Trivia: Stocky comedic actor Jerry Van Dyke -- the younger brother by several years of actor Dick Van Dyke -- achieved some of the success of his older sibling, albeit with a somewhat lower profile and his own distinct persona. Time and again, Jerry specialized in portrayals of flustered, befuddled, and slightly klutzy goofballs who projected grating angst. (His typical characterizations could be contrasted with the "laid-back everyman" qualities and smoothness required by many of Dick's roles.) Raised in Danville, IL -- a community about 130 miles south of Chicago -- Van Dyke evinced a flair for comedic buffoonery and loved to entertain audiences as early as high school, then spent several years touring the country and performing in every comedy club he could find that agreed to book him. His career only began to take off, however, following his decision to join the Air Force Special Services in 1952 (during the Korean War) -- which, in turn, provided him with the opportunity to travel around the world and entertain the troops. His act soon caught the eye of Ed Sullivan, who booked Jerry for two popular engagements on his iconic variety series, and in the mid-'60s he began appearing alongside his brother on The Dick Van Dyke Show (conveniently playing Rob Petrie's brother, Stacey Petrie). In the years that followed, Jerry Van Dyke began associations with two key television producers -- relationships that would serve him well in the years to come. The first -- a collaboration with Grant Tinker (off-camera husband of Mary Tyler Moore from The Dick Van Dyke Show) led to Van Dyke's starring role in the 1965 fantasy-tinged sitcom My Mother the Car, which cast him as Dave Crabtree, a fellow revisited by his deceased mother -- in the form of an automobile. That program failed within a year, but the actor and producer would team up again nearly a decade later when Tinker and Co. cast Van Dyke in a brief multi-episode stretch of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as Wes Callison, an ex-boyfriend of Mary Richards who is plagued by complications when he happens to take a job in the same newsroom as Mary. During the same decade, Van Dyke also turned up as a guest star on series including That Girl, Love, American Style, and Fantasy Island. Van Dyke then tried out for the role of dim-witted Vermont handyman George Utley on the seminal '80s sitcom Newhart. Producer/creator Barry Kemp felt that the actor would be the wrong choice for the part (and eventually handed it to Tom Poston instead), but also felt so impressed by Van Dyke's talents that he both cast the actor in a guest-starring role on a season-one episode of that series (he played a flustered travel agent named Roy Herzog), and promised Van Dyke a more substantial recurring assignment on a sitcom. Kemp realized that promise five years later, by enlisting Van Dyke to play spaced-out assistant football coach Luther Van Dam on the top-tiered sitcom Coach (1989-1997). For that portrayal, the actor received numerous Emmy nominations. In subsequent years, Van Dyke continued his television work (he enjoyed a lengthy run on the sitcom Yes, Dear as Big Jimmy Hughes), did standup comedy bookings around the country, and emceed advertisements for various brands, products, and companies, including Big Lots.

Trivia: Learning the ropes at the Bucks County Playhouse and New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, Jessica Walter, born January 31st, 1949, made her Broadway debut in 1961's Advise and Consent. The raven-haired leading lady was then seen on a regular basis in several Manhattan-based TV programs, including the daytimer Love of Life and the 1965 nighttime series For the People. In films from 1964, Jessica was one of eight young female "newcomers" (Candice Bergen, Elizabeth Hartman, Joanna Pettet et. al.) who went on to greater things after appearing en masse in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). Her flashiest screen role was as the dangerously possessive "number one fan" Evelyn Draper in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me (1971). Of her many weekly-TV assignments, Walter's title role in the mid-'70s cop series Amy Prentiss garnered her the most attention; that is, until recently, when Walter found late-career acclaim on the award-winning sitcom Arrested Development. As the insensitive, materialistic matriarch of the Bluth family, Walter garnered a plum comedic role, and Emmy attention to boot. Walter continued to remain active in television appearances following the cancellation of Arrested Development, and joined the cast of the Broadway revival of Anything Goes in 2011.

Trivia: Educated at Catholic University, American actress Pat Carroll trained for a career in musical comedy. From her 1950 off-Broadway debut in Come What May onward, the blonde, full-figured comedienne seldom lacked work. A busy television actress in the 1950s, Carroll won a 1956 Emmy for her work on Caesar's Hour. After starring in a 1959 Broadway revival of On the Town, Carroll settled in for a three-season run (1961-64) as Bunny Halper, wife of nightclub manager Charlie Halper (Sid Melton), on The Danny Thomas Show. The episode wherein Bunny has a baby garnered some of Danny Thomas' biggest ratings, encouraging the producers to develop a spin-off series for Carroll and Melton; this never materialized, nor did Carroll provide the voice of Jane Jetson on the cartoon series The Jetsons, as had been announced by Hanna-Barbera. Since the 1964 cancellation of Danny Thomas, Carroll has been a regular on such series as Getting Together (1971), Bustin' Loose (1977), The Ted Knight Show (1978) and She's the Sheriff (1986). During the last decade, Pat Carroll starred in the one-woman stage show Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, and provided the speaking and singing voice of flamboyant sea-witch Ursula in Disney's 1989 animated feature The Little Mermaid.

Trivia: The son of legendary vaudevillian Pat Harrington Sr., comic actor Pat Harrington Jr. rose to prominence via his many appearances on The Steve Allen Show and The Jack Paar Program in the late 1950s. However, few viewers recognized him as Pat Harrington Jr.: instead, he passed himself off as Italian golf pro Guido Panzini, a guise so convincing that he was invited to play in several major tournaments. Once the public at large was apprised that Harrington was neither Italian nor a master duffer, demands for his services as an actor increased immeasurably. In 1959, he was cast on The Danny Thomas Show as Danny's new son-in-law Pat Hannigan (Thomas had planned to spin off Harrington and his TV daughter Penney Parker into their own series, but this was not to be). In 1962, he served as host of Stump the Stars, a revamped version of the old Summer replacement perennial Pantomime Quiz. Seven years later, he was seen as sharkish PR man Tony Lawrence on the short-lived TV adaptation of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. In 1975, Harrington landed his signature role as macho, aphorism-spouting handyman Dwayne Schneider on the TV sitcom One Day at a Time; he remained with the series until its cancellation in 1984, earning an Emmy along the way. In films, Pat Harrington Jr. has been seen in a gallery of diverse portrayals, most amusingly as smoothly villainous telephone company spokesman Arlington Haven in The President's Analyst (1967). Harrington continued to act until 2012; his last acting appearance was a guest-spot on Hot in Cleveland, starring his former One Day at a Time co-star Valerie Harper. He died in 2016, at age 86.