P-word Herman

A celebrity impersonator falls on hard times

by Chris Wright

Finding the Ridder Country Club, tucked away in East Bridgewater, is a challenge at the best of times, but if you're Mike Rydberg, it can be very tricky indeed. "You go in a 7-Eleven for directions," he says, "people look at you like you've got three heads." Or worse. "I have been jeered," Rydberg says. "I have been called the P-word." He means pervert. "People will point and laugh and make rude gestures."

Such are the trials of being a Pee-wee Herman impersonator. Rydberg, 42, describes his physical resemblance to Pee-wee as "vague at best," but he has the overgrown-kid thing down pat. He has also fitted himself out in the too-tight suit, the bow tie, and the ventriloquist's-dummy hairdo. By day, Rydberg works in a warehouse ("I pick up boxes, stack pallets"), but he has been moonlighting as Pee-wee for more than 10 years. "The physical labor," he says, "is never as hard as being Pee-wee."

This has been especially the case since 1991, when Pee-wee's creator, Paul Reubens, was busted for public indecency, derailing not only his own career but Mike Rydberg's as well. "I heard about it coming out of church," Rydberg says. "Someone said, `Did you hear about Pee-wee? He got caught whacking off in a movie theater.' I thought, 'Oh, no!' I figured it was dead, that he really messed things up for me."

To Rydberg's surprise, the masturbation incident didn't end his career so much as it transformed it. He simply went from being a G-rated performer to being an R-rated one. "Now I make a few masturbation jokes," he says. "It gave me a few more minutes of material."

It's not all good, though. Pee-wee pretenders haven't quite become the impersonators non grata that, say, O.J. Simpson imitators have ("O.J. hasn't worked for quite a while," says Ron Bartels, owner of the Impostor Bostonians agency), but it's safe to say that prospective clients aren't beating down Rydberg's door. In fact, until recently, it had been years since he'd done a single gig.

Tonight, though, Rydberg is at Ridder Country Club, doing a 60th birthday party for a guy named, ominously, Dick. In the club's parking lot, he hones his Pee-wee persona, complete with adenoidal voice and spastic body language. "Why don't you take a picture," he says to a photographer taking his picture, "It'll last longer." Delighted, he does a little hop, flaps his arms, and lets out a manic bark of laughter: "Ha-Haar!"

About five minutes before showtime, though, the cavorting stops. Standing in the entryway, Rydberg is pensive, subdued. "I'm always full of butterflies," he says. "You never know how you'll be accepted." And then he's on again, bounding through the doors and into the center of the club's dance floor.

Sure enough, wanking jokes abound: "If masturbation were a crime," Pee-wee hollers, "Dick would get the electric chair!" About two-thirds of the fifty or so people in the room laugh. Which is a pretty good average. Rydberg recalls doing the same joke at another party. "I made fun of the host and he had me thrown out," Rydberg says. "He just said, `Get Pee-wee out of here.' "

Even tonight, not everyone is a big fan of the act, which involves such props as a pissing Pee-wee doll called Wee-wee Herman. One guy in particular looks on with glaring distaste. "I don't consider myself a prude," he says later, "but I don't like those kinds of jokes."

Even Rydberg's own kids wince at the Pee-wee thing these days. "I told my son recently that on the way home from a gig I'd pick him up from school," Rydberg says. "He looked at me with horror: 'No Dad, please!' " Then he adds, "One of my first gigs was my son's birthday party. They loved it back then."

But Rydberg insists he has no regrets. "My obituary is going to read: MIKE RYDBERG, PEE-WEE IMPERSONATOR," he says. "It's the biggest thing I've ever done." Rydberg does, however, admit to being somewhat tired of the act. "I've been on the ride for a long time. Every gig I do, I think, 'This is the last one.' " Does that make him sad? "No," he says. "Pee-wee's ready to go." Right now, though, he's got a show to finish.

After Rydberg's 20-minute stand-up routine, the DJ puts "Tequila" on: it's time for the Pee-wee dance. As a drunk guy in the audience follows Rydberg around the floor, and the laughter gets a little harsher, it's easy to see how this could get tiring. But Rydberg soldiers on, working the tables, bantering with the crowd. I catch him during a quiet moment and ask how he thinks the show went. "So-so," he says. "I feel like I did okay." And then he's off to another table, doing the Pee-wee laugh, holding a little plastic toilet in front of him. "Ha-Haar!"

Mike Rydberg can be booked through Impostor Bostonians. Call (781) 871-1715.