Trivia: One of the few producer/director/writers to handle both movie and TV assignments with equal aplomb, James L. Brooks was born in Brooklyn and spent his college years in New York City. Following an apprenticeship with CBS news, Brooks went to work for documentary producer David L. Wolper. In 1969, Brooks broke into the non-documentary end of the business with his TV series drama Room 222, which, though dated and obvious when viewed today, was an important stepping stone in improving the racial balance on prime time television. Room 222 was a "serious" effort; thus, Hollywood insiders were surprised when Brooks formed a partnership with writer Allan Burns, formerly of such raucous projects as The Bullwinkle Show and My Mother the Car, to develop sitcoms. Brooks and Burns knew what sort of programs they wanted to do, but they were forced to fight tooth and nail with the CBS higher-ups to get what they wanted on the air. Nobody, they were told, wanted to see a show about a single woman working at a television station. Further, nobody wanted to see anyone on TV who was Jewish, had a mustache, or came from New York City. All these "unwanted" elements would be present in the Brooks/Burns project The Mary Tyler Moore Show; the show that nobody wanted ran from 1970 through 1977, earning its production team a multitude of awards. Brooks would later be on the ground floor of such TV hits as Cheers and Taxi, which more than compensated for such relative failures as The Associates. Moving into films as a producer/scripter (Starting Over, 1979) and even an occasional actor (Albert Brooks's Modern Romance, 1981), Brooks would end up director/producer/writer of Terms of Endearment, the Academy Award winner of 1983. He went on to direct Broadcast News (1987), a truer but no less hilarious and poignant glance at the cutthroat network news business than Mary Tyler Moore Show had been. He also found great success as a producer on such films as Big (1988), ...Say Anything (1989), and Jerry Maguire (1996). During the '90s, Brooks has had equal parts success and failure. Among the winning projects was The Simpsons, the first successful prime time cartoon series since The Flintstones. Brooks' less spectacular efforts have included I'll Do Anything (1994); conceived and filmed as a return to the Big-Budget Musical genre, it tested so poorly that it was released with all the songs cut out. In 1997, however, Brooks had a major success with the Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt vehicle As Good As It Gets, a caustic comedy with a heart of gold that provided both Hunt and Nicholson best acting kudos from the Oscars and Golden Globe ceremonies. The film won a Golden Globe for Best Picture and was nominated for several more. It also received several more Oscar nominations, including one for Best Screenplay. He took seven years before making his next feature, Spanglish, a movie about a marriage on the rocks that Brooks undertook around the time he and his own wife split. Three years later he was one of the producers of The Simpsons Movie, and in 2010 he returned with the romantic comedy How Do You Know.

Trivia: Executive producer Richard Sakai began his career in 1977, working as a gofer for James L. Brooks at John Charles Walters Productions. Before the decade's end, he had become a producer and director on the popular comedy Taxi. He continued his affiliation with Brooks in 1984, when Brooks invited him to helm his newest production company, Gracie Films, which at the time was producing two popular series for the newborn Fox television network, The Tracey Ullman Show and The Simpsons. Gracie Films was also responsible for a number of major features. Those produced by Sakai include the Oscar-winners Jerry Maguire (1996) and As Good As It Gets (1998).

Trivia: For better or worse, leading actor Kelsey Grammer's name will probably forever be associated with the pompous, garrulous, and self-absorbed but lovable psychiatrist Frasier Crane, a character Grammer has played on television since he first appeared on the NBC sitcom Cheers, in 1984, as a love interest for Shelley Long. Though Frasier was not intended to become a series regular, Grammer's performance of the blowhard neurotic charmed audiences and he remained with Cheers through its 1993 demise. At the beginning of the 1993-1994 television season, Grammer's character was resurrected in his own show and moved from Boston to Seattle, where he became a radio psychologist and faced a whole slew of folks just waiting to poke metaphorical pins in his hot air balloon. Thanks to excellent performances and top-notch writing, Frasier became as big a hit as its predecessor. Grammer won three Emmy awards and was nominated for seven more (twice for Cheers, once for his guest appearance on a 1992 episode of Wings, four times for Frasier) for playing the character. Born on St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Grammer knew extreme tragedy in youth. Following the shooting death of his father when he was a boy, he was raised in New Jersey and then Florida, by his mother and grandfather. His grandfather died before Grammer became a teen. When he was 20, his sister was abducted and violently murdered. Five years later, he lost two half brothers in a diving accident. As a young man, Grammer found comfort in Shakespeare; with his acting debut in a high school production of The Little Foxes came an interest in pursuing drama as a career. He enrolled in Juilliard, but dropped out after two years to work at San Diego's Old Globe Theater, where he gained three years' invaluable experience performing in Shakespearean and classical dramas; afterward, Grammer performed in productions across the country. He eventually made it to Broadway, where he appeared in various productions, including Othello. Prior to playing Frasier, Grammer appeared occasionally on television and had regular roles in three soap operas, including One Life to Live. He continues to occasionally guest star on other series. Fans of the animated satire The Simpsons will recognize his periodic voice characterization as the venomous Sideshow Bob. Miniseries and telemovies in which he has appeared include London Suite and Beyond Suspicion. Grammer made his feature film debut with a small role in Top of the Hill (1989) and had his first starring role in the much-panned comedy Down Periscope (1996). In addition to his Emmy kudos, Grammer has received an American Comedy Award, two Golden Globes, and a People's Choice Award. In 1995, he published his autobiography So Far.Grammer would spend the following years taking on TV roles on shows like Back to You and Boss, but would find even more success as a producer, helping bring shows like The Game, Girlfriends, Hank, Medium, and World Cup Comedy to fruition. In 2014, he returned to acting in a big way, making a cameo appearance in X-Men: Days of Future Past, reprising his role as Beast, playing the bad guy in Transformers: Age of Extinction, and returning to television in the FX series Partners.