After a long absence from the pop-culture scene, Pee-wee Herman has enjoyed a renaissance in the last year or two.

A well-received live show that was staged in Los Angeles in early 2010 transferred to Broadway later that year -- and as actor Paul Reubens made the publicity rounds in character as the exuberant, suit-clad Pee-wee -- it was hard not to feel a swell of nostalgia. Pee-wee's goofball innocence is hard to resist, and it was good to have his irreverent energy buzzing around again.

That said, 'The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway' (10PM ET Saturday, HBO) feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. It's mildly amusing, but it comes off as an extended appetizer, not a meal.

It's not that I expected grand themes, complex storytelling or incisive commentary from Pee-wee's Broadway adventure; that would be asking a bit too much of the mischievous man-child in cropped pants. But I did expect more than just an extended trip down memory lane, which is all that's really on offer here.

The show is set inside the colorful Playhouse and Clocky, Chairry, Pterri, Magic Screen, Cowboy Curtis and many other residents put in appearances. A couple of characters from 'Pee-wee's Playhouse,' a TV show that ran for several seasons in the '90s, are played by new actors, but the wonderfully droll John Paragon is back as Jambi and Lynne Marie Stewart returns as Miss Yvonne, "the most beautiful woman in Puppetland." So the gang's all here, but to be perfectly honest, spending 90 minutes with them is a little exhausting.

'The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway' is essentially a series of rapid-fire gags and skits that will be familiar to anyone who caught 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' back in the day or via DVDS and reruns. The new stage show contains a few slender story threads that touch on Pee-wee's cherished desire to fly and his plans to make the Playhouse more "modern," but it would be overstating things to say that the show has an actual plot. 'Pee-wee on Broadway' is essentially a series of vignettes: Some are sophomoric (Pee-wee never could resist a good pun), some are winningly surreal, some are ingenious and some are pleasingly bawdy in ways that will go over the heads of younger viewers.

The thing is, 'Pee-wee's Playhouse' episodes were about 24 minutes long at the most. A show more than three times that length is like spending a couple of hours with a four-year old on a sugar high; at some point, you just want things to calm down and settle into a groove. In its closing minutes, the show ramps up to a sweet and clever ending, but what comes before occasionally has a jittery quality that can be a little wearing.

I can understand why, after a couple of decades out of the spotlight, Reubens would want to give the Playhouse gang a victory lap, and the show's sly humor and juvenile optimism are certainly appreciated. But I hope that if a new Pee-wee movie gets made (and one is allegedly in the works), it has more substance than this nostalgic stage show. Let loose in the wider world and caught up in a story with actual momentum, as he was in 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure,' the suit-clad eternal kid is even more appealing than he is in this decent but slight show.

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