Pee-wee is back! But the Playhouse feels empty.

Some of us first encountered Pee-wee Herman, actor Paul Reubens'sbizarre sketch character, way back in 1981, when HBO taped a low-budget, live stage show about the curious boy-man (man-boy?). He wasoutfitted in an ill-fitting Glen-plaid suit, white loafers and a redbow tie, and possessed a fiendish giggle and a squinty-eyed knackfor sarcastic double-entendres.

Pee-wee's superstardom grew through the '80s to include twofeature films and a much-loved Saturday-morning TV show thatpioneered the Pixar-age belief that something made for childrencould in fact be meant for adults.

Then there was an unfortunate, career-snuffing end for Pee-wee,when Reubens was arrested for indecent exposure at a Florida porntheater in 1991. To think about that saga now causes a cringe: Wasour media machine really that morally uptight? (Also: Was therereally a time when people left their houses to watch porn?) Thebrouhaha seems even longer ago than Pee-wee's brief heyday.

That's all in the past, but as HBO's sentimental "The Pee-weeHerman Show on Broadway" (airing Saturday night) clearlydemonstrates, time has also passed our pal Pee-wee by. Though thismarvelously staged production was tolerantly appreciated by criticsduring its successful run at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre late lastyear, "The Pee-wee Herman Show" suffers from a disappointinginability to harness its character's original zip.

It's not that Pee-wee isn't loved; the audience seen here screamswith rapt joy whenever anyone says the day's secret word. Pee-wee'slong-anticipated return has been greeted fanatically. He is on thereceiving end of much media-hipster worship, a love best exemplifiedby his recent appearance in one of those viral Andy Samberg videosfor "Saturday Night Live."

The letdown gets to something more elusive. For all the waiting,it turns out Pee-wee has nothing left to say, beyond "I know youare, but what am I?"

Well, what is he?

To Pee-wee we must at least partially credit the mainstreamculture's decades-long appreciation for mid-century American kitsch,in all its glitter, cereal-box dinosaurs, princess phones and sci-fi robots. The owners of funky tchotchke stores in any town's gay/artsy neighborhood owe Pee-wee Herman (and the B-52s, and Godzilla)their undying gratitude for prolonging a fetish for retro junkculture that persists to this day.

Just like the original special, "The Pee-wee Herman Show onBroadway" treats us to a delightful interlude in which we are shownan old educational film from 1960, in which an elementary-schoolstudent named Phil learns good lunchroom manners and the importanceof washing his hands, in order to avoid becoming a "Mr. Bungle."

As these brush-cut young baby boomers shuffle to the sink andsoap up, one is reminded of the sly novelty Pee-wee Herman firsttriggered, subverting the hide-under-the-school-desk-when-the-bomb-blows good citizenship of "Davy Crockett" and "Howdy Doody" reruns.Through a prism of satirical insouciance, Pee-wee gave us somethingto laugh at in all that '50s kiddie-show conformity, which in someway helped suture the wounds of an angry, late-'60s counterculture.

Reubens, now 58, seems to have aged only slightly, which adds toPee-wee's creepy immortality. Nevertheless, the time machine meantto transport us back into a Pee-wee frame of mind has mysteriouslybroken down.

This shouldn't be so surprising, since Pee-wee is no differentfrom all those '80s rock bands who set aside old hurts to reunitefor a tour. Once onstage, all they must do is play the hits. Yeteven when the crowd goes wild (as they do when Pee-wee performs his"Tequila" dance), some of the magic has plainly dissipated.

In Pee-wee's case, getting the band back together includescorralling the panoply of anthropomorphic furniture and bric-a-bracliving in his Playhouse, each of whom are given the sort of applause-line entrances once reserved for Lenny and Squiggy: There's Chairy,Globey, Clocky, Magic Screen, Pterry the Pterodactyl, Randy thebully marionette, Jambi the genie and so on. Even the trio offalsetto-voiced geraniums in the windowsill are back in this lavishand lovingly restored set.

Old friends and neighbors (or reasonable facsimiles) are revived:the voluptuously beehived Miss Yvonne, the Jheri-curled CowboyCurtis in his sheepskin chaps, a postal carrier, a King of Cartoonsand an electrician named Sergio.

The latter has come to wire Pee-wee's house for the Internet, awasted plot point that briefly provides "The Pee-wee Herman Show's"only glimmer of an intriguing concept: If Pee-wee gets online, willhis innocence and anachronistic fantasy world be shattered? Also, itworries the toys: Does Windows render Magic Screen obsolete? Is GPSbetter than Globey? Is iTunes any replacement for Pee-wee's dancingDJ robot, the stuttering Conky 3000?

Alas, these ideas - then vs. now, sarcasm vs. sincerity, '50smanners vs. our maniacally modern indifference - remain firmlysubliminal while "The Pee-wee Herman Show" devolves into thetheatrical version of a clip job. Although it is 90 minutes long, itfeels much longer, and the truly smart laughs are few - such as whenPee-wee shows off his abstinence ring, or when the mailman bringsinternational postcards from Pee-wee's pen pals: "Shalom, Pee-wee,"reads one. "My name is Shlomo! I'm 9 and I've been in the army twoyears already! If you want to know more about my country, just readthe Bible!"

It difficult to tell whether Pee-wee (which is to say Reubens) ishappy to be back. He seems more surly now, perhaps understandablyso. A moment of joy comes when Pee-wee slowly, melodically lets theair squeal out of a balloon. It takes a full minute, but finally allthe air escapes. It feels as though the same thing has happened topoor Pee-wee, too.

The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway (90 minutes) airsat 10 p.m. Saturday on HBO.