Time and again, Reubens and company picked up on the kinds of incidents that would haunt little minds well into adulthood. Think about it: However old you are now, do you not remember suffering a humiliation as mortifying as a whole crowd of tourists laughing at you because “There’s no basement at the Alamo”? I sure do! In my case, it involved mistaking a “Chinese yo-yo” on a Memorial Day fair prize table for a bottle rocket, only for an adult I didn’t know to sneer “Firecrackers are illegal!” at me, Jan Hooks–style. God, how I hated that for Pee-wee! How I wanted there to be a basement at the Alamo after all!

In honor of Paul Reubens I wrote about the horror of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure — of its exploration of children’s fears both real and imagined — for Decider. This piece is for former kids who were scared by both Large Marge and the prospect of a bunch of adults laughing at you because you didn’t know there’s no basement at the Alamo.