The Damage:
Paul Reubens hit pay dirt in 1986 when CBS picked up Pee-wee's Playhouse, a television show aimed at entertaining children and scaring the ever-loving piss out of potheads unlucky enough to accidentally tune into this madness. Five years later, Reubens decided to celebrate the success of his show by masturbating in an adult theater in Florida. That's when the cops suddenly raided the place and arrested Reubens for indecent exposure.
Warner Bros.
Can't hop on your bike to escape when your pants are around your ankles.
The "Control":
Pee-wee's first idea to keep this pee-wee out of the headlines was to bribe the arresting officers, not with straight-up cash or lavish gifts but with ... umm, a children's benefit for the local sheriff's department. We hope he realized how this sounded the second he said it out loud.
His efforts at burying the story became futile, so Reubens' legal team thought about arguing that their client wasn't really masturbating. It only seemed that way because at the time of the arrest he totally looked like a guy who masturbates in cinemas.
Sarasota County Sheriff's Department
A lot.