Van 't Hek attended the then boarding school Hageveld during his school years, but was removed from it after seven months for unreasonable behaviour. With great difficulty, Van 't Hek finally passed his MAVO diploma. In his program Schreeuwstorm (2006) he told that his love for cabaret started on December 17, 1963 in Naarden, when he went with his parents to a show by Toon Hermans in Carré. His callsign was initially "Joep", but in 1973 he changed it to "Youp" after a friend added the letter P to the words on a T-shirt "We help you". Since then, he never writes his name differently. In that fall he founded Cabaret NAR, together with Debby Petter (then girlfriend, now his wife) and Daan van Straaten.