Pee Wee Herman, America's Favorite Masturbator, Tells Leno He's Giving Up Sex
NEW YORK (CBS) Everyone's favorite movie-theater-masturbator and 1980s children's TV star, Pee-wee Herman, is back in action.
Paul Reuben, the creator of the lovable bow-tied star of "Pee-wee's Funhouse," appeared on The Jay Leno Show on Tuesday night, where he discussed his new stage show and showed off his new abstinence ring.
"I'm only two days into it," he said of his newfound temperance. "Not easy!" he told Leno in his famous Pee-wee voice.
It's not clear that Reuben is the best candidate for celibacy, given his spotty rap sheet.
In 1991, Reuben pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure after he was arrested in a Florida adult movie theater, where he was taking care of his own pee-wee during the triple bill of Catalina Five-O: Tiger Shark, Nurse Nancy and Turn up the Heat, according to Entertainment Weekly.
While detectives looked at his driver's license, Reubens told them, "I'm Pee-wee Herman," and then offered to do a children's benefit for the sheriff's office "to take care of this," according to the Associated Press.
Eleven years later in 2002, Reuben's "art" collection was deemed inappropriate and he was charged with possessing child pornography.
Those child pornography charges were dropped by Los Angeles authorities in 2004 after Reubens pleaded guilty to possessing obscene images of minors so as to avoid going to court and risking jail.
For the next three years Reubens had to register his address with the sheriff's office and could not be in the company of minors without their parents' permission, according to an interview with NBC's Dateline.
Reubens later stated that he was a collector of "erotic artwork," a stash that includes films, muscle magazines and a sizable collection of both heterosexual and homosexual vintage erotica, according to the interview.
Let's hope he does well in his new mission to keep his pee-wee in his pants.