Reubens was arrested in November 2002

Pee-wee Herman actor Paul Reubens' claim that he should not face child porn charges because his collection was "vast and historical" has been rejected by prosecutors.

Mr Reubens' lawyer Blair Berk said last month that the actor, who is charged with possessing materials depicting children engaged in sexual conduct, should not face charges because the material was made decades before California's child pornography laws were introduced in 1989.

But in documents filed in a Los Angeles court on Tuesday, Deputy City Attorney Richard Kraft said Ms Berk had "inaccurately characterised" what was in Mr Reubens' pornography collection.

Instead, he said Mr Reubens had "a collection of pornography movies of adolescent children engaged in... various sex acts".

Mr Reubens denies all the charges.

Mr Reubens' career peaked in the late 1980s

Mr Kraft added that he had "child pornography magazines with such various titles as 101 Boys, Young and Ready, and Teen Nudes which depict nude children and include sexual poses".

'Massive collection'

The 50-year-old performer was arrested and charged in November 2002, about a year after police raided his home and seized what authorities called his "massive pornography collection".

Child pornography was found among "magazines and thousands of photos of young men in sexual poses... and engaging in sexual acts," the prosecutor's brief said.

Last month, Ms Berk asked for the case to be dismissed because the material was produced "decades before [child porn] was ever proscribed".

She also said pictures of children made up a tiny part of the collection, which contained 100,000 images.

News agency Reuters quoted sources as saying the photos described by prosecutors included nearly 100-year-old tintype photos of young men posed as Greek statues.

Mr Reubens' Pee-wee Herman character was a favourite in the late 1980s, but his career hit problems after he was arrested on a lewd conduct charge in 1991.