CBS, Disney Sever Ties With Pee-wee

In the wake of the media tidal wave following Paul Reubens’ arrest on charges of indecent exposure in Florida last weekend, CBS and Disney have cut off their involvement with the actor’s Pee-wee Herman character.

Disney-MGM Studios in Florida has stopped showing a video starring Pee-wee on its theme park tour. And CBS will drop five scheduled repeat episodes of the Emmy-winning “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” the successful Saturday-morning children’s show starring Reubens as a bow-tied nerd, which he decided to discontinue after five seasons.

However, Media Home Entertainment, which has sold about 500,000 “Playhouse” videocassettes since October, 1987, has no plans to remove the tapes from their video catalogue.

“By the time we would pull the tapes from the catalogue, this, as many sensational news items, will have blown over,” said communications vice president Judy McGuinn. “Most audiences for ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse’ are to young to know or care what happened anyway. The entertainment value of those tapes for them remains the same.”

In Los Angeles, Reubens’ press agent Richard Grant said public response in support of the actor has been overwhelming.

“The number of calls has been extraordinary,” Grant said Tuesday. “People like Bill Cosby, Joan Rivers, all calling and being supportive, asking how they can be of assistance. And calls from hundreds of kids all over the country wanting to know where they can write Pee-wee to let him know that they still love him.”

Reubens on Monday denied charges that he exposed himself in an X-rated theater in Sarasota, Fla., where an undercover officer reported seeing the 38-year-old actor masturbate.

In a prepared statement, Grant said the arrest was part of a sting operation and “the facts as stated by the vice squad were totally untrue.” The statement, which said Reubens is “emotionally devastated by the embarrassment of the situation,” claimed he never exposed himself or engaged in any other improper activities.

“I think it’s disgraceful that the media has already tried and convicted him before he has even been proven guilty, which he says he isn’t,” a source close to Reubens said. “It’s a disgrace. There’s a guy out there who’s allegedly murdered 17 people, and that’s already dropped out of the headlines. (Reubens) admitted he was at an adult theater. Why do adult theaters exist?”

Reubens, who was in Florida to visit his family, is in seclusion with friends until his Aug. 9 arraignment. He could face up to two months in jail and a $500 fine if convicted; he is free on $219 bail. In 1983, Reubens was charged with loitering and prowling near an adult theater in Sarasota, where he grew up and his parents still live, but the misdemeanor charges were dropped later by prosecutors.

Because of the uproar following the recent incident, Disney-MGM Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., which is near Sarasota, pulled a two-minute video on the backstage tour in which Pee-wee explains how voice tracks are worked into film. “We just suspended it out of the sensitivity for the guests as a result of the publicity surrounding Pee-wee Herman this weekend,” Disney spokesman John Dreyer told the Associated Press.

CBS on Monday decided to pull five August repeats of the hit “Playhouse,” which ended its run in April when Reubens chose not to return for a sixth season to pursue other projects. “In light of the current circumstances and until we know more, these episodes will not be presented on CBS,” the network said in a statement. CBS has not yet announced what will air in its place.

Reubens, who lives in Studio City, developed the perpetual adolescent Pee-wee in 1979 when he was with the Los Angeles improvisational group, the Groundlings. The squeaky-voiced, pasty-faced Pee-wee, decked out in his too-small suit and white spats, went on to develop a cult following.

He started a national dance craze, was marketed as a talking doll and starred in two feature films, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Big Top Pee-wee.” CBS has called his TV show the most successful live-action, Saturday-morning program in the last decade on any network.