From the very beginning, the characters created by actor-comedian Paul Reubens seemed unlikely candidates for mainstream lovability. The salty old Yiddish cartoonist, the obese junk food lover and the cheating spouse were some of the many wild personas created in his early years as an improvisational performer, but one in particular – a nasal-voiced rascal of unformed maturity in a suit and bowtie – actually stuck. Reubens formally introduced his signature character of Pee-Wee Herman to audiences during the 1980s with the film “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1985) and a Saturday morning kids show,
