Trivia: With a look, attitude, and signature catchphrase as memorable to some as they were repellant to others, standup comic Larry the Cable Guy hit it big in the early 2000s by taking advantage of the red state/blue state culture wars of the time. As the decade lumbered on, the comedian -- like so many before him -- took advantage of his popularity on the live circuit to make inroads into film and television.The man who added the catchphrases "Git-R-Done" and "Lord, I Apologize" to the American lexicon claims he was born in the back of an El Camino during a Foghat concert, but was actually born Dan Whitney in Pawnee City, NE. His upbringing was conservative, traditional, and churchgoing, but that didn't mean that strip bars were out of the question when Larry reached 18 (maybe even a little earlier). Fascinated by this redneck life -- "redneck" being a term he is not only fine with, but endorses -- and always looking to comment on it, Larry used his humorous observations to captivate his friends, who dared him to try his hand at standup. He did in 1986 and the fans' reaction to his slow, approachable style had him hooked. Two years later, he relinquished his title as funniest bellhop at the Ramada Inn and set out for a career in comedy.His one-liner-filled act soon caught word-of-mouth fire in the South and brought him to the attention of television. Appearances on An Evening at the Improv and Comic Strip Live increased his fan base past rural America, but it was on the nationally syndicated Bob and Tom Show on radio that Larry got the most exposure. His success with radio continued when he became a regular on Jeff Foxworthy's country countdown show, The Foxworthy Countdown, and Larry soon started syndicating his "commentaries" to 14 markets across the country. In 2000, Foxworthy invited the comic to join his Blue Collar Comedy Tour, along with Bill Engvall. The successful tour grossed 15 million dollars, sold more than one million copies when released on DVD, and turned Larry into a superstar. His debut CD, Lord, I Apologize, appeared in 2001 and became the Dark Side of the Moon of the comedy charts -- sticking in the Top 20 for two years running.In 2002, a Comedy Central airing of Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie became the network's highest-rated movie in its 12-year history, even with the DVD widely available. Larry the Cable Guy: Git-R-Done became his first solo DVD in 2003, and a year later Larry, Foxworthy, and Engvall turned their tour into the highly rated television show Blue Collar TV. Wearing his redneckness as a badge of honor while hating political correctness and racism equally made Larry a hard target for detractors.The year 2006 was devoted mostly to film, with Larry starring in his own feature film, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, and supplying the voice of Mater in the animated Disney/Pixar film Cars. The former stalled at the box office as the latter, predictably, became one of the biggest hits of the year. He also appeared on the CD and DVD Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One for the Road that year, before trying his hand once again at headlining a film with the Iraq comedy Delta Farce.

Trivia: If ever there were a comic geared to one particular demographic, Bill Engvall is he. Hailed by many fans as one of the true protégés of Jeff Foxworthy (with whom he has often performed), Engvall caters to fans of "redneck comedy" -- one-liners and anecdotes about pickup trucks, beer guzzling, tailgating, deer hunting, and assorted acts of blue-collar mayhem. Oddly, Engvall (unlike, say, Larry the Cable Guy) often sports a far more polished look than many of his contemporaries with the same brand of material. Through it all, Engvall remained imminently successful and racked up a massive and loyal fan base of American everymen.Born William Ray Engvall Jr. on July 27, 1957, in Galveston, TX, the future comedian/actor reportedly moved around a great deal with his family as a tyke. Engvall acted in local productions as a child and adolescent, then launched a series of successful routines at the Dallas Comedy Corner. He moved to Los Angeles with his wife in 1984, and first gained public recognition some time later with an appearance on the popular CBS sitcom Designing Women in the very early '90s and a guest-star spot on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (the mecca for standup comedians) just prior to Carson's departure. In 1992, Engvall landed a recurring role on the short-lived sitcom Delta (with Delta Burke as a struggling country singer); he played Buck Overton, the husband of Delta's cousin and number one fan, Lavonne (Gigi Rice). Unfortunately, ABC canceled that program after less than one year.Engvall's standup albums began appearing in 1997. He benefited hugely from his association with Foxworthy, who featured the comic in an occasional supporting role on his sitcom The Jeff Foxworthy Show; the two then teamed up with Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White for the mega-successful Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which spawned its own concert film in 2003. Doubtless banking off the success of these efforts, the WB network launched an SNL-style sketch comedy program, Blue Collar TV, in 2004 -- to which Engvall often contributed material. Following several solo performance films (including Bill Engvall: Here's Your Sign Live in 2004 and Bill Engvall: 15° Off Cool in 2007), Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy co-starred in the feature comedy Delta Farce (2007), as a couple of blue-collar Joes mistaken for Army personnel. In mid-2007, Engvall finally scored his own sitcom, appropriately titled The Bill Engvall Show. Co-starring Nancy Travis and Tim Meadows, the TBS show followed the work and family life of family counselor Bill Pearson (Engvall). In 2009, the comedian released Aged and Confused, a comedy set detailing the pitfalls of middle age, and took on a hosting gig in 2011 for a re-launch of the gameshow Lingo.

Trivia: Not the average model-turned-actor, D.J. Qualls made his name with a decidedly unglamorous debut in the popular teen gross-out comedy Road Trip (2000). Raised in Tennessee as one of five children, Qualls was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease at age 14. After drastic surgery and two years of chemotherapy, the cancer went into remission. Determined to forge on with his life, the rail-thin Qualls began acting in local Nashville theater productions and attended Belmont University. After he was spotted by flamboyant photographer David LaChappelle, Qualls also began modeling, appearing most notably in ads for Prada. He first got to act in front of the camera in the TV movie Mama Flora's Family (1998), but he did not make the jump to features until he was cast a couple of years later in Road Trip. Originally auditioning for a bit part, Qualls instead landed a starring role as one of the college youths who makes the eponymous journey to retrieve a sexually incriminating videotape. As humorously nerdy virgin Kyle, Qualls received better reviews than the movie, establishing himself as a rising young actor. He subsequently appeared in the darkly comic teen thriller about a murderer targeting virgins, Cherry Falls (2000). 2002 found Qualls taking the lead role of an uncool high-school student who gets an ultrahip image makeover in the teen comedy The New Guy.

Trivia: With his intimidating, tattooed, muscle-bound appearance, character actor Danny Trejo has formed a successful career as the all-purpose hard case over his curious and enduring cinematic career. Beating the odds of repeat offender syndrome after being released from prison, Trejo has risen through the ranks to find himself in high demand as an actor, and has even expanded his talents to include a producer credit to his resumé. His life story is just about as pristine an example of rehabilitation as one could ask for.Raised in the mean streets of East L.A., Trejo spent many of his early years incarcerated in such legendary prisons as Folsom and San Quentin on drug and robbery convictions. Channeling his intense energy into the boxing ring and winning numerous lightweight and welterweight titles, Trejo was released as a new man after completing a life-changing 12-step rehabilitation program to overcome his addictions. Applying the ideas that changed his life in an attempt to help others headed down a similar path, upon release Trejo became involved with numerous rehabilitation and counseling programs. A chance meeting with a young man who asked for his support at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985 later found the sympathetic ex-con meeting the struggling addict on the set of Runaway Train, and Trejo was quickly offered a role as a convict presumably based on his threatening appearance. Chance piled upon chance found an old prison buddy/screenwriter who remembered Trejo's hard-hitting boxing skills on the same set, and Trejo was then offered a chance to train Eric Roberts for a film, and was eventually offered the role as his opponent in the ring. Following with roles in The Hidden (1987), and later Lock-Up (1989), Marked for Death (1990), Mi Vida Loca (1993), and Heat (1995), Trejo formed an alliance with director Robert Rodriguez with Desperado in 1995, and soon graduated to such bigger-budget films as Con Air (1997) and The Replacement Killers (1998) in the latter 1990s. The Rodriguez-Trejo twosome found the actor taking on the role of Uncle Isadore "Machete" Cortez in the director's 2001 smash hit Spy Kids, and was later cast in both the film's sequel and Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2002). Trejo continued to work steadily on the big and small screens in a variety of projects such as Alias, Monk, The Devil's Rejects, Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror, the indie drama SherryBaby, and Smiley Face. He enjoyed one of his rare big-screen starring vehicles when Robert Rodriguez made Machete -- a feature-length version of the trailer he created for Grindhouse -- in 2007. He went on to appear in Valley of Angels, Saint John of Las Vegas, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, and Bad Ass.

Trivia: After a string of guest roles on TV and bit parts in movies, actress Marisol Nichols gained prominence as the lead in the 2001 made-for-television romantic drama The Princess and the Marine. Playing an Arab princess who falls in love with an American Marine, Nichols delivered a performance that earned her the Outstanding Actress in a Made for Television Movie or Miniseries prize at the 2002 American Latino Media Arts Awards. More supporting roles on TV followed until 2005, when Nichols landed the female lead opposite Ron Eldard on the Steven Bochco-produced cop show Blind Justice. The series proved to be short-lived, but Nichols' status as a lead performer was cemented, and in 2006 she was cast on the Kyle MacLachlan legal drama In Justice. That same year, she appeared with Martin Lawrence in the comedy sequel Big Momma's House 2. In 2007, In Justice got the axe from ABC, but not before Nichols joined the cast of Fox's hit serial 24 as Nadia Yassir, a U.S. counter-terrorism agent of Middle Eastern descent struggling with an atmosphere of deepening distrust toward Arabs in the wake of a fictional terrorist attack. For the next few years it appeared as if Nichols was focusing all of her energies toward television, with featuerd roles in The Storm, The Gates, and GCB following in quick succession, and serving well to keep ehr in the public eye.

Trivia: Actor, singer, and voice actor Keith David has spent much of his career on the stage, but also frequently works in feature films and on television. A native of New York City, David first performed as a child, singing in the All Borough Chorus and later attended the prestigious High School of Performing Arts. Shortly after graduating from Juilliard, where he studied voice and theater, David landed a role in a production of Coriolanus at Joseph Papp's Public Theater. He starred opposite Christopher Walken. David made his Broadway debut in Albee's The Lady From Dubuque (1980) and, two years later, had his first film role in John Carpenter's The Thing. He would not appear in another feature film until he played King in Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986). In between, David alternated between stage and television work. He appeared in five films in 1988, including Clint Eastwood's Bird, where he gave a memorable performance as jazz sax player Buster Franklin. In 1992, David showed his considerable skill as a singer and dancer and won a Tony nomination for starring in the musical Jelly's Last Jam, opposite Gregory Hines. David's film career really picked up in the mid-'90s, with roles ranging from a gunslinger in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead to a New York cop in Spike Lee's Clockers to an amputee who owns a pool parlor in Dead Presidents (all 1995). In 1998, David had a brief but memorable role as Cameron Diaz's boisterous stepfather in the Farrelly brother's zany Something About Mary. In one of the film's funniest scenes, David tries to help Diaz's prom date, Ben Stiller, extricate himself from an embarrassingly sticky situation. He is also well known to animation fans for his voice work in, among other projects, Disney's Gargoyles, HBO's Spawn, and the English-dubbed version of the Japanese-animated film Princess Mononoke. In 2000 he appeared in Requiem for a Dream, Pitch Black, and Where the Heart Is, as well as providing the narration of Ken Burns documentary on the history of jazz. He continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including Barbershop, 29 Palms, Agent Cody Banks, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the 2005 Oscar winner for Best Picture, Crash. He also found work in Transporter 2, The Oh in Ohio, Meet Monica Velour, Lottery Ticket, and the 2010 remake of Death at a Funeral.

Trivia: Was a high-school senior when he landed his first movie role, the Texas-set teen comedy-drama Drive-In. The Dallas native's second TV role was in a 1978 episode of Dallas (his TV debut came earlier that year in an episode of Police Woman). Appeared with 24 castmate Xander Berkeley in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (as sheriffs) and the 1997 movie Air Force One. Has played five characters in three Star Trek series and one Trek movie. Is a motivational speaker whose "Extra Mile" seminar helps participants develop techniques for achieving their goals. Has appeared in three Transformer movies, even though his character was killed in the first film (2007). Morshower returned as a different character in the 2009 and 2011 installments.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the late '80s.

Trivia: Worked as a copy editor for Popular Mechanics as well as an assistant at Rolling Stone magazine after leaving graduate school. Held positions of fact checker and the First Chief of Research for Spy magazine; also wrote about music for Hit Parader magazine. Launched her stand-up career in the early '90s, working various clubs in New York City and Los Angeles, where she developed a following for her raunchy and caustic routines. Breakthrough came in 2002, when she was the only female comedian invited to skewer Chevy Chase at the New York Friar's Club Roast on Comedy Central. Frequent guest of The Howard Stern Show. Landed first cable stand-up special, The Queen of Mean, in 2002. Put out first DVD, Take It Like a Man, in 2005; followed it up with Dirty Girl in early 2007.

Trivia: Comedic actress Christina Moore had the urge to be on-stage from the time she was a child. After performing in children's theater productions in her native Illinois, Moore went on to attend Weslyan University and eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full-time. A few breaks came on shows like Friends and Conrad Bloom before she was cast as a series regular on MADtv. Her impressions of celebrities like Sharon Stone and Christina Aguilera were spot-on, and she went on to star in the series Hot Properties and the big-screen comedy Delta Farce. She showed versatility when she was cast in the medical drama series HawthoRNe, playing the part of Candy Sullivan. She appeared in the 2011 thriller Born 2 Race.

Trivia: At the young age of ten, Parker Goris became a familiar voice to many when he provided the voice of Flounder in the video game Kingdom Hearts II. Just a short time later, the pint-sized actor made an appearance in an episode of the hit series Monk, playing a fire-safety kid.

Trivia: Actor, stuntman, and college baseball player Michael Papajohn got his start in show business while he was attending Louisiana State University, where he played for the LSU Tigers. After having the opportunity to perform some stunts in the sports movie Everybody's All American in 1988, Papajohn began pursuing stunt and acting roles, appearing in movies like The Last Boy Scout and Mr. Baseball. He would find consistent acting work over the coming years, frequently making small appearances. He played an unnamed thug in 2000's Charlie's Angels and a security guard in the 2002 comedy The Hot Chick, and continued to take on several roles per year throughout the 2000s, notably appearing in I Know Who Killed Me, Spider-Man 3, and Terminator Salvation.

Trivia: Studied opera and theatre in college before leaving two classes shy of his degree to pursue his career; he re-enrolled in 2007 and received his diploma. Toured with the American National Theatre and Academy for a year. Studied with John Houseman's The Acting Company in New York for three years. Hadn't publicly sung opera in decades when the producer of Brooklyn Nine-Nine asked him to sing in the show.

Trivia: A presence on film and in television during the 2000s, actor Luis Chavez divided his time evenly between both mediums and specialized in Hispanic character roles. Projects included guest turns on such series as Monk, Malcolm in the Middle, and ER, and small parts in features including Bellyfruit (1999), Delta Farce (2007), and A Day's Work (2008).

Trivia: Standup comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham began honing his skills in college, eventually making his professional debut on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1990. He made the rounds on the comedy circuit during the coming years, making occasional TV appearances and eventually performing in his own episode of Comedy Central Presents in 2003. Several Comedy Central specials followed over the next few years, and Dunham would eventually star in his own series on the network, The Jeff Dunham Show, in 2009, as well as additional stand-up specials like Jeff Dunham: Controlled Chaos. In 2014, he set up a long-term residency at the Planet Hollywood casino in Las Vegas with his show Not Playing with a Full Deck.