Trivia: A uniquely talented, popular character actor/comedian who has provided voices for characters in such popular animated television series as Futurama and King of the Hill, funnyman David Herman is perhaps best known for his role as the unfortunately named Michael Bolton in Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge's popular live-action feature Office Space (1999). The New York City native joined the cast of television's MADtv shortly after graduating from LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts in 1992. Early roles in such features as Let It Be Me (1995), however minor, quickly proved that he was more than just a funny face. Vocal work on King of the Hill introduced the rising comic star to Mike Judge, and when Judge was preparing his live-action feature debut, he turned to Herman to play the role of frustrated cubicle-dweller Michael Bolton. The winning performance earned Herman the recognition that vocal work alone could not, though he still continued to voice characters on Futurama and Invader ZIM. Supporting roles in Dude, Where's My Car? and Table One (both 2000) found Herman's film career continuing to flourish, and after taking the lead in director Jon Favreau's made-for-television feature Life on Parole (2003), he joined actors John Goodman and Orlando Jones in providing vocal work for the animated series Father of the Pride in 2004.

Trivia: Comic actor Billy West is best remembered as one of Chaplin's finest imitators. Born in Russia but raised in Chicago after age two, West started out in vaudeville at age 14 using the name William B. West. He became a Chaplin imitator in 1915 and his talent allowed him to break into films the following year. He imitated the British comedian for several years, but then developed his own successful persona.

Trivia: Best known for his 2005 live-action rendering of the Bill Cosby character Fat Albert on the big screen -- a character he brought to life with the aid of a trusty fat suit and the trademark, "Hey, Hey, Hey!" -- wunderkind comic Kenan Thompson honed his skills as a small fry by entertaining classmates with uproarious comedy routines on the playground in his childhood home of Atlanta. Thompson landed his big break by auditioning at age 15 for All That, a Nickelodeon sketch comedy series that (like The Mickey Mouse Club of years prior) functioned as a kind of unofficial petri dish for burgeoning young talent. Series producer and director Brian Robbins reportedly viewed Thompson's audition, tagged his ability to mimic and his comic timing as "dead-on," and hired the young man on the spot. The young comic wowed Nickelodeon, and network heads not only offered him his own sitcom within a year, co-starring another young schtickmeister, Kel Mitchell, but a network-produced movie, the 1997 Good Burger (also starring Mitchell). Numerous additional film roles ensued, and though Mitchell began with goofy, schtick-heavy comedies (Master of Disguise [2002], My Boss' Daughter [2003]), he periodically revealed an interest in stretching his ability into other genres, such as avant-garde/experimental video (Public Lighting [2004]) and action-saturated horror (Snakes on a Plane [2006]). In 2008, however, Thompson hearkened back to comedy by voicing one of the titular primates in the goofy live-action fantasy Space Chimps. Meanwhile, alongside his film work, Thompson achieved even greater success on the small screen. His debut series, All That, had been conveniently described by more than one critic as "SNL for the small set," and paved the way for Thompson's involvement in the real Saturday Night Live; he joined the SNL cast in 2003.

Trivia: Actor Kel Mitchell swept up a widespread and loyal fan base in the mid-'90s as a teen comic. Mitchell initially joined the cast of the mid-'90s Nickelodeon sketch comedy show All That (1995) -- an unofficial variant of Saturday Night Live, retooled for the preteen set -- and soon became professionally attached to another up-and-comer on the program, Kenan Thompson. The two paired off as the comedy duo "Kenan and Kel," and the meteoric increase in their popularity among viewers prompted Nickelodeon to offer Thompson and Mitchell their own 1996 sitcom, aptly titled Kenan & Kel, which in turn spawned its own 1997 movie, also starring the boys and based on one of their recurring All That sketches. As directed by All That progenitor Brian Robbins (C.H.U.D. 2), the 1997 Good Burger follows the nutty adventures of a couple of short-order cooks, as a corporate fast-food giant sweeps in and threatens to close down their establishment. For several years thereafter, Mitchell chalked up a resumé of contributions to family-friendly productions, including Mystery Men (1999), The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000), and Two Heads Are Better Than None (2000), but he also achieved prominence in the music realm for his goofy music-video parodies of popular songs. Mitchell unveiled even greater ambition by scripting, executive producing, and essaying the lead role in the showbiz comedy Ganked (2005); he stars as Ricky, a young man who wins a songwriting contest but falls prey to the exploitation of a record company. (Astute viewers will also note Mitchell's presence, amid heavy makeup, as Ricky's uncle.) Mitchell tackled one of his most earnest roles two years later, with a supporting contribution to John Sayles' period musical drama Honeydripper (2007).

Trivia: Ken Foree built a substantial career playing toughs, thugs, and heavies on both sides of the law. He maintained a certain amount of prestige for the first decade or so of his acting tenure. Foree debuted as a goon in one of the more critically respected racially themed films of the 1970s: the sports comedy The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976), starring Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams. Foree followed it up with a turn as a National Guardsman valiantly defending his nation against hordes of rampaging zombies (from inside a shopping mall) in the cult classic Dawn of the Dead (1978), played a black sportsman in Phil Kaufman's period piece The Wanderers (1979), and re-teamed with George A. Romero for the medieval fantasy Knightriders (1981). Small roles in two critically respected A-listers -- James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) and Richard Pryor's Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986) -- did much to cement Foree's reputation as a reliable player, but thereafter, he began to sink into less respectable material, with a strong emphasis on long-form work and direct-to-video exploitationers. Pictures such as the 1991 Hangfire and the 1992 Fatal Charm did little to further Foree's career. By the late '90s and well into the 2000s, he seemed typecast as a horror player, in movies such as The Dentist (1996), The Devil's Rejects (2005), and Halloween (2007).