Paul Reubens Paul Reubens Paul Reubens (; né Rubenfeld; born August 27, 1952) is an American actor, writer, film producer, game show host, and comedian, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman. Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. In 1982, Reubens put up a show about a character he had been developing for years. The show was called "The Pee-wee Herman Show" and it ran for five sold-out months with HBO producing a successful special about it. Pee-wee became an instant cult figure and for the
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