James Douglas Muir Leno is an American television host, writer and comedian. After doing stand-up comedy for years, he became the host of NBC's The Tonight Show from 1992 until 2009 when Conan O'Brien took over as host. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ET, also on NBC. When O'Brien turned down NBC's offer to have Leno host a half hour monologue show before The Tonight Show to boost ratings amid reported viewership diminishing, it led to the 2010 Tonight Show conflict which resulted in Leno returning to hosting the show on March 1, 2010. He hosted his last episode of his second tenure on February 6, 2014. That year, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. From 2014 to 2022, he hosted Jay Leno's Garage, and from 2021 to 2023, hosted the revival of You Bet Your Life.
Leonard Alfred Schneider, better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which contained satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon in 2003.
Leslie William Nielsen was a Canadian-American actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he appeared in more than 100 films and 150 television programs, portraying more than 220 characters.
Michael Anthony Richards is an American actor, writer, television producer, and comedian. He is best known for playing Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom Seinfeld from 1989 to 1998. He began his career as a stand-up comedian, first entering the national spotlight when he was featured on Billy Crystal's first cable TV special, and went on to become a series regular on ABC's Fridays.
The Untouchables is an American crime drama produced by Desilu Productions that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC Television Network. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalizes the experiences of Eliot Ness as a Prohibition agent, fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their courage, moral character, and incorruptibility, nicknamed the Untouchables. The book was later made into a celebrated film in 1987 by Brian De Palma, with a script by David Mamet, and a second, less-successful TV series in 1993.
Orson Bean was an American film, television, and stage actor. He was a game show and talk show host and a "mainstay of Los Angeles’ small theater scene." He appeared frequently on several televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a longtime panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth. "A storyteller par excellence", he was a favorite of Johnny Carson, appearing on The Tonight Show more than 200 times.
Police Squad! is an American television crime comedy series that was broadcast on the ABC network in 1982. It was created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin. A spoof of police procedurals and many other television shows and movies, the series features Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker's usual sight gags, wordplay, and non sequiturs. It resembles the Lee Marvin police show M Squad and the late 1960s series Felony Squad. It was canceled after six episodes, and yielded The Naked Gun film series from 1988 to 1994.
Dane Jeffrey Cook is an American stand-up comedian and film actor. He is known for his use of observational, often vulgar, and sometimes dark comedy. He has released six comedy albums: Harmful If Swallowed (2003), Retaliation (2005), Vicious Circle (2006), Rough Around the Edges: Live from Madison Square Garden (2007), and Isolated Incident (2009).
Michael Reid was an English comedian, actor, author and occasional television presenter. He played the role of Frank Butcher in the soap opera EastEnders and hosted the children's game show Runaround. He was known for his gravelly voice and strong cockney accent.
John Witherspoon, was an American actor and comedian who performed in various television shows and films. Witherspoon played Willie Jones in the Friday series, and starred in films such as Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Boomerang (1992), The Five Heartbeats (1991), and Vampire in Brooklyn (1995). In addition, Witherspoon made appearances on television shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1994), The Wayans Bros. (1995–1999), The Tracy Morgan Show (2003), Barnaby Jones (1973), The Boondocks (2005–2014), and Black Jesus (2014–2019). He wrote a film, From the Old School, in which he played an elderly working man who tries to prevent a neighborhood convenience store from being developed into a strip club.
"Take My Life...Please!" is the first segment of the twenty-second episode of the first season (1985–86) of the American television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a recently deceased stand-up comedian must perform an act that will decide his fate in the afterlife.
John Paul Pinette was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and Broadway performer. He toured the comedy club circuit beginning in the 1980s and appeared in cinema and on television. Besides stand-up, Pinette did impressions of Michael Jackson, The Chipmunks, Elvis Presley, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, Hervé Villechaize, an Ewok, actor Marlon Brando, as well as various ethnic accents. He occasionally sang in his stand-up routines; for example "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz, "Will You Be There" from Free Willy, and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina".
William Gerald Paris was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next-door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and for directing the majority of the episodes of the sitcom Happy Days.
Frank Butcher is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Mike Reid. Frank makes his first appearance on-screen as a guest character in 1987, but due to a positive viewer reception, he is reintroduced in 1988 as a regular. Reid took a long hiatus from EastEnders in 1994 and Frank remained off-screen for over a year and a half. Frank made his return as a recurring character from December 1995 to January 1998. Frank eventually becomes a regular once again from May 1998 to November 2000, when Reid quit the show. Frank makes three brief reappearances after that, the final one in December 2005. Following Reid's death in July 2007, Frank died off-screen and the character was celebrated with a special week of episodes in April 2008.
Franklin "Frank" Drebin is a fictional character in the Police Squad! television series and The Naked Gun movies played by Leslie Nielsen.
David Adkins, better known by his stage name Sinbad, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known in the 1990s from being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series, most notably as Coach Walter Oakes in A Different World (1987–1991) and as David Bryan on The Sinbad Show (1993–1994), and starring in the films Necessary Roughness, Houseguest, First Kid, Jingle All the Way, Good Burger, and Planes.
Joseph C. Shaughnessy, better known as Mickey Shaughnessy, was an American actor and comedian.
"Papa Don't Leech" is the sixteenth episode of the nineteenth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired in the United States on April 13, 2008 on the Fox network. It features the return of Lurleen Lumpkin from the third season episode "Colonel Homer", after an absence of sixteen years. The Dixie Chicks also appear as themselves. The episode was written by Reid Harrison and directed by Chris Clements.
"Fish in a Drawer" is the seventeenth episode of the fifth season of Two and a Half Men and the 113th episode overall. The episode was written by Evan Dunsky, Sarah Goldfinger, Carol Mendelsohn and Naren Shankar, the writers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, who swapped shows with the writing staff of Two and a Half Men.
Michael Greer was an American actor, comedian and cabaret performer. He is best known for his appearances in the films The Gay Deceivers and Fortune and Men's Eyes, and for being one of the first openly gay actors to appear in major Hollywood films.
