Paul Reubens he had been developing during the last few years, "Pee-wee Herman". With the help of other Groundlings like John Paragon, Phil Hartman and Lynne Marie Stewart, Pee-wee acquired a small group of followers and Reubens took his show to The Roxy Theatre where ""The Pee-wee Herman Show"" ran for five sellout months, doing midnight shows for adults and weekly matinees for children, moving into the mainstream when HBO aired "The Pee-wee Herman Show" in 1981 as part of their series "On Location". Reubens also appeared as Pee-wee in the 1980 film "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie". Although it was Reubens
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