Chicago Sun Times

`Why don'tcha take a picture? It'll last longer," Pee-Wee Herman once advised.

Actually, the mug shot from his 1991 arrest for indecent exposure lasted longest of all.

But now the Artist Formerly Known as Pee-Wee is back planning a new movie for Disney about the famed man-child. "I've had a nice vacation from Pee-Wee and now I'm ready to go back to work rejuvenated," Paul Reubens told me last weekend in New York. "I know you've read reports that I've retired Pee-Wee forever, but it was all lies."

Reubens hasn't talked to the media at all since his arrest outside a Florida porn theater. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and received a $50 fine. It just about cost him his career. But now Reubens might have the last laugh.

The new movie will be about a subject he knows only too well. "It's going to be Pee-Wee's autobiography," Reubens said. "The movie will show what happens when Pee-Wee gets famous and it changes his life completely."

Until then, Reubens saves lives as a second-rate superhero named the Spleen in "Mystery Men," opening Aug. 6.

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Paul Reubens -- as himself
August 1, 1999
BY CINDY PEARLMAN

. . .
Not wanting to give too many details, he says, ``It's a semi-autobiographical movie and it's about fame in our times. Pee-wee becomes famous and turns into a monster. He's extremely nasty to other people.''
Can you blame him?
. . .

. . .
Reubens says his upcoming Disney film will be "Pee-wee's autobiography," and will "show what happens when Pee-wee gets famous and it changes his life completely."
. . .