Trivia: Janet Waldo was a star of radio in the mid-1940s (at age 23) in the role of Corliss Archer, a typical American teenager. Twenty years later, Waldo became identified for another generation (or two) as the voice of the quintessential teenage girl Judy Jetson on the prime-time cartoon show The Jetsons. Born in Yakima, WA, in 1918, Waldo had a love of theater and acting from an early age, and while growing up, she participated in plays put on by her church. Her family had an artistic bent on both sides: her mother was a singer trained at the Boston Conservatory while her father, a railroad executive, was a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and her sister Elizabeth was later a violin virtuoso who also appeared in movies. Waldo attended the University of Washington, where she engaged in student theatricals and won a special award in her freshman year. A distinguished alumnus -- Bing Crosby -- was visiting at the time, and they met when he presented her with the award. With him was a Paramount talent scout, ever on the lookout for new additions to the studio's stable of actors, who got Waldo signed up for a screen test and a role in the Crosby comedy The Star Maker. She was soon a bit player at the studio, but still waiting for her big break. That break ended up coming from radio rather than movies, however, on the Cecil B. DeMille-produced Radio Theatre, working with Merle Oberon and George Brent. Waldo's voice and range as an actress seemed to blossom when heard over the airwaves, and by 1943, at age 23, Waldo was starring or co-starring in Meet Corliss Archer, One Man's Family, The Gallant Heart, and Star Playhouse, as well as playing the cigarette girl on both The Red Skelton Show and People Are Funny; she also played roles on the Edward G. Robinson series The Big Town. Over the ensuing final great decade of radio, she worked on Dr. Christian, Silver Theater, Ozzie & Harriet, and Railroad Hour, although she never took as many roles as she might have. Waldo married writer/director/producer Robert E. Lee, who later achieved renown in the theater as the co-author, with Jerome Lawrence, of Inherit the Wind, First Monday in October, and Auntie Mame. The couple soon had a family to raise, and she turned down a great number of roles after that, even declining the offer to play Corliss Archer when the series jumped to television at the start of the 1950s. Waldo continued working in radio and subsequently did voice-over work in addition to returning to the theater. In the early '60s, as an established voice artist, she was chosen to portray the role of Judy Jetson in the prime-time cartoon series The Jetsons, produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Waldo took on the role, and has been known to a generation of baby boomer cartoon fans as Judy Jetson ever since, even returning to the role for later episodes of the series shot in the ensuing decades. She also made headlines in 1989, when, in a decision made by Universal Pictures and William Hanna, her voice was wiped from the audio track of Jetsons: The Movie so that she could be replaced by the singer Tiffany. Waldo got in the last word, however, in 2004, when, at age 83, she provided commentary for two episodes on The Jetsons: The Complete First Season DVD set from Warner Home Video. Waldo died in 2016, at age 96.

Trivia: A graduate of the Tisch School for the Performing Arts as well as a published poet, Nicole Ari Parker began acting in small-stage productions in Harlem before landing her film debut in The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995). She would go on to appear in other independent features, such as The End of Violence, Boogie Nights, and 200 Cigarettes. She also began working in television, starring in a Rosie Perez-produced episode of Subway Stories and getting a reoccurring role on The Cosby Show. In 2001, she gained two NAACP Image award nominations: one for her work in the feature film Remember the Titans, and the other for her role as the lawyer Teri on the Showtime original series Soul Food. Parker would go on to play another lawyer a year later in the romantic comedy Brown Sugar, with Taye Diggs. In the years to come, Parker would find ongoing success with movies like Black Dynamite and Pastor Brown and tje TV series The Deep End.

Trivia: Played football for the University of Oregon. Had guest-starring roles on MacGyver and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air before becoming a regular on Sirens. Voiced characters in the series X-Men: Evolution and Action Man. Wrote four episodes of Stargate SG-1 while appearing on the series as Teal'c.

Trivia: An actor whose tall, rangy build and boyish good looks have made him a natural for comic roles, Diedrich Bader was born in Alexandria, VA, on Christmas Eve 1966; his father, William Bader, was Chief of Staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Carter administration, and his mother, Gretta Bader, was a sculptor of note. When Bader was two, he and his family moved to Paris, France, where the boy was exposed to a steady diet of classic American comedies; young Bader was especially fond of Charlie Chaplin, and appeared on-stage for the first time at the age of four, imitating the Little Tramp at a revival theater during an unexpected intermission after a rare Chaplin film jammed in the projector. Bader and his family returned to the United States in time for him to enter high school, and he later attended the North Carolina School for the Arts. While vacationing in Santa Fe, NM, during spring break, Bader met a casting agent who lined up an audition for a small role in a television pilot. Bader ended up winning the leading role instead, and while the pilot never sold, it did prompt Bader to relocate to Los Angeles and begin pursuing an acting career full-time. He began landing guest spots on episodic television shows, including Cheers, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1993, Bader was cast as the Searcher on the television series Danger Theater, a short-lived spoof of action-adventure programs. Penelope Spheeris, who directed the Danger Theater episodes, remembered Bader when casting for her film The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), based on the popular sitcom of the '60s and '70s. Bader won the role of cheerful but slow-witted Jethro Bodine, and his performance was one of the comic highlights of the film. The movie significantly raised Bader's visibility, and in 1995 he was cast as the logically challenged Oswald on The Drew Carey Show. Bader's success on The Drew Carey Show led to notable supporting roles in motion pictures, such as Office Space and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; he also began doing voice work for a number of animated television projects, including Pepper Ann, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and Kim Possible. In his private life, Bader married actress Dulcy Rogers in 1998. As his run on The Drew Carey Show continued, he also appeared regularly in feature film such as The Country Bears, Napoleon Dynamite, Eurotrip, and Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, as well as animated films like Ice Age and Bolt. In 2010 he landed a recurring role on the short-lived NBC sitcom Outsourced.

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: Voice actor Tom Kenny was born in New York and worked as a standup comedian. After brief roles in the comedy features How I Got Into College and Shakes the Clown, he started doing sketch comedy on the FOX series The Edge. One of his first voice acting gigs was the cow on Rocko's Modern Life. In 1995, he starting writing and acting on the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. It was there that he met his future wife, fellow cast member Jill Talley. After Mr. Show ended, Kenny turned to voice acting full-time with popular Cartoon Network series like Dexter's Laboratory. On The Powerpuff Girls, he provided colorful narration as well as several character voices. Grown-up audiences heard him on Dilbert, Futurama, The Animatrix, or Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights. Though he has dozens of credits to his name, Kenny is probably most well known as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. First aired in 1999 on Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants is an animated series about a fry cook who lives at the bottom of the sea. Popular with both young and old audiences, the show became one of the most highly-rated cartoons on TV. Kenny was also the narrator and various other characters on the show, and reprised his role for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004. The always-in-demand vocal talent performed multiple roles in The Ant Bully, took over the duty of voicing Rabbit in 2011's Winnie the Pooh, and gave Wheelie a voice in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In 2012 he could be heard in Tim Burton feature length adaptation of his short film Frankenweenie.