The Pee-wee Herman Show is a stage show that Paul Reubens developed in 1980, 5 years before Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and six years before Pee-wee's Playhouse at the Groundlings theatre. After time, it was moved to the Roxy theatre where the HBO cable network taped one of the shows and aired it in 1981. This show was considered more racy and suggestive than the TV series. But as Reubens has stated, by today's standards, there is not much that could be considered racy.

The roots of that stage show were in 1981 when Reubens was one of 22 finalists to be chosen as a regular on Saturday Night Live (the famous first season of an all-new cast, and one of five seasons without Lorne Michaels as a producer). Reubens lost to actor Gilbert Gottfried and believed that his career was over. According to Reubens, he was about to return home when he came up with the idea of a stage show featuring the character he premiered back in 1977, Pee-wee Herman. That year, the character had made his first appearance to a national (but mostly adult) audience when he made a cameo in Cheech & Chong's Next Movie. So with $3,000 (mostly money wired from his parents), and help from 60 people working for him (including his fellow Groundling Phil Hartman), Reubens created the show.

An adult-oriented version of what would eventually become an award-winning children's classic. This version of the show features Pee-wee's playhouse and many of the characters of the later series, but with adult and sexual overtones and jokes including "mirror shoes" and others. Written by Joe Pranevich