Trivia: The youngest member of what may arguably be the funniest family in show business, Marlon Wayans may also be working his way up to becoming funniest member of the funniest family in show business. Regarding the formidable task of living up to the humorous standards set by his siblings, Marlon takes a healthy and positive attitude, considering his family an important exemplary support system rather than an ominous shadow casting impossible expectations.Born in 1972 in New York City, Marlon graduated from the School of Performing Arts in New York before moving on to study film and arts at Howard University. Following the lead of eldest clan member and brother Keenen Ivory Wayans, Marlon was inspired to pursue a career in show business. After taking a small role in brother Keenen's blaxploitation spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! (1988), Marlon joined the cast of Keenen's groundbreaking and trend-setting hip-hop variety show, In Living Color. A natural knack for comedy found Marlon quickly gaining momentum among the cast and refining the skills that would eventually lead him to bigger roles in both film and television. With his role in brother Damon's con-artist comedy Mo' Money, Marlon continued to display his talents for comedy with more substantial roles. Teaming with brother Shawn for television's The Wayans Bros. (1995), Marlon began to expand his responsibilities. Taking on numerous roles -- from writer to director and, of course, star -- Marlon learned the virtues of multi-tasking that would lead him to become a key creative force behind such spoofs as Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996) and Scary Movie (2000). Wayans gained the majority of positive press earned by the otherwise run-of-the-mill comedy Senseless, and a few even compared him to the likes of Jerry Lewis, thanks to his talent for rubber-limbed humor. Yet Marlon began to seek out more serious roles. "I would do straight dramatic stuff. I'm trained as a dramatic actor," he said. "A lot of people just think I'm funny and crazy all the time, but I went to a performing arts high school, so I'm trained in the dramatic arts. I just happen to be funny." Though Marlon got deadly serious for his role as Jared Leto's drug-addicted friend on a collision course with disaster in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, he continued to display his exceptional gift for comedy by hosting the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards with brother Shawn, and developing the follow-up to his runaway hit Scary Movie.The early 2000s were less benevolent to Wayans. Critics singled out and excoriated him for his foolhardy appearance as Snails in the 2000 bomb Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie. Cited as one of the most wretched films of its year - or any year, by almost everybody, Dungeons barely made half of its thirty-five million dollar budget. USA Today wrote, "Marlon Wayans' performance as a cowardly thief would have seemed in bad taste a half-century ago." As Gawain McSam in the lackluster Coen brothers remake The Ladykillers, Wayans similarly did little more than reinforce an ignorant, filthy-mouthed, jive-talking ghetto stereotype; moviegoers responded slightly more favorably than critics.Perhaps sensing the need to return to his roots for a fresh success, Marlon spent 2004 and 2006 in two family vehicles: the raunchy comedies White Chicks and Little Man, respectively In the former, he and brother Shawn play African American federal agents who go undercover as blonde Caucasian sorority girls to bust a kidnapping scheme. This film climbed the charts to become a top weekend and summer grosser. Little Man, directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and released in July 2006, uses trick photography and sight gags to turn Marlon into the dwarfish thief Calvin Simms, who attempts to retrieve a fenced jewel by posing as an infant and hiding out in the home of aspiring parents. Once there, he relentlessly torments his would-be adoptive father (Shawn Wayans).

Trivia: As a key member of what many comedy lovers consider to be one of the funniest families on Hollywood, producer/writer/actor Shawn Wayans has been instrumental in bringing such hit parodies as Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, Scary Movie, and its sequel Scary Movie 2 to the big screen. Though Wayans has occasionally branched out to appear in such non-Wayans productions as the 1999 action thriller New Blood, it's mainly family that serves as this funnyman's bread and butter, with a lead role in the WB sitcom The Wayans Bros. leading to increasingly prominent roles in such family productions as White Chicks and Little Man. Raised in the Chelsea area of Manhattan with his nine siblings, Wayans credits his family's boundless sense of humor in helping him to get by when money was tight and the future looked grim. Supporting roles in such early efforts as elder brother Keenen Ivory's I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and the hit sketch comedy series In Living Color (for which he also DJ'ed) encouraged Wayans to try his hand at writing, and in the following years he would team with sibling Marlon to great success. Specializing in the kind of low-brow comedy that appealed mainly to the high-school and college set, the two Wayans soon found that an ideal way to gauge the success was in how much their efforts offended their mother. When their disapproving mom walked out on Scary Movie 2, the pair knew they had a surefire hit on their hands. After appearing as the titular "females" in the 2004 comedy White Chicks, it was time to shrink his best collaborator down to size for the big-head-on-a-little-body comedy Little Man in 2006.

Trivia: Difficult to recognize in her natural blonde state following her turn as a raven-haired Neve Campbell knockoff in Scary Movie (2000), Anna Faris made her professional acting debut at the tender age of nine at Washington's Seattle Repertory Theater. Refining her skills in improvisational theater, Faris later found roles in commercials and small local productions, though her future as an actress came into question as she pursued further education and a move overseas. Born November 29, 1976, Faris was raised in Seattle and studied English Literature at the University of Washington after high school, later moving to London to begin working and writing. Longing to return to her childhood love of acting, Faris took a role in the run-of-the-mill teen slasher pic Lover's Lane (1999). Making the move to Los Angeles in order to pursue an acting career full time, Faris' previous improvisational experiences would soon come in handy as she landed her breakthrough role in the popular Scream-slanted spoof of teen slasher pics, Scary Movie. Of course that role was only the beginning for young Faris, and after returning in Scary Movie 2 the following year she portrayed the co-worker and love interest of the titular character in director Lucky McKee's offbeat sleeper May. A supporting role in the Rob Schneider comedy The Hot Chick was followed by the little-seen Sheer Bliss in 2002, and the following year Faris once again scored a hit with her portrayal of a self absorbed starlet in Sofia Coppola's critically acclaimed Lost in Translation. Though it may have been something of a given that Faris would return to the screen for Scary Movie 3 in 2003, many longtime fans were surprised to see her sporting her original blonde locks - a move that effectively banished the previous installments' Neve Campbell connection and forced audiences to take Faris' finely honed comic abilities on their own terms. In 2004 the talented comic actress would make a series of appearances on the hit sitcom Friends. 2005 found her yet again being the very best aspect of an otherwise underwhelming comedy, Just Friends. However her few scenes in the multiple Oscar winning Brokeback Mountain showcased her remarkable skills, and allowed her to be funny while still showcasing her in a more dramatic context. She returned to the Scary Movie franchise for a fourth time in 2006, but she also showed up to support Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, and Rainn Wilson in Ivan Reitman's comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend. In 2007, Faris joined actors Jon Heder, Jeff Daniels, and DIane Keaton for Mama's Boy, and shone in the stoner comdy Smiley Face. Her peformance in the latter film won the "Stoner of the Year" award at High Times magazines 2007 Stony Awards, and further endeared the actress to her already loyal fan following. 2008 found Faris producing and starring in The House Bunny. Featuring a cameo appearance from Hef's famous girlfriends Holly, Bridget, and Kendra, the film followed a retired Playboy bunny (Faris) as she tried to make a life for heself outside the doors of the famous Playboy mansion. Faris put her vocal talents to the test once more for 2009's Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and as the lead singer of an all-girl band iin Alvin and the Chipmunk:The Squeakquel (also in 2009), and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011). Faris also continued to stick to her comedy roots with on-screen performances in the retro '80s comedy Take Me Home Tonight and rom-com What Your Number? (both 2011), before holding her own opposite Sacha Baron Cohen in his 2012 comedy The Dictator.

Trivia: Born of Syrian, Lebanese, and Cherokee heritage in Houston, TX, on September 7, 1973, the actress made her film debut in 1998's Dish Dogs before her landmark role in American Pie. After the success of the blockbuster teen comedy, Elizabeth was signed to a three-picture deal with Miramax, ensuring that her career was off to an auspicious start. Elizabeth would appear in films like Scary Movie, 13 Ghosts, Love, Actually, and Cursed, in addition to a number of American Pie sequels. Elizabeth would also appear on a number of successful TV shows, like That 70's Show and Cuts.

Trivia: Born Richard Laughlin Munro in the small town of Lac La Hache in British Columbia, Canadian-born actor Lochlyn Munro made a name for himself with high-strung comic performances in such films as Scary Movie, Dead Man on Campus, and A Guy Thing, as well as turns in more dramatic roles. A gifted sportsman who won awards as a competitive athlete, Munro was in his mid-'20s when he began to focus on a career in acting. His first professional credits were guest appearances on such TV series as Wiseguy and Neon Rider, and while he made his big-screen debut with a bit part in Cadence, he spent much of the early to mid-'90s doing television work, and began building a fan base when he was cast as a regular on the Canadian drama Northwood. He also starred in the short-lived crime series Two, and played recurring roles on JAG and Charmed. Munro's breakthrough was the comedy Dead Man on Campus, in which he played an overly intense college student whose roommates, in hopes of scoring an easy A, attempt to lead him to his death; he was cast as another tightly wound young man in A Night at the Roxbury. In 2000, Munro appeared in the top-grossing horror film spoof Scary Movie, as well as a more straightforward terror tale, Dracula 2000, and Bruce Paltrow's karaoke-themed comedy drama Duets.

Trivia: Actress and comedian Cheri Oteri emerged from obscurity into the proverbial limelight in the mid-'90s. 1995 brought with it the performer's definitive breakthrough; that year, Oteri -- then a member of the L.A. comedy troupe The Groundlings -- was tapped by Saturday Night Live to join its regular cast of players. She remained with SNL for five years, and cultivated an enthusiastic response for such recurring bits as impersonations of Ross Perot and Debbie Reynolds. Oteri transitioned to film roles around 2000, coincident with her Saturday Night Live departure; as a cinematic performer, she specialized in richly comic characterizations in gag-laden farces such as Scary Movie (2000), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), and Shrek the Third (2007). In 2006, Oteri teamed up with Donnie Darko wunderkind Richard Kelly for that helmer's epic dystopian comedy Southland Tales.

Trivia: Staking claim on her fame with her role in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie, Regina Hall has frequented the big screen in roles that far from betrayed her age. Born in 1971 in Washington, D.C., Hall earned a degree in journalism from N.Y.U. before embarking on a film career. In 1997, she began appearing in commercials at age 26, and then made the giant leap into movies. Her recurring role in Scary Movie and the sequel Scary Movie 2 exhibited the 30-year-old's ability to maintain her youthful appearance, as she portrayed the high-school-aged Brenda Meeks. Hall's first film role had come in 1999 with a small role in Malcolm D. Lee's drama The Best Man. The following year, she made several film appearances, including her starring role in Scary Movie. In addition, she played small parts in two films directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the drama Love and Basketball, and the TV movie Disappearing Acts, featuring Sanaa Lathan and Wesley Snipes. In 2001, Hall's list of credits grew to include her first television role, as Corretta Lipp on the prime-time drama Ally McBeal, which was a recurring role for several episodes. Also that year, Scary Movie 2 was released, in addition to the Mandel Holland comedy The Other Brother, featuring Hall as Vicki. One year later, she starred in the action-drama Paid in Full, directed by Charles Stone III. She reprised her role as Brenda Meeks yet again for Scary Movie 3 (2003) and Scary Movie 4 (2006), and played a supporting role in the 2009 crime thriller Law Abiding Citizen. The following year she had some success for her supporting role in Neil LaBute's remake of Frank Oz's black comedy Death at a Funeral, in which she co-starred with Danny Glover, Peter Dinklage, and Martin Lawrence, among others. She co-starred with Kevin Hart and Michael Ealy in Think Like a Man (2012), which was adapted from Steve Harvey's non-fiction self-improvement book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.

Trivia: Relatively unknown character actor Kurt Fuller has made a fairly consistent acting career in television and films since the late '80s, mostly playing authority figures. One of his earliest film appearances was as the head television executive in the Hulk Hogan movie No Holds Barred. Mostly working in comedies and dramas, he has also been in action thrillers (Eve of Destruction) and family-oriented adventures (Bingo). He has a lengthy list of television guest star credits, including L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, and The West Wing. In the '90s, he had starring roles in a few short-lived TV series like Capitol News, Timecop, and That's My Bush. After playing Kirk Douglas' son in the comedy Diamonds, he played the adult foil in the teen comedies The New Guy, Scary Movie, and Porn 'n Chicken. In 2002, he played Hogan's Heroes castmember Werner Klemperer in Paul Schrader's Auto Focus; the following year he appeared with Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler in Anger Management. He had a small part in the Oscar winning biopic Ray, as well as the Will Smith hit The Pursuit of Happyness. He played The Dean in 2009's Van Wilder: Freshman Year, and two years later he was part of the ensemble in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris.

Trivia: Grew up in New Jersey and Delaware.Practiced skateboarding during high school.Was an intern at Saturday Night Live.Trained with Chicago's The Second City comedy troupe.A member of metal/comedy band Van Stone.

Trivia: Perhaps more famous for her physical attributes than for her talent, Carmen Electra managed to parlay a stint as an MTV game show hostess into a career as a TV and movie actress. Born Tara Leigh Patrick and raised in Ohio, Electra left her performing arts high school with plans to become a singer. After a failed album for Prince's Paisley Park label in the early '90s, however, Electra shifted direction. Along with her first Playboy spread, the aspiring entertainer scored her career breakthrough when she replaced Jenny McCarthy as the co-host of MTV's highly-rated dating game Singled Out in 1996. After the show went off the air, Electra successfully stepped in for another buxom TV blonde when she took over lifeguarding duties from Pamela Anderson on the syndicated hit Baywatch from 1997 to 1998. Elektra moved to features with a bit part in the comedy Good Burger (1997) and larger roles in indie movies Starf*cker (1998), The Chosen One: The Legend of the Raven (1998), and Starstruck (1999). It was Electra's infamous several-day marriage to flamboyant basketball star Dennis Rodman in 1998, though, that further augmented her celebrity. Keeping her assets and tabloid fame in humorous perspective, Electra followed her role as what else, The Female, in the mockumentary The Mating Habits of Earthbound Humans (1999) with a self-parodic turn as the bodacious first victim in the hit horror send-up Scary Movie (2000).While Elektra failed to land any big successes in the ensuing handful of years, 2004 saw her emerge again, gaining notice on both the large and small screens. In the wake of such hit shows as The Osbournes, The Anna Nicole Show, and, most notably, Newlyweds, Elektra and husband-to-be Dave Navarro agreed to let an MTV camera crew record their lives for the reality show Til Death Do Us Part. Meanwhile, she also showed up to steal a few scenes in the tongue-in-cheek feature-film version of Starsky and Hutch. She appeared on Scary Movie 4 in 2006, and took on roles for a variety of unremarkable comedies throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. Elektra has also worked as a fitness instructor in a series of aerobic striptease workout programs.

Trivia: Born in Brooklyn, David L. Lander was raised in Bronx. Lander attended drama classes at Carnegie Tech, where he befriended fellow student Michael McKean. The two budding comedians joined a Hollywood improv group called the Credibility Gap (another member was Harry Shearer), gaining a huge fan following with their manic appearances on an LA radio station. Hired by producer Gary Marshall as writers/consultants for the '70s TV sitcom Laverne and Shirley, Lander and McKean immediately wrote themselves into the first show. Lander played Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman and McKean portrayed Lenny Kosnowski, two adenoidal, terminally stupid truck drivers for Milwaukee's Shotz Brewery. The boys remained with the series from 1976 to 1983, then pretty much went their separate ways. Lander played comic character roles in films, and was prominently featured in the off-the-wall television efforts of David Lynch, notably the 1992 series On the Air, in which he was cast as unintelligible TV director Vladja Gochktch. Since providing the voice of the title character in the 1970 animated cartoon series Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down?, Lander has been a busy and versatile voiceover artist, most recently as Lechner in the USA Network's Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills (1994-95). Also for USA, he played the recurring role of Elvis the mechanic in the 1995 series Pacific Blue. David L. Lander's credits are sometimes confused with those of British actor David Lander.

Trivia: The second-oldest child of the Wayans Brothers comic dynasty (brother of Damon, Marlon, Shawn, Kim, and Dwayne Wayans), "renaissance" man Keenen Ivory Wayans retains the highest profile among his siblings as a director and entrepreneur, and claims a brief but spectacular career, which qualifies him as a bona fide role model to young African-Americans interested in carving like paths in comedy or entertainment. A graduate of the Tuskegee Institute, Wayans entered the comic arena in the mid-'80s by stepping up to the mike and honing his stand-up act, but he later branched out into movies, by scripting the low-budget black satire Hollywood Shuffle (1987) and the aptly-titled comedy vehicle Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987), both for director pal Robert Townsend. Wayans broke through to a larger audience with I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), a rollicking parody of 1970s blaxploitation flicks which he directed, produced, and starred in -- as Jack Spade, a black war vet who heads home to the ghetto, only to discover that his brother Junebug died from an "OG" (or overdose of gold chains). For credibility and weight, Wayans intuitively cast blaxploitation vets Isaac Hayes, Bernie Casey, and Jim Brown in leading roles; the film also features Chris Rock's debut. In 1988, Wayans created, produced, and starred in the Fox network's iconoclastic, influential, cutting-edge comedy-variety series In Living Color, which not only made "Wayans" a household name (synonymous with African-American comedy), but also solidified the stardom of comedians Jamie Foxx and the rubber-faced Jim Carrey (who, with his Fire Marshall Bill character, appeared as the ensemble's obligatory white schmuck). A dispute over the show erupted between Wayans and Fox in late 1992, as Wayans felt that the network was overrunning In Living Color in syndication; he argued that it would reduce the program's longevity. Yet Fox refused to back down. Consequently, the whole Wayans family left the program, leaving Jim Carrey center stage. In Living Color lasted two additional seasons, and wrapped in late summer 1994. For several years, Wayans retained a low profile (save limited involvement with straight-faced actioners like The Glimmer Man), but bounced back in 2000 with the multimillion-dollar box-office champion Scary Movie. Initially a parody of Wes Craven's Scream series, the film spawned three sequels, in 2001, 2003, and 2006 respectively; Wayans abandoned the franchise after Scary Movie 2, by which point, the films had expanded their satirical scope to include non-horror pictures and other elements of popular culture. In 2004, Wayans directed the farce White Chicks, about two black FBI agents, Marcus and Kevin (played respectively by the director's brothers, Marlon and Shawn), who disguise themselves as Caucasian sorority girls to foil a kidnapping plot. Despite scattered favorable notices, most critics despised the picture (Roger Ebert remarked, "Here is a film so dreary and conventional that it took an act of will to keep me in the theater"), but it soared at the box and became one of the top grossers for several weekends. The three brothers re-teamed for a follow-up (as co-producers and co-screenwriters, with Keenen directing) for the crass 2006 comedy Little Man, a kind of Clifford remake that revamps the adult-in-the-child's-body concept. Marlon plays a dwarf criminal, Calvin, who -- in an effort to retrieve a diamond he has stolen -- takes advantage of his size by masking himself as a baby and hiding out in the home of a wannabe dad (Shawn Wayans).

Trivia: Singer/dancer/actress Marissa Jaret Winokur achieved celebrity on the basis of her stage work, by originating the role of Tracy Turnblad in the Broadway production of the musical Hairspray (based, in turn, on the 1988 John Waters film of the same title). The daughter of an architect, raised with three siblings in Bedford Village, NY, Winokur first revealed a passion for entertaining when she caught a Connecticut regional production of Meet Me in St. Louis at age eight, subsequently memorized the entire show, and later declared Ethel Merman as one of her chief role models. After attending Bedford Village's Fox Lane High School, Winokur attended Manhattan's prestigious American Musical and Dramatic Academy, then joined the touring company of Grease (performing as Pink Lady Jan). Scattered bit parts in movies followed, including Never Been Kissed (1999), American Beauty (1999), and Scary Movie (2000); Hairspray, however, represented Winokur's big breakthrough when it premiered in the late summer of 2002. She starred in that production opposite Harvey Fierstein, Laura Bell Bundy, and others, and it paved the way for an eminent acting career.Winokur followed this with an upsurge in television activity -- first with a part as a coffee-counter employee on the short-lived Pamela Anderson sitcom Stacked (2005-2006), then as a contestant on season six of the reality series Dancing With the Stars (where Winokur danced with partner Tony Dovolani). She became the host of Dance Your Ass Off, and a member of The Talk, a daytime series modeled on The View.