Trivia: The reigning curmudgeon of TV comedy, Emmy-winning Larry David is a rare case of lightning striking twice on the small screen. Not only did he make television history with Seinfeld -- one of the most popular sitcoms to ever grace the airwaves -- but two years after the series ended, David made a stellar return with the hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. A New York City native raised in the Brooklyn, David has often claimed that his carefree childhood made for a rough transition into a miserable adulthood. He began his career as a standup comic in the early to mid-'70s, with middling results at best, a period during which he also met another, albeit more successful, comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, who would also become a lifelong friend. A few years later, success was still eluding David, though, in 1979, he got his first taste of fame as a writer and performer for the Saturday Night Live knock-off Fridays. Television definitely seemed to provide a better vehicle for David's unique brand of humor, and he later got a job as a writer for Saturday Night Live during its 1984-1985 season. The blessing became a curse, however, when David failed to gel with the SNL crew, his brief tenure on the show yielding only one on-air sketch, which was relegated to the evening's final segment. David spent much of the rest of the '80s appearing in small roles in such films as Radio Days (1987) and New York Stories (1989). As the decade drew to a close, Seinfeld was in negotiations to develop a pilot for NBC, and he turned to his old friend David for inspiration, thus giving birth to the wildly popular "show about nothing." Starring Seinfeld, Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Jason Alexander as a quartet of self-involved New Yorkers, Seinfeld debuted in 1990 (after its 1989 pilot episode) and remained on the air for nine seasons. In addition to serving as one of the driving creative forces of the show, David was also the inspiration for the George Constanza character (Alexander) and frequently provided voice-over work. In 1996, David took a sabbatical from the series in order to try his hand at writing and directing a feature film. Though Sour Grapes didn't exactly strike gold at the box office, it did offer a healthy dose of David's trademark acerbic humor and eventually found a second life on the home video market. David returned to Seinfeld in 1998 to craft its final episode. Although he initially opposed returning to the rigors of television, 1999 saw the airing of the HBO special Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm, which, told in mockumentary style, echoed the comedian's past by weaving the tale of a failed former standup comic whose bid to return to the spotlight yielded predictably disastrous results. The show was a hit and prompted HBO to offer David his own series. Curb Your Enthusiasm would prove a massive hit, and the show -- famously featuring improvised dialogue -- would run for several seasons.

Trivia: A talented performer of stage and screen whose quick, on-the-fly wit made her the perfect candidate for a role on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David's popular HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, actress Cheryl Hines found her comic footing as a member of the famed Groundlings troupe before making the leap to the screen in the mid- to late '90s. Though the Florida native would study theater, radio, and television at Florida State University, a move to Los Angeles found her discovering a natural talent for improvisational theater. In the following years, Hines would refine her comic skills while gaining exposure on such popular television series as Suddenly Susan, The Wayans Bros., and Friends, though it would be her Emmy-nominated performance as hapless comic Larry David's wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm that truly made her a recognizable face on the small screen. Hines has also made numerous apperances in film as well, including movies like Along Came Polly, Labor Pains, and The Ugly Truth. In 2011, she returned to the small screen in ABC's quirky Suburgatory, playing glammed-up suburban wife Dallas Royce for three seasons.

Trivia: Heavyset comedian Jeff Garlin started doing standup comedy at his Florida college before he returned to his hometown of Chicago, IL, and joined the cast of Second City. In 1992, he made his film debut in the Dolly Parton comedy Straight Talk, followed by small roles in other features and made-for-TV movies. In 1997, he starred in his own HBO half-hour comedy special and guest starred on Everybody Loves Raymond a couple times before playing the reoccurring role of Marvin on NBC's Mad About You. After bit parts in the comedies Senseless and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Garlin made the successful switch back to television. This time he tried directing and producing in addition to playing Larry David's manager, Jeff Greene, on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, which would become his most recognizable role. He then hosted the short-lived variety show Late Friday and joined the cast of What About Joan for its second and final season. He made a brief return to film for Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal and then gained co-star status with Eddie Murphy for Daddy Day Care in 2003. In 2006 he wrote, directed, and starred in the sweet indie comedy I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, and two years later joined the Pixar family providing the voice of the ship captain in the highly-successful Wall-E. As he continued working on Curb, he found working on animated films to his liking and lent his voice to Cars 2, Toy Story 3 and ParaNorman.

Trivia: Like other Saturday Night Live alumni, Julia Louis-Dreyfus made the move to feature films, but she achieved true stardom on TV as Seinfeld's inimitable Elaine Benes. Born to an affluent family and raised in Washington, D.C., Louis-Dreyfus studied theater at Northwestern University. Along with working as a member of The Practical Theater Company, Louis-Dreyfus cut her sharp comic teeth as part of Chicago's Second City troupe. She soon followed in the footsteps of prior Second City-ers John Belushi and Bill Murray, joining the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985 (along with Northwestern classmate and eventual husband Brad Hall). Louis-Dreyfus bounced to films with appearances in Soul Man (1986), Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), before returning to TV on the second episode of a low-rated NBC primetime sitcom starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld in 1990.As Jerry's ex-girlfriend-turned-pal Elaine, Louis-Dreyfus proved that she could hold her own as the sole female member of Seinfeld's do-nothing quartet of neurotic New Yorkers. With her "big wall of hair," signature shoes and penchant for over-enthusiastic exclamations, Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine was no mere foil, but rather a full participant in the show's increasingly popular, irony-laden comic shenanigans. Along with winning an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1996, Louis-Dreyfus won the Golden Globe in 1994 and the Screen Actor's Guild award in 1997 and 1998. During Seinfeld's phenomenally successful nine-year run, Louis-Dreyfus also played supporting roles in North (1994), Father's Day (1997), and as a libidinous sister in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997). After Seinfeld went off the air in 1998, Dreyfus took some time off from appearing in front of the camera to spend time with her husband and two sons, but she did the voice of Princess Atta in the Pixar animated blockbuster A Bug's Life (1998).Louis-Dreyfus subsequently returned to TV as the Blue Fairy in the TV movie musical Gepetto (2000) before attempting another sitcom. After two of her Seinfeld co-stars failed to make their own series fly in 2000 and 2001, Louis-Dreyfus opted for a non-traditional approach, playing a struggling lounge singer in the real time, laugh track free Watching Ellie in 2002. Louis-Dreyfus would continue to remain one of the most beloved comedic actresses in TV, starring on The New Adventures of Old Christine, and the political satire Veep.

Trivia: A comedienne and writer whose personal pain provided a focal point for her acutely perceptive stage and script work, funny lady Judy Toll was groomed for comedy under the wings of the famous Los Angeles comedy troupe the Groundlings. Born in Philadelphia, PA, in 1958, Toll aspired to the entertainment industry early on. A frequent performer at Uncaberet, she contributed her voice to The Brave Little Toaster (1987) and turned up alongside John Ritter in Skin Deep (1989) before taking a satirical stab at uber-macho comedian Andrew Dice Clay in the 1991 comedy special Judy Toll: The Dice Woman -- Lips Only. After performing on-stage throughout much of the mid-'90s, Toll achieved fame as a writer and consultant to such popular television series as Boy Meets World, The Geena Davis Show, and HBO's Sex and the City. In features, Toll was a co-writer of the 1988 comedy Casual Sex? Married to Oscar-winning documentarian Rick Trank, Toll died after an extended struggle with melanoma in early 2002. She was 44.

Trivia: Devotees of HBO will have little trouble pinpointing actress Susie Essman; she made one of her most indelible impressions as the brassy, bossy, acid-mouthed Susie Greene, wife of Larry David's manager Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin), on the quirky sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. Essman grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, as the daughter of two prosperous Jewish parents: an internist father and a college professor mother who taught Russian at nearby Sarah Lawrence College. She began her career as a stand-up comedian and entered films courtesy of the Tom Hanks/Sally Field seriocomedy Punchline (1988) (as -- fittingly -- a comedian), but hit her stride with Curb, which debuted in 2002. Essman subsequently participated in director Penn Jillette's monologue-heavy raunchfest The Aristocrats (2005) and hosted the Bravo network's competition-themed reality series Better Half (2007), before voicing a cat in the family-oriented animated comedy Bolt (2008). In 2010 she appeared in Kevin Smith's action comedy Cop Out.

Trivia: The son of a prominent archaeologist/museum director, American actor Ted Danson grew up near the Navajo reservation in Arizona. He played basketball while at Kent School Connecticut, and then moved on to Stanford University. It was in the process of getting acquainted with an aspiring actress at Stanford that Danson found himself attending his first audition-- and by years' end had transferred to the drama department at Carnegie Tech. Marking time in non-speaking roles, Danson left the stage for the more lucrative world of TV commercials, some of which have been well-circulated on videotape since Danson has become famous. Danson's first steady TV work was as a slimy villain on the NBC soap opera Somerset. Shortly afterward, the actor attained his first film role, as a murdered cop, in The Onion Field (1978). After seeing Danson in the movie Body Heat (1981) and in an episode of the TV series Taxi, producer Glen Charles cast the actor as Sam Malone, ex-sports star and full-time barkeeper and womanizer, on the long-running, well-loved sitcom Cheers He won Emmys for the 1989-90 and 1992-93 seasons. Frequently making attempts at film stardom during the 11-season run of Cheers, Danson finally struck gold in Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990). Danson's most recent work includes the 1996 starring role in the TV miniseries Gulliver's Travels and a co-starring role, opposite his new wife Mary Steenburgen, in the television sit-com Ink (also 1996). In 1998 Danson began a six-year run on another successful sitcom portraying the lead character on Becker, playing a caustic grump who couldn't have been further from Sam Malone's effortless charm. He continued to work steadily on the big screen as well scoring appearances in Saving Private Ryan and Mumford. He made sporadic appearances on Larry David's award-winning Curb Your Enthusiasm, and earned strong reviews for his dramatic work on the first season of the TV show Damages. He followed that up with a co-starring role on the HBO series Bored to Death, which lasted three seasons. In 2012 he could be seen in the inspirational animal movie Big Miracle.