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A lot of people act like the PeeWee Herman character started with "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." Reubens started the character as part of a night club act. It was pretty risque. In one gag, PeeWee and a friend put on shoe mirrors to look up a girl's dress (the girl was an adult, but wearing a baby doll skirt and carrying a doll. As PeeWee tries to see her underwear, she says, "I'm not wearing any underwear." He gets disappointed and puts the shoe mirror away.

The whole show was heavy on sexual overtones, and part of the humor was that you couldn't figure out if this guy was real or not. One of the night club acts was shown as an HBO special, and is still floating around out there.

Tim Burton apparently made the decision to keep the bizarre aspects of the character, but tone down the sexual humor enough so that parents wouldn't mind taking their kids, and the fake night club kid's show host became a real one.

I kind of feel sorry for the guy. Michael Jackson is, IMHO, a lot more dangerous, and he still has fans clamoring for him.