Paul Reubens called "Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Movie". In 2010, he starred on Broadway in "The Pee-wee Herman Show". In 2016, Reubens helped write and starred in the Netflix original film "Pee-wee's Big Holiday", reprising his role as Pee-wee Herman. Reubens was born Paul Rubenfeld in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy (Rosen) and Milton Rubenfeld, owned a lamp store. His mother was a teacher. His father was an automobile salesperson who had flown for Britain's Royal Air Force and for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, later becoming one of the founding
Paul Reubens the Groundlings Gary Austin, who passed it on to Reubens, while "someone" handed him the "little kid bow tie" before a show. Reubens auditioned for "Saturday Night Live" for the 1980–1981 season, but Gilbert Gottfried, who was a close friend of the show's producer and had the same acting style as Reubens, got the place (ironically, Gottfried would later get in trouble for joking about Reubens' indecent exposure arrest as an award presenter at the Emmys). Reubens was so angry and bitter that he decided he would borrow money and start his own show in Los Angeles using the character