The new stage show—which will have about a dozen cast members, including puppeteers (and will feature familiar memes like “today’s secret word”)—will be true to that spirit. Out of respect for his slain friend Phil Hartman, who played Captain Carl, that character has been retired; Cowboy Curtis, the part Fishburne played, will get a larger role in his place. Reubens has also struck a first-of-its-kind pact with Ticketmaster to reach out to diverse audiences. When e-mail alerts appeared to be sent to mostly white consumers, one of the show’s producers complained to the booking company; the employee he reached revealed she was African-American and that she had grown up watching Pee-wee.

“She said, ‘It was not lost on me that the King of Cartoons was a black man, and that had a big meaning for me.’ It doesn’t cost anything to be nice to somebody versus being ugly,” Reubens says, turning introspective. “This is where Pee-wee and me may not be relevant anymore, seriously.” I posit that kindness, pluralism, and fun with tape might be just the balm for what ails us today. Pee-wee won’t be our savior, Reubens says. “I can’t be that, because that doesn’t work for comedy.” But isn’t the resuscitation of this eighties-era Peter Pan itself a quixotic rescue mission? The question prompts a duh-Dottie-don’t-you-know rejoinder that sounds more like Pee-wee than Paul Reubens: “You can’t save the world.”