Trivia: Intending to become a dentist like his father, American actor Edgar Buchanan wound up with grades so bad in college that he was compelled to take an "easy" course to improve his average. Buchanan chose a course in play interpretation, and after listening to a few recitations of Shakespeare he was stagestruck. After completing dental school, Buchanan plied his oral surgery skills in the summertime, devoting the fall, winter and spring months to acting in stock companies and at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He was given a screen test by Warner Bros. studios in 1940, received several bit roles, then worked himself up to supporting parts upon transferring to Columbia Pictures. Though still comparatively youthful, Buchanan specialized in grizzled old westerners, with a propensity towards villainy or at least larceny. The actor worked at every major studio (and not a few minor ones) over the next few years, still holding onto his dentist's license just in case he needed something to fall back on. Though he preferred movie work to the hurried pace of TV filming, Buchanan was quite busy in television's first decade, costarring with William Boyd on the immensely popular Hopalong Cassidy series, then receiving a starring series of his own, Judge Roy Bean, in 1954. Buchanan became an international success in 1963 thanks to his regular role as the lovably lazy Uncle Joe Carson on the classic sitcom Petticoat Junction, which ran until 1970. After that, the actor experienced a considerably shorter run on the adventure series Cade's County, which starred Buchanan's close friend Glenn Ford. Buchanan's last movie role was in Benji (1974), which reunited him with the titular doggie star, who had first appeared as the family mutt on Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: In the 1959 Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance," Gig Young comments that he thinks he's seen drugstore counterman Byron Foulger before. "I've got that kind of face" was the counterman's reply. Indeed, Foulger's mustachioed, bespectacled, tremble-chinned, moon-shaped countenance was one of the most familiar faces ever to grace the screen. A graduate of the University of Utah, Foulger developed a taste for performing in community theatre, making his Broadway debut in the '20s. Foulger then toured with Moroni Olsen's stock company, which led him to the famed Pasadena Playhouse as both actor and director. In films from 1936, Foulger usually played whining milksops, weak-willed sycophants, sanctimonious sales clerks, shifty political appointees, and the occasional unsuspected murderer. In real life, the seemingly timorous actor was not very easily cowed; according to his friend Victor Jory, Foulger once threatened to punch out Errol Flynn at a party because he thought that Flynn was flirting with his wife (Mrs. Foulger was Dorothy Adams, a prolific movie and stage character actress). Usually unbilled in "A" productions, Foulger could count on meatier roles in such "B" pictures as The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and The Panther's Claw (1943). In the Bowery Boys' Up in Smoke (1957), Foulger is superb as a gleeful, twinkly-eyed Satan. In addition to his film work, Byron Foulger built up quite a gallery of portrayals on television; one of his final stints was the recurring role of engineer Wendell Gibbs on the popular sitcom Petticoat Junction.

Trivia: A longtime character actor who uniquely parlayed his job as a newspaper delivery man into a successful acting career, Dennis Fimple never failed to end his daily route by dropping a free newspaper and headshot at the office of General Services Studios' casting director. The gamble paid off, and the casting director eventually offered young Fimple a series of small roles in Petticoat Junction. Born to an electrician and beautician in Ventura, CA, and raised in nearby Taft, the aspiring young actor decided to pursue a career on stage and screen after portraying Tom Sawyer in a junior high school play. Enchanted with his ability to goof off on-stage without getting into trouble, Fimple would eventually earn a scholarship to San Jose State and major in speech and drama in addition to earning his teaching credential. Residing in the San Francisco Bay area and working in a Cheetos factory by day, the nighttime found the tireless Fimple appearing in dinner theaters. Realizing that in order to make it, a relocation was in order, Fimple packed his bags for Hollywood with initially discouraging results. A teacher by day and newspaper delivery man by night, Fimple would follow appearances in Petticoat Junction with roles in such popular small-screen series as Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. and Here Come the Brides. Roles in such features as Cactus in the Snow (1970) and Truck Stop Women (1974) followed shortly thereafter, and appearances in the following year's The Apple Dumpling Gang and the remake of King Kong (1976) found the rugged-looking actor's face gaining increasing exposure. Often cast as rough-and-tumble rural folk, Fimple remained a staple of television and film well into the new millennium. Following his final appearance in horror-rocker Rob Zombie's throwback fright-fest House of 1000 Corpses, Fimple died of natural causes at his Frazier Park, CA, home. He was 61.