I’ve always said that any show starring a talking armchair and a globe with hands should be sent back to the third level of hell from whence it came. Okay I haven’t always said that, but I’m pretty sure that any parents who lived through the eighties and had to be subjected to a constant barage of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse has said it. Mine sure did. Well after a blissful seventeen year break, Pee-Wee is back. No word on Chairry the arm chair – rumor has it that she’s become a total diva and is holding out for more money and a bigger trailer.

Comedy actor Paul Reubens is reprising his most famous character to make two new Pee-Wee Herman movies. Just months after vowing never to play the kids’ favorite again, Reubens is working on two new scripts – the first due for release in 2009, 19 years after he retired the beloved character. He explains his change of heart to MTV, “I feel like the time is really ripe right now. A lot of the kids who grew up with the show are young adults. The college kids are middle-aged adults. I feel like I have enough of a built-in audience to make back an investment.”

[From Contact Music]

Not all of the original cast will be returning. Penny – Pee-Wee’s little Claymation blond girl with pennies for eyes – sadly passed away in the late nineties. After Pee Wee’s Playhouse was canceled in 1990, Penny hit a rough patch and ended up with a pretty severe drug addiction. Eventually she started doing some Claymation niche porn to support her habit, and developed a small but loyal following. But there are only so many people with a Claymation sex fetish. Penny played it up for as long as she could, but blew most of her money on hamburgers and smack. She passed away in 1999 from a combination of cirrhosis of the liver and being left on top of the heater by a careless john.

Penny did, however, give him her two cents for it.

Note by Celebitchy: Here’s a clip from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Magic Johnson, Grace Jones, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. I think it’s from 1988. I’m confused as to why they would want to make this movie now, because they already did Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in 1985 and Big Top Pee Wee in 1988.