ENGLISH LIT 344 / COMEDY & SATIRE

Who's Who in American Comedy

Pee Wee Herman (Paul Rubens, Paul Rubenfeld)

Paul Rubens began as a member of an improvisational comedy team called "The Groundlings." Another member of the group (Paul Hartman) and he wrote sketches together and developed the "Pee-wee Herman" character which was losely based on Pinky Lee's character from the 1950's. An HBO special created wider attention and was developed into Pee-wee's Playhouse which had a succesful run as a children's series (with inside jokes for adults) until Reubens was arrested for masturbating in an adult theater. Thereafter he dropped the 'Pee Wee' character and did some work in TV and movies (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas) and a recurring role on the Candace Bergen sit-com Murphey Brown

Here's a clip from one of the episodes of Pee Wee's Funhouse.

[For more details on these people, check their listing in Wikipedia, but note--this is one of the rare times I can accept the use of Wikipedia as a source. I have found that most of the information there about these people is reliable.]