As tributes pour in for Paul Reubens, the comedian who died Monday at the age of 70 following a private battle with cancer, fans have also been finding other ways to memorialize him beyond his indelible bow tie-wearing creation Pee-wee Herman. His hilariously extended death sequence in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, for instance, has gotten a lot of play—and for good reason.
But if you’re looking for another quick example of Reubens’ comedic brilliance, cue up the first-season episode of 30 Rock, “Black Tie,” in which Reubens plays Gerhardt Hapsburg, a jovial but ailing Austrian prince who is a result of decades of royal inbreeding. From the moment he appears on screen, it’s an incredible site gag. And then he opens his mouth and it gets 10 times funnier.
As comedy writer Dan Sheehan put it on Twitter: “Lots of talk about Paul Reubens as Pee Wee (and rightfully so) but his turn as an adult Habsburg child on 30 Rock still remains one of the funniest episodes of television I've ever seen.” Amen.
In the episode Liz (Tina Fey) is invited to attend Gerhardt’s birthday party by Jack (Alec Baldwin), who at this point in the series” run is still more authority figure than mentor-friend. Jenna (Jane Krakowski) hears about this outing and is desperate to come along, thinking she can meet and potentially marry the prince. Liz says no, but Jenna flashes boob and crashes the affair. (“Just one” boob. As she says: “It’s not the White House.”)
And then Gerhardt is wheeled out. His teeth are mangled. His hair is flaccid. He has one real hand and one tiny, plastic hand. As he says, “Thank you, thank you all dear friends for coming to my birthday,” what starts as an agonized moan grows into an almost terrifying scream with a hint of laughter.
From there, the performance grows even more absurd. The camera zooms out and we find that Reubens has subbed in his own legs for puppet extremities. Later, it turns out Gerhardt is interested in Jenna, and attempts a pained wink with both eyes to get her attention. Jenna, in gold-digger mode, sidles up to him, and at one point asks him to dance. He explains that he himself cannot dance because his “body does not produce joint fluid,” but he wants to watch her do so. What follows is a gloriously bizarre sequence where Reubens shouts different dance styles at Krakowski and she pivots between the likes of jazz, jitterbug, and interpretive. By the end he’s just maniacally yelling at her to “twirl.”
In a 2007 interview with the Associated Press, Reubens described Gerhardt as so strange “it’s like something I would have written.” And it’s true. There’s a perverse quality to Gerhardt, who loses an eyebrow in his cake, and eventually dies drinking champagne his body cannot metabolize. But for as bizarre as Gerhardt is, Reubens also brings a tragic sweetness to him. When he perishes there’s a smile on his face as his manservant (Will Forte) solemnly places his eyebrow back on his forehead.
Reubens played Gerhardt during what the AP billed as a comeback period for the actor, whose public persona was marked by controversy, and it acted as a reminder of his physical and vocal gifts.
When Gerhardt is presented with his 25th birthday cake—yes, he is only 25—he makes a joke about being able to rent a car and then laughs in a way that’s more of a series of honks. “Oh it feels good to laugh,” he says. It sure does.
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