Trivia: Best-known as teenage son Theo on the legendary sitcom The Cosby Show, Malcolm-Jamal Warner had already made a handful of TV appearances when he joined the show's cast in 1984. The precocious 14 year old showed up for the last day of casting, but quickly won over the producers and remained with the show until it ended its run in 1992. Warner would go on to try his hand at several other projects, starring in the comedy series Here and Now until 1993 and taking on the role of The Producer on the children's series The Magic School Bus from 1994 to 1997. Warner would also star in the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie starting in 1996, staying with the show until 2000. In 2003, the actor began appearing on the sci-fi series Jeremiah and continued with the show until it was canceled in 2004. Warner would then take on the recurring role of Bernie on the sports-oriented comedy Listen Up in 2005, and subsequently kept busy making appearances on shows like Dexter and The Cleaner. In 2009, Warner found yet another outlet for his talents on the small screen, joining Sherri Shepherd on the sitcom Sherri. Though the series didn't last, it did provide Warner's television career with a satisfying second wind that was highlighted by a leading role on the BET comedy series Reed Between the Lines (which won him an Image Award), and a recurring character on NBC's Community.

Trivia: A popular comic turned actor who started his career on-stage as a dare, funnyman Eddie Griffin's memorable supporting roles in such films as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo have built the comedian an ever-growing fan base and a path to his first starring role in 2002's Undercover Brother. Born in Kansas City, MO, Griffin's career began when he accepted a dare to take the stage on amateur night at a local comedy club. Soon developing a personal style reminiscent of such classic comics as Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx, Griffin gained further exposure opening for comic Andrew Dice Clay on a 22-city tour and later in a series of impromptu performances at Los Angeles' popular Comic Store. Quickly following with performances on HBO's Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam and a Cable Ace Award-nominated special, Griffin began branching out into acting. Roles in such films as The Last Boy Scout (1991), Coneheads (1993), and Jason's Lyric (1994) soon led to a sitcom (Malcom and Eddie) in 1996, and Griffin's film appearances became more frequent. After headlining 2001's Double Take alongside Orlando Jones, Griffin seemed poised for leading-man status, and with his role as Anton Jackson in 2002's Undercover Brother, it seemed as if Griffin had conquered not only the stage, but the silver screen as well. In addition to his comedic skills, Griffin is also a gifted dancer and choreographer. Griffin joined the cast of Scary Movie 3 the following year, and continued to perform as a stand-up comedian throughout the early 2000s. In 2005 he starred in the comedy The Wendell Baker Story alongside Luke Wilson, Andrew, and Owen Wilson, and appeared in a series of ultimately forgettable films over the course of the decade (Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Date Movie, and Norbit among them), but continues to remain popular as a stand-up comedian.

Trivia: Philadelphia native Karen Malina White first caught audiences' attention when she took on the role of Charmaine Brown on The Cosby Show in 1989. She would also make waves in the film Lean on Me, but would continue to get mileage out of the role of Charmaine, playing it again on the spin-off A Different World, which she remained with until 1993. White would go on to make appearances on shows like Chicago Hope and My So-Called Life, in addition to appearing in a number of productions on-stage.

Trivia: While Anthony Anderson got his start in stand-up, his wide range of genre-spanning credits as a producer and actor in light comedy, pointed satires, food-based reality shows and gritty episodic dramas display his versatility and cross-audience appeal. But even though it's not immediately apparent how the points on his resume connect in one straight line, all of his work harkens back to core values of family, togetherness, responsibility, fairness, justice, and doing right in a sometimes complicated world.Born August 15, 1970, Anderson was one of four kids raised by his mother and stepfather (the man he considered his "only father I knew or cared about") in Compton, Los Angeles, California. While their neighborhood could be rough, his no-nonsense stepfather, who owned three clothing stores, instilled a respect for paternal responsibility and entrepreneurship in Anderson. While Anderson remembers seeing a teenage Dr. Dre perform at Compton's most important hip-hop venue Skateland, U.S.A., his most formative memory of a performer was watching his mother rehearse for an amateur production of A Raisin in the Sun at Compton Community College. Even though both he and his mother agree that she was a terrible actress, the impression of her becoming someone else on stage solidified his ambitions.His ambitions stoked, young Anderson seized every opportunity to perform, whether it was singing at church, competing in spelling bees, or appearing in a commercial at the age of five. After successfully auditioning for Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, he won the top prize in the NAACP's Act-So awards and gained entrance to Howard University's drama program with an audition tape that included monologues from Shakespeare and "The Great White Hope". (Anderson's stepfather, always the pragmatist, took extraordinary measures to push Anderson out of the nest after college by not only insisting he pay rent if he wanted to live at home, but also by padlocking the TV cabinet and freezer, installing a pay phone in the house, and razzing Anderson with Lassie reruns: "That dog's an actor. Where are you acting?")Too-strange-to-be-fiction family lore like that formed the basis of Anderson's stand-up comedy routines that he performed briefly under the name "Tasty Tony" while picking up small roles in TV and movies until 1999, when he landed roles both in the Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy comedy Life, and Barry Levinson's cinematic memoir Liberty Heights. A slew of roles in a wide range of genres followed for the next few years, culminating in recurring roles on Treme as actor-waiter Derek Watson, on The Shield as Antwon Mitchell, the drug boss turned community leader who still keeps one foot in the thug life, and on Law & Order as conservative lawman Detective Kevin Bernard, a role for which he earned four consecutive NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series. Anderson's other great passion, for food and cooking, has led to many hosting gigs on shows like Carnival Cravings with Anthony Anderson, Eating America with Anthony Anderson, the web series Anthony Eats America, and his recurring seat at the judge's table on Iron Chef America. While his everyday diet is "vegan-ish" as a way of regulating his type 2 diabetes, he's so devoted to the kitchen arts that he takes weekend classes at famed culinary academy Le Cordon Bleu's Los Angeles outpost. While his first forays into producing the sitcoms All About the Andersons and Matumbo Goldberg (both about domestic life from an African-American perspective) ended after one season, conversations with his screenwriter friend Kenya Barris about their experiences raising their children in affluent, majority-white communities that are so unlike the neighborhoods they grew up in inspired the duo to create and produce black-ish. Taking a page from unflinching sitcoms of the '70s like All In The Family and Good Times that mixed light humor with frank confrontation of social ills, Barris and Anderson folded incidents from their own lives into the show's scripts - such as the time Anderson's teenage son wanted a bar mitzvah party like all his Jewish friends, prompting Anderson to instead offer his son a hip-hop themed "bro mitzvah." Anderson received an Emmy nomination for his role as beleaguered patriarch Andre Johnson in 2015.