40 Years of Pee-wee’s Playhouse

Christine Papalexis has been performing and making puppets and costumes since discovering her love of puppetry at Bob Baker Marionette Theater in Los Angeles. Hand puppets came first, followed by cable, animatronic, and hydraulic puppets for film, television, videos, and commercials.

Her early credits include a Roger Corman film where she puppeteered a giant cockroach creature — complete with buckets of blood and slime. She went on to spend years at various creature effects companies in Los Angeles, puppeteering everything from aliens and a gorilla to a martian, penguins, a pink teddy bear, and more. During this period, she also served as a puppet builder on Pee-wee’s Playhouse Season 2, constructing the foam-sculpted characters Clocky and Floorey.

As a lead puppeteer and lead builder, Christine has worked across a wide range of projects throughout her career. She recently completed her directorial debut with the short marionette film Amaterasu, based on a Japanese folk tale, with support from Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams. She has also created two original marionette shows made of found objects. Christine is a past president of the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry and regularly contributes to local and national puppet publications.

Kevin has been scribbling “Puppeteer” in the occupation box for over 30 years. From live shows to TV and feature films, Kevin has literally had his hand in a lot of productions. His early work included touring with The Muppet Show on Tour, where he performed several characters and worked closely with Jim Henson. One of his biggest breaks was being cast in Pee-wee’s Playhouse as Conky the Robot, Clocky, and Floorey. Kevin also co-created and starred as Timmy the Tooth for MCA/Universal’s family home entertainment, producing 10 half-hour episodes that aired on Nickelodeon.

As a freelance puppeteer, Kevin has worked with some of the best in the business, bringing his unique style as a performer to the forefront. His credits include: The Muppets, The Thundermans, Imagination Movers, The Office, Lucifer, All That, The Mr. Potato Head Show, Child’s Play 2, Team America, Dr. Dolittle, Men in Black II, Cats & Dogs, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Batman Returns, The Flintstones, Beetlejuice, and House Party.

Alison Mork’s performing career leapfrogged from local television to Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where she played Chairry, Magic Screen, Chicky Baby, Chandelier, and incidental flowers and fish. In Season 1, she appeared on camera as the housewife in the picture phone booth. Her other TV credits include Sesame Street, The Muppets, Crank Yankers, The Puzzle Place, and Telling Stories with Tomie dePaola.

Film credits include Hollow Man, Team America: World Police, and the documentaries Pee-wee as Himself and Beauty is Embarrassing. Alison is the co-creator and maternal half of The Unusual Artistry of Walter Hanley and His Mother, Radio Ventriloquists. She is a founding member of Improvatorium and has toured with the Jim Henson Company’s improv troupe Puppet Up! Uncensored.

Wayne White was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1981, he moved to New York City to work as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice.

A love of puppetry, performance, and set design led to his job as puppeteer and art director for Pee-wee’s Playhouse in 1986. Besides operating and voicing such beloved characters as Randy and Dirty Dog, his set and puppet designs earned him three Emmy Awards. Thirty years of design and performance in children’s TV, rock videos, and commercials followed his Pee-wee premiere. Notable are his award-winning designs for the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight,” Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time,” Ringo Starr’s children’s show Shining Time Station, and the long-running Beakman’s World.

In 2000, he entered the art world with his notorious word paintings and sculptures, and he has had over thirty shows in museums and galleries internationally. A monograph of his fine art, Maybe Now I’ll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve, was published in 2008. A documentary about his life and career, Beauty is Embarrassing, premiered in 2012. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles with his wife, noted cartoonist Mimi Pond. His adult children, Woodrow and Lulu White, are working artists in Hollywood and New York City.

George McGrath is a Brooklyn-born writer, actor, and producer whose career spans over four decades in television and film. He was a member of the Groundlings Main Company from 1983 to 1992, where he also taught, directed the Sunday Show, and created the long-running Your Very Own TV Show.

George was one of the original writers of Pee-wee’s Playhouse and a series regular throughout its run, voicing beloved characters including Globey and Cowntess, performing as Zyzzybalubah, and co-writing the show’s iconic theme song — for which he was inducted into the TV Theme Song Hall of Fame. He co-wrote the Paramount feature film Big Top Pee-wee and earned two Emmy nominations for his work on the series. He went on to create and star in On the Television, Nick-at-Nite’s first original series, and wrote and produced HBO’s Tracey Takes On, earning two additional Emmy nominations and a GLAAD Award. His other credits include Tiny Toon Adventures, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and Based on an Untrue Story.

Ric Heitzman is a Los Angeles-based artist who has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, and Vancouver, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Houston. In his daily studio practice, Ric draws, paints, and builds sculpture, as well as making animated short films. He is Professor Emeritus at Woodbury University.

Before teaching, he directed and designed animated and live-action series for Cartoon Network, Children’s Television Workshop, CBS, and Fox. Ric has voiced characters and performed puppetry for film and television, most notably on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. He has received four Emmy Awards for Co-Production Design, Art Direction, and Title Design.