Who played the cowboy on ‘Pee-wee’s Playhouse’? Cowboy Curtis, explained

Now that comedian and actor Paul Reubens has sadly passed away after a private struggle with cancer, it is time to take a look back at some of the careers he helped expand on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Specifically, have you ever wondered who played Cowboy Curtis on the show? The answer just might be the secret to freeing your mind from The Matrix.

That’s right, one of Hollywood legend Laurence Fishburne‘s lesser-known roles was as Cowboy Curtis in the show that ran from 1986 to 1991. If you thought that was Fishburne’s earliest appearance on any screen, you’d be sorely mistaken. It speaks to the versatility of the actor that he appeared in a supporting role in the 1979 masterpiece Apocalypse Now, among many other projects that were already under his belt at the time. 

Curtis is a colorful lasso-wielding cowboy ripped straight from the 1950s. Though he is not present in every season of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, he is still remembered as an iconic character of the show to this day. 

In an interview with Conan O’Brien, Fishburne explained he thought he was auditioning for a gritty Yul Brynner-type gunslinger, only to be informed by Reubens that they were going for something “lighter” in tone. The Curtis role ended up being Fishburne’s first foray into comedy but not his last. Decades later, he would go on to star in the acclaimed sitcom Black-ish.