The Late Show With David Letterman
11:35 tonight
KCBS/Channel 2
Pee-Wee Appreciation Week continues here at the clicker wrapped in bacon dipped in brown sugar. Our Monday pick was the resurrection of the debut episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, which is showing all 45 of the original Saturday morning CBS shows as well as Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special. Tonight, the man who made the manboy—Paul Reubens—is a guest on Letterman. Anyone remember way back to the glory days of the old Late Night With David Letterman on NBC? Pee-Wee/Reubens was a frequent guest, and a good one at that, as—finally—Letterman had met his match with a stand-up comic who could also simultaneously crack up, put down and creep out an audience. And both looked freakish doing so. It'll be interesting to see how they'll look back at those long lost times tonight. Besides the guesting gigs and re-runs of his old CBS shows (which are already huge on DVD), Reubens also re-emerges on the small screen with the 1985 Tim Burton film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure on TV Land at 10, and USA's running of Ted Demme's Blow at 5:30 p.m. Saturday; Reubens plays the backstabbing LA connection for a '70s/'80s coke dealer played by Johnny Depp. And the DVD release of The Pee-Wee Herman Show—Live at the Roxy Theater arrives next Tuesday, July 18. Reubens has more big-screen time coming, too, with roles in David Arquette's directorial-debut slasher film, The Tripper (now in post production), and the feature version of cable TV's Reno 911! Miami (now filming). Hmm, wonder how cops, Florida and Reubens will all tie together?
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.