To Pee-wee we must at least partially credit the mainstream culture’s decades-long appreciation for mid-century American kitsch, in all its glitter, cereal-box dinosaurs, princess phones and sci-fi robots. The owners of funky tchotchke stores in any town’s gay/artsy neighborhood owe Pee-wee Herman (and the B-52s, and Godzilla) their undying gratitude for prolonging a fetish for retro junk culture that persists to this day.
— Hank Stuever, on the meaning of Pee-wee Herman. (via washingtonpoststyle)