MovieChat Forums > The Pee-Wee Herman Show (1981) Discussion > Is it just me or was something special h...

Is it just me or was something special happening in L.A. around 1981?

posted 10 years ago by ce-tengle
2 replies | jump to latest

I keep going back over the really wacky, subversive comedies that were coming out of Los Angeles in the late '70s and early '80s...the Pee Wee Herman Show, Uncle Andy's Playhouse, Eating Raoul, the Cheech and Chong films, Young Doctors in Love, Pandemonium, Jekyll and Hyde, Together Again, etc. I don't know if it was just the SNL/Animal House influence or if there was a seriously creative and rebellious scene happening, because there was a really out-of-control feel and a shared sense of anarchic humour that I can only assume came out of the '60s experience. A lot of the same people seem to show up in these things, like Paul Rubens, John Paragon, members of the Groundlings, etc. These films and shows were a special part of my teenage years, and I feel like my sense of humour as both a writer and actor was shaped by this stuff. Anyone who was around at the time care to comment? I wish I had been but I was an Ohio teenager. I was following the L.A. hardcore punk scene at the same time, and it seems like the same spirit was infused into that. Someone needs to write a book about this and explain it to me! :-)

[–] Druff (1518) 4 years ago

I think you nailed it. The LA punk scene that had been going since 1977... it fed into lots of creative/show-biz stuff going on in the years that followed. I was only 12 or 13 when I first saw this on cable in the early 80s, and it wasn't until a couple years later that I got into punk, somewhere in 1984... and then it was many, many years later when I finally discovered that Hammy was played by Tito Larriva from the Plugz and his sister was played by Nicole Panter, the manager of the Germs whom I had a massive crush on from her interview in Decline of Western Civilization. (I guess her hair going from bleach blond to jet black was like Clark Kent wearing glasses) That was when I realized there was a very direct connection.

[–] Druff (1518) 23 days ago

I just found out some really cool trivia from a Pleasant Gheman podcast she did with Paul Reubens in 2021.

Paul grew up in Florida, I forget what city. As a teenager he was friends with a girl there named Christene. They had similar eclectic tastes. After he graduated high school he was accepted at CalArts so he moved to Los Angeles. Later, Christene decided to leave Florida and packed a couple bags and just started driving west. She had no final destination in mind, but eventually she ended up in LA. She had kept in touch with Paul and had his number so she ended up going to his apartment just to say hi. She ended up settling in LA herself, and one day she mentioned to Paul that she had joined a poetry workshop and met a really cool guy in it. The guy had just started a band and he invited her to join. The guy was John Doe, the band was X, and Christene changed her name to Exene.