I know you are, but what am I? The cultural legacy of Pee-wee Herman.

"We aren't done with Pee-wee's Playhouse because there's much to learn from sticking with it." So opens Cait McKinney's I Know You Are, but What Am I?, a book that thinks across the ways we remember and misremember Pee-wee. McKinney explores the expansive, mediated landscape of the television show; engages a reparative retelling of the actor Paul Reubens's 1991 arrest in a suburban adult film theater; and gets into the collecting of the iconic Talking Pee-wee dolls and their afterlives on eBay and YouTube. Here, McKinney is joined in conversation with John Stadler.

Cait McKinney is associate professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

John Stadler is assistant professor of film studies at North Carolina State University.

I Know You Are, but What Am I?: On Pee-wee Herman is available from University of Minnesota Press as part of its Forerunners series. An open-access edition is available to read free online at manifold.umn.edu.