Paul Reubens had a small part as a waiter in "The Blues Brothers". The character of "Pee-wee Herman" originated during a 1978 improvisation exercise with The Groundlings, where Reubens came up with the idea of a man who wanted to be a comic but was so inept at telling jokes that it was obvious to the audience that he would never make it. Fellow Groundling Phil Hartman would afterwards help Reubens develop the character while another Groundling, John Paragon, would help write the show. Despite having been compared to other famous characters, such as Hergé's Tintin and Collodi's Pinocchio, Reubens says that
Paul Reubens fake food, to lamps", although he did do some dubbing and took small parts in films such as 1992's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" (Reubens portrayed the Penguin's father) and 1996's "Matilda" and "Dunston Checks In". In 1993, he voiced for a character in another one of Burton's productions, "The Nightmare Before Christmas". (Reubens would later voice Lock for the video game "" in 2004.) Reubens dated actress Debi Mazar in 1993 after he started attending film premieres with her. Reubens has since credited Mazar with ending his depression from his arrest. During the mid-1990s, Reubens