Shit was more like 100 years old and he was buying in bulk lots to save money which was a bad idea. ..weird guy but harmless and none of the stuff was child pornography
From his own admission 1940's - 60's -
"EW Okay, so what exactly was in this collection that caused all the problems?
PR Really camp, kitschy, funny stuff from the ’40s, ’50s, or ’60s. Ninety percent of anybody off the street who looked at the stuff would burst out laughing and say, ”You’re kidding me.”
EW That wasn’t the reaction of the police. They confiscated something like 30,000 items. And they took some computers, too.
PR More than three computers — which I still don’t have back — but not one thing was found on any of them. They took the backup discs for my computers. They took my Palm Pilot and they took my address book. People should ask themselves, ”What do I have in my house? What would I do if the police came with no warning?”
EW Some people would say they’re not worried because they don’t have pictures of children engaging in sexual acts."
https://ew.com/article/2004/04/09/exclusive-paul-reubens-his-obscenity-charges/ .
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You've got questionable material, you're palling around with Jones, who's photographing teenage boys, etc.... Pee-Wee was into things, he was just lucky it was teenage boys, and pre big internet so it could get brushed under the rug.
They even argued not that it wasn't kiddie porn, but that it was old kiddie porn, and therefor quasi-legal because it was before laws were enacted -
"The misdemeanor child porn charge filed against Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman) should be tossed because the actor's extensive collection of adult erotica. The misdemeanor child porn charge filed against Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman) should be tossed because the actor's extensive collection of adult erotica was produced decades before the 1989 enactment of California's child pornography laws, according to a legal motion filed today (1/24) by Reubens's lawyer. In the Los Angeles Superior Court filing, attorney Blair Berk also disclosed that prosecutors have now abandoned plans to claim that Reubens's ownership of the famous "Rob Lowe videotape" constituted possession of child porn. According to Berk, police executing a November 2001 search warrant at Reubens's home seized "well over 30,000 images and more than 650 hours of film" from the actor's "vast and valuable historical collection of artwork, kitsch memorabilia, and adult erotica." Of that haul, Berk stated, prosecutors have identified as child porn "isolated images contained in one vintage book, approximately 24 vintage magazines, and a single vintage film." Below you'll find declarations filed in support of the Reubens dismissal motion--one from Berk, the other from a professor of photography. (5 pages)" -
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/pee-wee-wants-porn-charge-punted .
