Trivia: A successful standup comedian, the headliner of one of television's most popular sitcoms, a movie star, and a best-selling author, Tim Allen spent much of the '90s being a "Male Pig," a source of pride for countless men, and a franchise unto himself. He was born Timothy Allen Dick, in Denver, CO, one of ten brothers and sisters. Mercilessly teased by his peers because of his last name, Allen developed a keen sense of humor to protect himself. His father died in an auto accident in 1964 when Allen was 11, and his mother later married an old high school flame who had also lost his wife in a car crash. Eventually the family moved to a suburb of Detroit. In 1976, Allen graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in television production and went on to work in a sporting goods store and then in an advertising agency. He made his debut as a standup comedian at Detroit's Comedy Castle in 1979 after accepting a dare from a good friend, but his career was cut short when he was arrested for dealing cocaine and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Following his release, Allen decided to turn over a new leaf and concentrate on his standup career. His early comedy routines were characterized by their vulgarity, and Allen did not find success until he perfected his "Men Are Pigs" routine. A glorious celebration of the masculine mystique centering on the joys of big block engines and tools (especially power tools), punctuated by his trademark manly grunting, the routine made him a hot property on the nightclub circuit and led to a series of televised specials on the Showtime cable network in the early '90s. While constructing his career, Allen moonlighted in television commercials, including spots as Mr. Goodwrench. It was while performing for a Showtime special that he got his break in series television. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chairman of Disney Studios, saw his act, liked it, and with Walt Disney Company chairman Michael Eisner, offered him the lead in a couple of planned series based on popular films; but Allen didn't feel they were right and suggested instead that they do a series based on his comedy character. They agreed, and Home Improvement, the continuing saga of bumbling TV handyman (whose show somewhat resembled This Old House) Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor and his brood, debuted on the ABC television network in September 1991. It quickly went on to become one of the most consistently highly rated shows on television. Allen made his starring feature film debut in 1994 with the box-office busting The Santa Clause. That same year, he also published a best-selling book, Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man. In 1995, he provided the voice for the heroic toy astronaut Buzz Lightyear in Disney's computer-generated extravaganza Toy Story, and the following year published his second book I'm Not Really Here, a more philosophical look at his life, his fame, and his family. In 1997, he starred in the largely panned Jungle to Jungle, and could not be seen on the big screen again until 1999. That year -- the same year Home Improvement ended its highly successful run -- he reprised his Buzz Lightyear role for Toy Story 2 and starred in the sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest. Though his next film, Big Trouble, was pulled from its original release date and delayed by Touchstone (the studio thought audiences may find the plot involving a missing nuclear bomb distasteful after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks), fans could still get their fill of the popular funnyman with the release of Joe Somebody in late 2001.When Big Trouble and Joe Somebody proved to be box-office duds, Allen returned to familiar territory in 2002, starring in the sequel The Santa Clause 2. With the success of that sequel under his belt, Allen stuck with the holiday genre for his next starring role. Playing opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, Allen filled the lead for 2004's adaptation of John Grisham's Skipping Christmas, Christmas with the Kranks; in what was becoming a pattern in his career, the movie was reviled by critics, but did well at the box-office. Allen fared slightly better with his first 2006 effort, a remake of Disney's The Shaggy Dog. Summer 2006's superhero-school comedy Zoom came and went; a second Santa Clause sequel, entitled The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, did modest business considering the franchise. The early-2007 weekend-warrior comedy Wild Hogs -- in which Allen joined Martin Lawrence, John Travolta and William H. Macy -- may not have seemed like a good bet on paper, but its surprise success did much to establish Allen in a new, non-holiday franchise.Allen went outside his comfort zone to play a spoiled Hollywood superstar in David Mamet's Redbelt in 2008, and a couple of years later he directed Crazy on the Outside. He reliably returned to voice Buzz Lightyear in a third Toy Story film, as well as in a handful of shorts created by Pixar featuring the character. In 2011 he returned to the small-screen as the star of Last Man Standing, and the next year he narrated the Disney nature film Chimpanzee.

Trivia: Patricia Richardson, while best known for her role as Jill Taylor on Home Improvement, has had a long and varied career that encompasses theatre, television and film. A graduate of Southern Methodist University, the Bethesda, Maryland native put her fine arts degree to use in New York where, on her first ever audition, she was hired as understudy in the part of Gypsy Rose Lee in Angela Lansbury's 1974 revival of Gypsy: A Musical Fable. She later moved to Los Angeles to pursue television. Before landing her breakout role, Richardson was a series regular on Double Trouble, FM, and Eisenhower & Lutz (where she played Scott Bakula's love interest). She had numerous guest appearances on many beloved family series including The Equalizer, Love, Sidney, The Cosby Show, Kate and Allie, and Quantum Leap, where she would reunite with Bakula. In 1997 Richardson was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for her first starring role in the film Ulee's Gold with Peter Fonda. After Home Improvement ended, Richardson turned to more dramatic roles; in 2001 she played Marilyn Monro's mother Gladys in the made-for-TV biopic Blonde based on Joyce Carol Oates' novel. She joined the cast of Strong Medicine in 2002 as Dr. Andy Campbell, replacing Janine Turner, and in 2004 she moved to the West Wing for the series' final two seasons, playing Republican candidate Arnold Vinick's campaign manager. Richardson has three sisters and as the child of a naval officer, considers herself to be a "Navy brat". She was divorced from actor Ray Baker, with whom she had three children -- Henry, Roxanne, and Joseph.

Trivia: Supporting actor Earl Hindman was best known among fans of the long-running ABC sitcom Home Improvement for playing the over-educated, enigmatic but wise neighbor Wilson. Ask those fans if they would recognize Hindman's face and they would be at a loss, for he never showed his full countenance upon the show. Hindman was a pipeliner's son and had a peripatetic upbringing that took him to various Southwestern locales. He attended high school in Tucson, AZ, where he was a natural athlete. At the same time, he became interested in drama and then still photography. Following time at Phoenix Junior College, he enrolled in the University of Arizona where he renewed his interest in drama. Hindman's first professional acting job was to perform in a Shakespearean play at San Diego's Globe Theatre. The experience was such that Hindman dropped out of school to become a full-time actor. He learned his craft as he went, performing in countless repertory theaters. Eventually, he made it to New York, where he appeared on and off-Broadway. He made his feature film debut in the obscure Two Into Three Won't Go (1969). Hindman's subsequent film appearances were sporadic. Hindman was a cast member on the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope for several years before gaining prominence on Home Improvement. Four years after the hit sitcom left the airwaves, Hindman succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 61.

Trivia: Joined the United States Marine Corps with several of his close friends after graduating from high school.Previously worked as a newscaster and hosted jazz and classical music programs on Oklahoma City radio station KCSC.Made his professional stage debut as a student in a production of Rain at the Oklahoma Theatre Center in 1972.Worked with the Dallas Shakespeare Festival for 5 seasons.Served as historical consultant on 2006's Hollywoodland, the film about Superman actor George Reeves' life.

Trivia: For a time at the tail-end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, Marcia Rodd seemed poised for stardom, either on the big-screen or on television. She was, at the outset of the 1970s, the ideal "gently" liberated woman. Rodd was one of the first actresses who looked good in the briefly fashionable, close-cropped female hairstyle (a sort of attractive version of the "Moe Howard" cut) of the period, conveying intelligence and sensitivity as well as independence. What's more, her first two film appearances included a starring role in Alan Arkin's fashionable black comedy Little Murders (1971) and a major supporting role in Herbert Ross' high-profile adult romance T.R. Baskin, and she was also a recipient of choice roles from television producer Norman Lear. Rodd was born in Lyons, KS, and attended Northwestern University at the end of the 1950s and the start of the 1960s as a drama major, studying under Alvina Krause; her fellow undergraduates included Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss. Arriving in New York during the early '60s, she made her off-Broadway debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in Oh Say Can You See! in 1962, which got her onto her first cast album as part of a quartet called "the Girls"; she also appeared in the showcase Talent 64. She made her Broadway debut in the replacement cast of Oh! What a Lovely War and later appeared in The Mad Show. In 1968, she managed to appear in two different adaptations of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Love and Let Love, and Your Own Thing (as Olivia), and played Bobbi Mitchell in Last of the Red Hot Lovers, working opposite James Coco. In 1970, she was cast as the doomed Patsy Newquist in Little Murders (1971), Alan Arkin's dark comedy of life in New York City, based on Jules Feiffer's off-Broadway play. Her supporting role in T.R. Baskin followed later in 1971, and then Rodd began her first foray into television, principally through the work of Norman Lear in the second season of All in the Family; she played a harried single mother driven to desperate measures to make a decent life for her young son, and in episode No. 37, which was the pilot for the series Maude, Rodd played Carol, the divorced daughter of the title character. Rodd declined to portray the role when the series was picked up, however, and the part went to the more physically endowed but less professionally adept Adrienne Barbeau. Rodd busied herself in New York theater during the early '70s, including a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at The New York Shakespeare Festival. She was also very briefly in the cast of the ill-fated musical Mack and Mabel as Mabel Normand (succeeded by Kelly Garrett and then Bernadette Peters). She then moved to Los Angeles, where she continued her stage work and also acted in two successive films by director Jonathan Demme, Citizens Band (1977) and The Last Embrace (1979). By the 1980s, she was no longer in the running for starring roles, but was a busy working actress in television, portraying Jack Weston's wife in the short-lived series The Four Seasons and playing the wife of Dr. Stanley Riverside on Trapper John, M.D. During the 1990s, Rodd returned to doing occasional feature films. She has also done a one-woman play about the life of Diana Vreeland, and guest starred on such series as Home Improvement and Sisters.

Trivia: Richard Karn was born Richard Karn Wilson in Seattle, Wash., in 1956. He earned a B.F.A. at the University of Washington in their Professional Actor Training Program and played in off-Broadway and Broadway productions (his Broadway debut was playing the "suit of armor" in Me and My Girl), in the 1980s. However, it was his role as the shy, but confident Al Borland on the 1990s television sitcom Home Improvement that made Karn a star. It was a role he discovered by accident -- or almost an accident -- when he ran a stop sign, was sent to traffic school, and met an agent who told him about the Home Improvement audition. Looking back at the success of the series and Karn's beloved character, it seems hard to believe that the actor kept his job as an apartment manager during the first season, unsure of the fledgling show's future. During his years on the sitcom, Karn appeared as a host for TV specials and in made-for-TV films, including ABC's Picture Perfect (1995) and HBO's Bram Stoker's Legend of the Mummy (1998). Following Home Improvement, Karn found a new niche as a game-show host, replacing Louie Anderson as the host of Family Feud in 2002, and Patrick Duffy as the host of Bingo America in 2008. Karn is an avid golfer and has become a national spokesman for the "Mr. Handyman" franchise.

Trivia: One of the longest reigning and most popular teeny bopper idols of the 1990s, Jonathan Taylor Thomas first found favor playing the son of Tim Allen on ABC's long-running, phenomenally popular sitcom Home Improvement. With a mop of dull-blonde hair and a dimpled, impish grin, it is small wonder that he captured the hearts of young girls across the country. With help from a lucrative contract from Disney, he broke into feature films, voicing the young Simba in The Lion King (1994). He made his live-action feature-film debut opposite Farrah Fawcett and Chevy Chase in the family comedy Man of the House (1995).He was born in Bethlehem, PA, but raised in Sacramento, CA, after the age of four. Before starting grade school, he was a locally popular child model. This led to national exposure and appearances in commercials for such companies as Burger King. The youth made his acting debut on the short-lived resuscitation of The Brady Bunch playing the son of Greg Brady. The show immediately sank into oblivion, but it did open doors for the young actor, who next landed the role of wiseacre son Randy on Home Improvement. In the years to come, Thomas would remain active on screen, appearing on shows like The Wild Thornberrys and 8 Simple Rules.

Trivia: San Francisco native Taran Noah Smith (named for the main character in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain young adult novels) landed the coveted role of Mark, the youngest Taylor son, on Tim Allen's hit sitcom Home Improvement at age seven. He appeared on the show for its entire run from 1991-1999. Upon leaving the series he gave up acting. In 2001 at age 17, he married 33-year-old Heidi van Pelt and moved to Kansas with her to open Playfood, a non-dairy cheese manufacturing company. At the same time, he was embroiled in a legal battle with his parents for control over his $1.5 million trust fund, which he couldn't touch until he turned 18. The two eventually divorced in 2007, and he gained control of Playfood while also reuniting with his parents.

Trivia: Burbank, CA, native Debbe Dunning was a cheerleader and homecoming queen before she broke into modeling following her high-school graduation in 1984. She appeared in several print ads for Miller Lite and made her commercial debut in a Foot Locker ad. Next up was a movie role in the straight-to-video Dangerous Curves (1988). She made the jump to television with a small role in HBO's Dream On in 1990, which she followed up with a string of guest starring spots before landing a full-time gig on Home Improvement in 1993. Dunning replaced Pamela Anderson as the new "Tool Time" girl, Heidi Keppert, who kicked off the sitcom's show-within-a-show. Cashing in on her popularity, she posed for a calendar in 1995 that went on to become a best-seller. On the home front, Dunning married volleyball player Steve Timmons in 1997 and the pair had two kids. By 2006, Dunning returned to the small screen as a series regular on the My Network TV prime-time soap Wicked Wicked Games. In 2008, Dunning signed on as the spokesperson for bioMETRX, Inc., a company that manufactures biometric products for the home.