[Dixie Yooper]

Before Pee Wee's Big Adventure or Pee Wee's Playhouse, he had a Pee Wee Special on Showtime that was not a made for children special. Captain Carl was a dirty old man, and Pee Wee acted like an R rated pervert. He even had a toe-mirror for looking up a woman's skirt who he had come up on stage. After that he cleaned up his image for his movies and Saturday morning show.

[gussiefinknottle]

I did not know that. I never have had HBO or showtime.
But i remember some guys at work would talk about him
so i should have picked up on the perv angle. plus,
i did realize that the actor’s in the kid’s show were likely
to be john water’s fans than john waynes.’

[Richard Kimball]

In all fairness, the original Pee Wee Herman act was for adults at a night club. It was funny and bawdy, a parody of fifties kids shows.

When the HBO special got high ratings, Tim Burton made the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." BTW, great scene from the movie here. The Burton movie cleaned up a bunch of the PG-13 stuff from the night club act and kids loved it. Herman ended up being a real kid's show star. The stuff in his night club act was actually pretty tame compared to modern fare like Robot Chicken or South Park. Reubens was busted for something that for most people would be embarrassing, but not a career ender. Hugh Grant, Robert Downey, Charlie Sheen, and quite a few others have survived far worse conduct. Being a kid's TV star, though, it destroyed him.