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: 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: The character that Gedde Watanabe is most remembered for is no doubt Long Duk Dong, the spastic foreign exchange student in Sixteen Candles (1984) whose drunken fall from a tree and laughable bastardization of the English language had ninth graders of the day rolling in theater aisles. Though a few major roles followed soon after, Watanabe ultimately fell victim to the comic typecasting machine, rendering his talents muted in favor of the stereotypical "humorous foreign-guy" roles in which he would repeatedly stumble through the cursed paces of his former footprints.It seems ironic that the actor who is remembered for these roles is a native not of Japan or some far away shore, but of Ogden, UT. Though his roles have expanded in their nature somewhat in recent years, Watanabe, a fine comic actor with a certain warm sincerity, has appeared frequently in major releases, though usually a little further down the credit list. Studying acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, CA, Watanabe also possesses a notable talent for crooning, appearing early on as an original cast member of Sondheim's Pacific Overtures in the 1970s.After his breakout role in Candles, Watanabe continued to riff on his likeable but mechanical Japanese-guy persona with humorous roles in UHF (1989) and, perhaps most notably, Gung-Ho (1986) and the short-lived television series of the same name that followed. Bit parts in television and film followed fairly frequently, often appearing in such television series as ER and doing voice-over work for such animated series as The Simpsons and Batman: Beyond. The late '90s showed promise for Watanabe with a couple of small yet stereotype-busting roles in Guinevere and EdTV (both 1999).

Trivia: South Carolina native Leeza Gibbons got a degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina before becoming an anchor of the showbiz news show Entertainment Tonight in 1984. Gibbons became a household name almost instantly, interviewing celebrities and reporting on the latest Hollywood news and gossip long before the age of TMZ. Gibbons' striking screen presence also led to her appearing in acting roles in feature films such as Robocop, though the anchor most often made cameo appearances as herself -- as she did in 1991's He Said, She Said. In 1994, Gibbons began hosting her own daytime talk show, Leeza, which ran until 2000. She also started hosting a number of radio shows in 2004 and participated in the popular reality show Dancing with the Stars in 2007. She won the seventh season of the Celebrity Apprentice in 2015, playing for her own charity, Leeza's Care Connection.

Trivia: Oprah Winfrey rose from poverty and a troubled youth to become the most powerful and influential woman in television and, according to Forbes Magazine, the world's most highly paid entertainer. Though primarily recognized as a talk show hostess, Winfrey also produces and occasionally acts in television movies and feature films. Winfrey's parents, who never married, were teens when she was born in rural Mississippi. She was originally named Orpah after a woman from the Book of Ruth but a spelling mistake on the birth certificate changed it to Oprah. She spent her childhood growing up in abject poverty on her deeply religious grandmother's farm. When she was older, Winfrey moved in with her mother in Milwaukee, WI. This proved a difficult time as Winfrey alleges she was repeatedly sexually molested by male relatives. Winfrey became a bit of a wild child during her early teens, experimenting with sex and drugs until the age of 14 when she gave birth to a premature baby. It died shortly after, and upon recovering, Winfrey chose to live with her father in Nashville. It was under his stern guidance that Winfrey found discipline, stability, and the inspiration to excel in school and change her life. When she was 19, Winfrey became a part-time radio reporter for station WVOL, Nashville, and also began studying speech and performing arts at Tennessee State University. She dropped out in 1972 during her sophomore year to become an anchor at Nashville's WTVF-TV. She was the first black woman to hold that position. In 1976, she moved to WJZ-TV and after a stint as a reporter was promoted to co-anchor. Two years after her arrival, Winfrey was slotted (with some trepidation by producers who weren't sure how audiences would respond to a host who was neither white nor thin) to host their talk show People Are Talking. Their worries were unfounded for the charming, empathetic Winfrey's show was a hit and remained so for eight years. In 1984, Winfrey took a major risk and accepted a job hosting a Chicago morning talk show, one that aired at the same time as the nationally top-rated, Chicago-based Phil Donahue talk show. This time it was her fears that had no basis for she soon found herself neck and neck in the ratings with Donahue. Her show also went nationwide through King World Syndicate and as she expanded the operation, the money began rolling in. With the purchase of a large downtown production facility, Winfrey was able to become the third woman in the American entertainment industry -- after Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball -- to own her own studio. She named it Harpo, which is, of course, "Oprah" spelled backwards. Using her considerable business acumen, Winfrey translated her show into a multi-million-dollar business, making her the wealthiest black woman in the U.S. Her show was groundbreaking for several reasons, but most of all because Oprah was unafraid to bare her soul and her own past experiences in front of audiences whereas most talk show hosts remained reserved in regard to their personal lives. Though it was difficult, she made public her past abuse, her drug problem during her twenties, and her struggle with obesity. In this latter area, Oprah, took a lot of heat from unkind critics who were unable to cope with the notion that a round woman could possibly be considered attractive, intelligent, and vital. She endured cruel jokes and jibes until she finally decided to lose weight, first with a radical liquid diet -- which only temporarily took off her weight -- and then with a rigorous fat-free diet and exercise regimen that kept her weight off. Like Donahue and the other talk show hosts of the day, Winfrey's program tended toward sensationalism designed to appeal to our most morbid curiosities. Subject-wise, she had begun hitting all-time lows by 1994. That year, she was to turn 40 and was thinking heavily about which direction her life might turn, both professionally and personally. There was a question whether or not she would even continue taping the show. She ultimately decided to stay on the air, but only after publicly promising to move her show to a higher, more uplifting level.In addition to her reign as "queen of the daytime talk shows," Winfrey has also proven herself a gifted actress. In 1985, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress with her film debut as Sofia in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple. Later, she began working behind the scenes, executive producing and starring in Donna Deitch's acclaimed 1989 television movie The Women of Brewster Place, which later became a short-lived series.After the success of her book club, Winfrey began producing popular films based on some of her favorite contemporary written works. Along with executive-producing made-for-television adaptations such as David and Lisa, Tuesdays with Morrie, and Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding, she served as producer on the 1998 big-screen adaptation of Toni Morrison's Beloved, a film she also costarred in.Winfrey continued to be a powerful force in the world of day-time television in 2003, when she spun off a regular segment from her show featuring psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw into McGraw's own daily program, Dr. Phil. Oprah founded a television channel (OWN -- Oprah Winfrey Network) after the final episode of the Oprah Winfrey show aired on May 5th, 2011.

Trivia: A popular comedian during the 1970s, Jay Leno is best known as the man who replaced Johnny Carson at the helm of The Tonight Show in 1992. Leno was born James Douglas Muir Leno to parents of Italian and Scottish heritage (Leno is particularly fond of discussing the Italian part) in New Rochelle, NY, but was raised in Andover, MA. During the year in which he was establishing his standup career, Leno was performing 300 nights throughout North America. He made his television debut on the Merv Griffin Show and his acting debut in Silver Bears (1977). That year he appeared in the cast of the short-lived Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. Show, a musical variety summer replacement series. By the early '80s, Leno had left behind any notion of becoming an actor because his comedy career was in high gear. His subsequent film appearances have been as himself or as a parody of himself (The Flintstones, 1994). Leno made his first appearance on The Tonight Show on March 2, 1977. Though he can be sharp and is an astute political commentator, there is something nice and comforting about the soft-eyed, lantern-jawed funnyman that appeals to vast middle-American audiences, the same sort who regularly tuned in to Carson. It is small wonder that Leno became Carson's sole guest host by 1987. Leno hosted his first show as Carson's successor on May 25, 1992, with comedian Billy Crystal as his first guest. There was much furor surrounding the selection of Leno as many believed fellow late night gab-meister David Letterman would inherit the throne. Since taking the Tonight Show's reigns, Leno has attempted to inject the show with a slightly hipper edge by featuring more radical musical acts and affecting a more casual look. It's a tough balancing act, for he must do so without alienating his older, more conservative fan base. Leno would conitnue to host The Tonight Show until a brief stint in 2009, when the network had contracted earlier to hand hosting duties over to Conan O'Brien. Leno moved into an earlier time slot with a comedy show called The Jay Leno Show, but after some controversy, he resumed hosting duties on the Tonight Show, and O'Brien took his act over to TBS.

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.