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: 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: 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: 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: Over her long career, character actress Eileen Heckart has distinguished herself on stage, television, and in feature films. Tall and thin with sharp angular features, she often plays outspoken, strong-willed, and highly intelligent women. Fans of The Mary Tyler Moore show from the 1970s will remember Heckart for playing Mary's brassy Aunt Flo. Trained at the American Theater Wing following studies at Ohio State University, Heckart was on Broadway in the early '40s and appeared in numerous major productions. For the 1957-1958 theater season, Heckart earned a New York Drama Critics Award for her work in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. She has won six Tony nominations during her stage career and in the late '90s was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. Heckart began her sporadic television career in 1952 and made her feature-film debut with Miracle in the Rain (1956). She earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination that year for her work in The Bad Seed (1956); she was also awarded a Golden Globe for the film. In 1972, she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1976 for her role in Butterflies Are Free. In 1967, Heckert received an Emmy for Win Me a Place at Forest Lawn. She won her second one in 1994 for a 1993 appearance on the sitcom Love & War. In addition to her many kudos, Heckart has also been awarded three honorary doctorates.

Trivia: China Wing Kantner was born in San Francisco to Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship band members Grace Slick and Paul Kantner. At 15 she become the youngest ever VJ on MTV. She appeared in a variety of school plays and embarked on an acting career in the 1990s, landing bit parts in such movies as Airheads, S.F.W., The Stoned Age, and The Evening Star. She also made guest appearances on Grace Under Fire, Murphy Brown, and L.A. Firefighters. In 1997 she began a recurring role on Home Improvement as Willow Wilson. Kantner gave up acting following her departure from the Tim Allen series and studied art history at UCLA. She occasionally sang on-stage with her famous parents during Jefferson Starship concerts and received musical credits on several Starship albums. In 2007 Kantner obtained a degree in Christian theology from Loyola Marymount University.

Trivia: One of the most vibrant comic personalities of the 1970s and '80s, as well as a noted actor and screenwriter, Dan Aykroyd got his professional start in his native Canada. Before working as a standup comedian in various Canadian nightclubs, Aykroyd studied at a Catholic seminary from which he was later expelled. He then worked as a train brakeman, a surveyor, and studied Sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he began writing and performing comedy sketches. His success as a comic in school led him to work with the Toronto branch of the famed Second City improvisational troupe. During this time -- while he was also managing the hot nightspot Club 505 on the side -- Aykroyd met comedian and writer John Belushi, who had come to Toronto to scout new talent for "The National Lampoon Radio Hour." In 1975, both Aykroyd and Belushi were chosen to appear in the first season of Canadian producer Lorne Michaels' innovative comedy television series Saturday Night Live. It was as part of the show that Aykroyd gained notoriety for his dead-on impersonations of presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. He also won fame for his other characters, such as Beldar, the patriarch of the Conehead clan of suburban aliens, and Elwood, the second half of the Blues Brothers (Jake Blues was played by Belushi). Aykroyd made his feature-film debut in 1977 in the Canadian comedy Love at First Sight, but neither it nor his subsequent film, Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, were successful. His first major Hollywood screen venture was as a co-lead in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). But Aykroyd still did not earn much recognition until 1980, when he and Belushi reprised their popular SNL characters in The Blues Brothers, a terrifically successful venture that managed to become both one of the most often-quoted films of the decade and a true cult classic. Aykroyd and Belushi went on to team up one more time for Neighbors (1981) before Belushi's death in 1982. Aykroyd's subsequent films in the '80s ranged from the forgettable to the wildly successful, with all-out comedies such as Ghostbusters (1984) and Dragnet (1987) falling into the latter category. Many of these films allowed him to collaborate with some of Hollywood's foremost comedians, including fellow SNL alumni Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Eddie Murphy, as well as Tom Hanks and the late John Candy. In such pairings, Aykroyd usually played the straight man -- typically an uptight intellectual or a latent psycho. He tried his hand at drama in 1989 as Jessica Tandy's son in Driving Miss Daisy and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. During the '90s, Aykroyd's career faltered just a bit as he appeared in one disappointment after another. Despite scattered successes like My Girl (1991), Chaplin (1992), Casper (1995), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and Antz (1998), the all-out flops -- The Coneheads (1993), Exit to Eden (1994), Sgt. Bilko (1996) -- were plentiful. Likewise, the long-awaited Blues Brothers sequel, Blues Brothers 2000 (1998), proved a great disappointment. Aykroyd, however, continued to maintain a screen profile, starring as Kirk Douglas' son in the family drama Diamonds in 1999. During the next few years, he found greater success in supporting roles, with turns as a shifty businessman in the period drama The House of Mirth (2000), Woody Allen's boss in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), pop star Britney Spears' father in her screen debut, Crossroads (2002), and (in a particularly amusing turn) as Dr. Keats in the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy 50 First Dates. Aykroyd also appeared in the 2005 Christmas with the Kranks, alongside Tim Allen and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry with Adam Sandler in 2006. He also provided the voice of Yogi Bear in the big screen adaptation of the titular cartoon -- but none of these projects did particularly well with fans. Aykroyd soon planned to revive the smashing success of the Ghostbusters franchise, collaborating with Harold Ramis to create a script and reunite the original four stars. However, ongoing hold-ups, including the public refusal of pivotal member Bill Murray to participate, continued to push the project back. In the meantime, Akroyd played a recurring role on TV shows like According to Jim, The Defenders, and Happily Divorced.Since 1983, Aykroyd has been married to the radiant Donna Dixon, a model who holds the twin titles of Miss Virginia 1976, and Miss District of Columbia 1977; the two co-starred in the 1983 Michael Pressman comedy Doctor Detroit. In Aykroyd's off time, he claims a varied number of interests, including UFOs and supernatural phenomena (his brother Peter works as a psychic researcher), blues music (he co-owns the House of Blues chain of nightclubs/restaurants), and police detective work.

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.