Did you know this Paul Ruben Trivia?
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Paul Rubenfeld was born August 27, 1952 in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida, where his parents, Judy and Milton, owned a lamp store.
Reubens performed at local comedy clubs and made four guest appearances on The Gong Show.
He soon joined the Los Angeles-based improvisational comedy team The Groundlings and remained a member for six years, working with Bob McClurg, John Paragon, Susan Barnes, and Phil Hartman.
Hartman helped him developed the “Pee-wee Herman” character.
In 1977, The Groundlings staged a performance in which its members created characters that one might see in a comedy club. Paul decided to play a guy that everyone immediately knew would never make it as a comic, partly because Reubens couldn’t remember jokes in real life – he had trouble remembering punch lines and couldn’t properly piece information in sequential order. This performance gave birth to the Pee-wee Herman persona.
Reubens auditioned for Saturday Night Live for the 1980-1981 season, but wasn’t accepted into the cast. Instead, he started a stage show with the Herman character.
Originally“Pee-wee” character was later toned down from raucous nightclub to children’s television.
The stage show was popularized by HBO when The Pee-wee Herman Show aired in 1981.
In 1980, Reubens landed a minor role in the film The Blues Brothers as a waiter.[8] That same year, he also had a slightly bigger role in the Disney film Midnight Madness. He also appeared in Cheech & Chong’s 1981 film Nice Dreams, as an ill-mannered receptionist who is found by Chong snorting cocaine under a restaurant table. Reubens’ character asks Chong, “You’re the guy from the hamburger train, right?” (this line is later sampled by the rock group Primus in their song “Hamburger Train“). Reubens also appeared in Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie (1980) and Meatballs Part II (1984).
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While on a Warner Bros. set, Reubens noticed that most of the people rode around on bicycles, and asked when he would get his. Warner Bros. presented him with a refurbished 1940s Schwinn; Reubens then abandoned the Pee-wee Herman script he was writing in favor of one about Herman’s love for his bike and his efforts to locate it once it was stolen. Hartman, Reubens, and Michael Varhol co-wrote the script for Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, and in 1985 the film, directed by Tim Burton and scored by Danny Elfman, was released. Reubens was the originator of the “Pee-wee dance” in the movie, and he had performed it publicly many times prior to the making of the film.
The following year (1986), Pee-wee (along with Hartman) found a home on the small screen with the Saturday-morning children’s program Pee-wee’s Playhouse on the American CBS network for the next five years (Shirley Stoler, Johann Carlo, Gilbert Lewis, and Roland Rodriguez only appeared on the show for the first 13 episodes before their characters were dropped from the show). In the case of Lewis, he was fired and a new actor, William Marshall, was hired to play the King of Cartoons. The show starred Pee-wee living in a wild and wacky house, known as the Playhouse, full of talking chairs, animals, robots, and other puppet and human characters.
That during the time Pee-wee’s Playhouse airing, it garnered 22 Emmy Awards.
In 1988, Reubens reprised the role of Pee-wee Herman in a sequel to Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, entitled Big Top Pee-wee. Also that year, “Pee-wee” was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On July 26, 1991, Reubens was arrested in Sarasota, Florida for masturbating publicly in an adult theater during a screening of Nurse Nancy.
The news media went into a frenzy and the scandal marked the near-death of the character “Pee-wee Herman,” reducing both the actor and the persona to a ubiquitous punchline. Although the series Pee-wee’s Playhouse had already ended by that time, CBS reacted by dropping its reruns from their lineup. Reubens made a deal with the Sarasota County court: in exchange for a fine and producing a few PSAs, he was given a clean record.
Despite the negative publicity and backlash from CBS, many spoke out in support of Reubens. Bill Cosby defended Reubens, saying “Whatever (Reubens has) done, this is being blown all out of proportion.” Reubens’ fans also organized rallies of support. According to Entertainment Weekly, “several dozen vocal Pee-weeites picketed in L.A. and New York [a week later], and 250 demonstrated in San Francisco the following day.” Supportive fans chanted, “All we are saying is give Pee-wee a chance!”[9][10]
2002
Reubens was arrested again in 2002 in connection with an investigation involving child pornography. Public news stories concerning his case cast doubt upon the suggestion that Reubens intentionally acquired child pornography, as he stated that he was a collector of “erotic artwork” and that he had a sizable collection of vintage erotica with samples dating back to the 18th century.
On March 19, 2004, child pornography charges against him were dropped by Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo after Reubens pleaded guilty to a separate “misdemeanor obscenity” charge.
