pee-wee

Twenty-five years ago today, a bunch of us went to a small club to see a new comedian named Pee-wee Herman. Paul Reubens had been playing the Pee-wee character for a couple of years by that point. There was an HBO special in 1981 that was a recording of the stage show (called The Pee-wee Herman Show). To be honest, I don't remember if there were other cast members when we saw him ... the HBO special had plenty of them, including Phil Hartman and John Paragon as Jambi (I don't think Lawrence Fishburne had joined the cast yet), but my memories of our show are that it was just Pee-wee (someone will read this who was at the show and will correct me on this). The HBO special got a lot of attention, after which Reubens made several popular appearances on David Letterman, leading to a national tour, which is when we saw him.

The show was about as you'd expect, full of dopey boy humor and lots of kid fantasies. It had more overt sex stuff than the later Pee-wee's Playhouse, although by "overt" I mean "what a ten-year-old boy would find amusing." Here's a clip from the HBO special:

And one of his appearances on Letterman: