days, you might just be going to bed around that time. Those Saturday morning shows were the ones you waited for all week. All those weekday shows-oh, they tried but they could not win the place in your heart filled by the Saturday morning line-up. Personally, I got up every Saturday morning at 6:15 so I could watch my favorite show, Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

Believe it or not, my mother would often get up with me in order to watch it also (this was in the days before VCRs), and I thought she was watching it for the same reasons I was: so I could scream at the Secret Word, watch Pterry huddle in Pee-Wee's arms during a thunderstorm, the King of Cartoons, Magic Screen, the Dinosaur Family, Jambie...all these wacky characters. What a bizarre place!

I mean, isn't it every child's dream to live in a place where your toys are your friends and your furniture talks to you? To live in a town where your mailman is gay, your genie loves to masturbate and your neighbor is a slut. No wonder my mother liked it so much.

What?

Yep. That's the secret that us wee-little ones were never aware of. I know I never was until the Fox Family network put it back on the air in September. Oh, my heart, my jubilation! Pee-Wee was back! But wait. Fox Family ? Wasn't Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman arrested for masturbating in a XXX theater? If Fox Family is the network's attempt to prove to the world that, yes they do have values, is airing show featuring a convicted sex offender a wise move?

Probably not. Pee-Wee's Playhouse was on the air for no more than a month; upon returning from Fall Break, I switch on the TV at 5:30 to catch another episode and...hey! This isn't Pee-Wee's Playhouse! This is some lame cartoon with really bad art and a plot line my goldfish could follow. I don't know why it's off the air, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Fox probably got a few too many negative phone calls from concerned parents.

The media's response to any famous person who gets caught with their hand down their's or somebody else's pants is always the same: their "crime" taints everything they have ever done and redefines the person in question as amoral, sick and a danger to our youth. To tell the truth, I think it's more harmful for children to see their heroes punished for doing something that they themselves might enjoy doing sometime.

On a separate note, I think that "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" is a work of genius. Demented genius, perhaps, but genius nonetheless. Other established actors evidently felt the same way. On any given episode you could find Lawrence Fishburne, Jimmy Smits or Phil Hartman, who were all regular characters, plus a bevy of other actors who made special appearances. Of course, when you're a child these things meant nothing to you because you probably didn't watch Boyz in the Hood, L.A. Law, or stayed up late enough to watch Saturday Night Live.

But that's why the show was-and still is-such an amazing part of Saturday Morning history. It appeals to all ages, and never dumbs anything down. It's wacky enough to simply be funny without having to resort to schlocky, over-simplified plot lines. Dumbed down shows make for dumbed down kids. (Although, I don't know what one would have learned from Pee-Wee's Playhouse). Pee-Wee's Playhouse is as much of a children's show as The Simpsons is. It wasn't a kid's show, it was a comedy show. Good comedy is smart comedy, and smart comedy knows that everybody loves to be a little cuckoo.

"Mecka-Lecka-Hi-Mecka-Hiney-Ho"!

The age of innocence: We can remember when he was "nice." (photo by INSERT_PHOTOGRAPHER)