Trivia: Like many Chicago born-and-bred actors, Harvey Korman cut his acting teeth at that city's Goodman Theatre. He sold aluminum siding door-to-door while waiting for his Big Break, taking the occasional Broadway walk-on, TV commercial and cartoon voice-over. His earliest significant TV exposure came about during his four seasons (1963-67) as a regular on The Danny Kaye Show. He went on to join The Carol Burnett Show in 1967, remaining with the series until its 1977 demise and winning four Emmies in the process. Korman's versatility was only part of his appeal; it was also a stitch to watch him try to maintain a straight face while enduring the antics of fellow comic actor Tim Conway. One recurring sketch on the Burnett series, "The Family," later spun off into the TV series Mama's Family. While Korman had played Mama's (Vicki Lawrence) vituperative son-in-law Ed on the Burnett Show "Family" sketches, his principal contribution to Mama's Family was confined to his weekly introductory comments as "Alastair Quince"; he also directed a 1983 special based on the "Family" principals, Eunice. Most of Korman's other TV-series projects were lukewarm single-season affairs like The Harvey Korman Show (1978), Leo and Lizz in Beverly Hills (1986) and The Nutt House (1989). Korman's finest film work can be found in his antic appearances in the films of Mel Brooks, especially his portrayal of greedy land baron Hedley Lamarr in 1974's Blazing Saddles. One of his later projects was the voice of the Dictabird in the 1994 box-office hit The Flintstones -- a piquant piece of casting, inasmuch as Korman had supplied the voice of "The Great Gazoo" in the original Flintstonesanimated television series of the 1960s. Korman died of unspecified causes in May 2008.

Trivia: Yale alumnus Robert Picardo made his off-Broadway debut in David Mamet's one-act play Sexual Perversity in Chicago. That was in 1975; two years later, Picardo was first seen on Broadway in Gemini. He launched his TV career in the 1980 miniseries The Dream Merchants, and in 1981 made his first film, The Howling--one of several assignments for director Joe Dante. During his early TV years, he was all too often cast in "first husband" or "wrong boyfriend" supporting roles. Things improved in 1986, when he was hired to play the much-feared high school gym teacher Coach Cutlip in the weekly dramedy The Wonder Years. He went on to co-star as Dr. Dick Richard in the highly acclaimed Vietnam-era series China Beach (1989-91). A busy voiceover artist, Picardo has supplied a variety of vocal characterizations for such series as Dinosaurs and Batman. Undoubtedly you'll be reading even more about Robert Picardo in the future, by virtue of his being cast as the holographic Doc Zimmerman on TV's Star Trek: Voyager(1995- ). In the post Star Trek years, Picardo would find ongoing success on shows like The Lyon's Den, Stargate SG-1, and Stargate Atlantis.

Trivia: Actress Wendy Schaal made her feature-film debut in the teen comedy Records (1978). She subsequently went on to have a sporadic film career, the highlights of which include Innerspace (1987) and The 'Burbs (1989). Though she worked steadily through the 1990s, she disappeared from screens in the 21st century, making a triumphant comeback voicing Francine Smith on the FOX animated sitcom American Dad!

Trivia: American actor, screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Bartel is perhaps best known as the director and star of the quirky sleeper Eating Raoul (1982). Born in New York City, Bartel was a film aficionado since childhood and entered the industry at age 13 working as an assistant animator for UPA. He later studied film at UCLA and while there, made several short animated films and documentaries; for his work as a student actor and playwright, Bartel won several awards. Later he studied at Rome's prestigious Centro Sperimental di Cinematografica on a Fulbright Scholarship; there his graduation film, Progetti, was shown at the Venice Film Festival. Soon after coming back to the U.S., Bartel began working as an assistant director for military films; he then went on to make films for the U.S. government. As a feature filmmaker, Bartel is consistently drawn to the darkly funny, more perverse aspects of life. His provocative directorial debut was Private Parts (1972) which centered on a runaway teenage girl who encounters several residents involved with bizarre sexual practices in her aunt's ramshackle San Francisco hotel. Though it was a box office flop, the film earned Bartel decent notice from critics. He next involved himself with B-movie king Roger Corman and worked for him as both an actor and a second unit photographer. In 1974, he again tried directing with Big Bad Mama. He directed one more film before coming up with the screenplay for Eating Raoul. Directed by and starring Bartel, it is the ghastly but hilarious tale of an average couple who comes up with an unusual scam for making money involving sex for sale and a very large frying pan. Bartel was unable to find a distributor for the film until he entered it in the Los Angeles Film Festival where it generated such acclaim that 20th Century-Fox obtained the distribution rights. The film has since become a cult favorite. After the success of Raoul, Bartel continued directing a variety of films through the 1980s. Notable efforts from this time period include his wild satire of westerns Lust in the Dust (1985) and Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989). In the early '90s, he directed Shelf Life and then began focusing on his acting career and appearing in such films as The Jerky Boys (1994) and Basquiat (1996). He died of a heart attack, following surgery for liver cancer, on May 13, 2000.

Trivia: Whenever a script called for a wacky old lady, character actor Ellen Albertini Dow was there to play the part. After a lifetime as a teacher, the Cornell graduate made her television debut on an episode of the Twilight Zone in 1985 when she was in her late sixties. She spent the rest of the '80s making TV guest appearances on family sitcoms (Mr. Belvedere, The Golden Girls, Family Matters, and Newhart, just to name a few). On the big screen, she appeared in innumerable supporting roles as a grandma, nun, or any random old lady, leading to choir parts in both Sister Act and Sister Act 2. She got to exploit her comedic shtick regularly in 1996 when she joined the cast of the Nickelodeon series Kenan & Kel in the role of Ethel Quagmire. If a cameo can be considered a breakthrough, she at least gained face recognition as the old lady, Rosie, who raps in The Wedding Singer by appearing in the film's commercial. She continued playing the sassy granny role as Disco Dottie in 54, Mrs. MacKenzie in Ready to Rumble, and Tom Green's grandma in Road Trip. In 2001, she returned to the small screen to play Grandma Harriet on the WB series Maybe It's Me. At the age of 84, she lent her voice to Adam Sandler's animated feature Eight Crazy Nights. In 2005, she played the foul-mouthed Grandma Cleary in the the box-office smash Wedding Crashers. Albertini Dow continued to work, mostly in TV guest appearances, including spots on My Name is Earl and New Girl, until 2013. She died in 2015, at age 101.