John Paragon

John Dixon Paragon (December 9, 1954 – April 3, 2021) was an American actor, writer, and director born in Anchorage, Alaska, who grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado. He graduated from Fort Collins High School in 1973.

Paragon began his professional career as a member of the Los Angeles-based improvisational comedy group the Groundlings, where he worked alongside Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman. That association with Reubens would define much of his subsequent career. On the children's television series Pee-wee's Playhouse, Paragon portrayed Jambi the Genie and provided the voice of Pterri the Pterodactyl, while also serving as a writer and director on multiple episodes. He and Reubens co-wrote the Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special in 1988, earning a nomination for an Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Children's Special.

Beyond Pee-wee's Playhouse, Paragon accumulated a range of screen credits. He played the title character in the children's film The Frog Prince and appeared as a sex shop salesman in Eating Raoul, a surf photographer in North Shore, and the owner of a strip-o-gram business in the 1986 film Echo Park. On television, he portrayed Cedric, one half of the couple Bob and Cedric, in episodes of Seinfeld. He also collaborated with fellow Groundling Cassandra Peterson on several Elvira projects, including a recurring role as The Breather, an annoying caller, on her first television series on KHJ-TV in Los Angeles.

Paragon additionally worked with Walt Disney Imagineering to explore ways of integrating improvisational performance into theme park attractions, performing as the keeper of Lucky the Dinosaur during test runs of the animatronic figure.

In 2010, Paragon returned to the role of Jambi the Genie for The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway, which began performances at the Stephen Sondheim Theater on October 26 of that year.

Paragon died on April 3, 2021, at his home in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 66, from heart disease and chronic alcoholism. News of his death was not made public until June 18, 2021. He was cremated, and his ashes remained in the possession of Cassandra Peterson until they were interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on November 15, 2022, in an urn designed as a depiction of the purple-and-gold Jambi the Genie box.