Lowell Ganz (born August 31, 1948) is an American screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is the long-time writing partner of Babaloo Mandel.

Ganz was born in New York City, New York, the son of Jean (née Farber) and Irving Ganz, an arts supply executive. Both of his parents were first-generation Americans born in New York. His mother's family is of Polish-Jewish origin from the Bialystok area; his father's family is of Hungarian-Jewish origin from Maramaros County in what is today northern Romania.

Ganz grew up in Queens, New York. He briefly attended Queens College, City University of New York, where he and his friend Mark Rothman wrote several comedic skits and shows for school productions. After Rothman's father Abe—a chauffeur who sometimes drove for The Mike Douglas Show—was able to pass a spec script of theirs to Tony Randall, the two got a try-out writing gig on Randall's hit TV show The Odd Couple. However, the producers of the show would only pay for them to come to Los Angeles one-way. Ganz and Rothman dropped out of college and headed west to take the job. After being fired—causing them to briefly live in their car and contemplate driving back across the country to New York—and then re-hired by producer Garry Marshall, the two became regular writers on the show; and Ganz eventually became Head Writer.

Marc "Babaloo" Mandel (born October 13, 1949) is an American writer. His writing credits include the television series Happy Days and the movie Night Shift. He is the long-time writing partner of Lowell Ganz. Mandel was born in New York City, the son of a taxi driver. He has six children, including a set of triplets.

Mandel and Ganz were featured in "The Dialogue" interview series. In this 90-minute interview with producer Mike DeLuca, Ganz and Mandel discuss their 40-year partnership as it evolved from television to feature films.

Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992). He has since appeared in various other films, including Pixar's Cars (2006) and Toy Story 3 (2010).

Keaton, the youngest of seven children, was born in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, and lived in Robinson Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. His father, George A. Douglas, worked as a civil engineer and surveyor, and his mother, Leona Elizabeth (née Loftus), a homemaker, came from a Scots-Irish community in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. Keaton was raised in a large Catholic family and attended Montour High School in Pennsylvania. He studied speech for two years at Kent State before dropping out and moving to Pittsburgh.

An unsuccessful attempt at comedy led Keaton to working as a TV cameraman at public television station WQED (TV) in Pittsburgh. Keaton first appeared on TV in the Pittsburgh-based public television programs, including "Where the Heart Is" and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1975), as one of the "Flying Zucchini Brothers." He also served as a full-time production assistant on the show. (In 2004, following Fred Rogers' death, Keaton hosted the PBS memorial tribute program, Fred Rogers: Everybody's Favorite Neighbor.) Keaton also worked as an actor in Pittsburgh theatre; he played the role of Rick in the Pittsburgh premiere of David Rabe's Sticks and Bones with the Pittsburgh Poor Players.

Miriam "Mimi" Rogers (née Spickler; born January 27, 1956) is an American movie actress and competitive poker player.

Rogers was born Miriam Spickler in Coral Gables, Florida, the daughter of Philip C. Spickler, a civil engineer.^{[citation needed]}

Her early roles included a 1981 appearance in Hill Street Blues as a love interest for officer Andy Renko (Charles Haid), Blue Skies Again with Harry Hamlin in 1983, and playing the daughter of Hoyt Axton in the TV series The Rousters (1983–1984) starring Chad Everett and Jim Varney. Rogers' breakthrough role was opposite Tom Berenger in Someone to Watch Over Me (1987). She starred in a religious drama The Rapture (1991) as well as Full Body Massage (1995). She appeared in sci-fi films such as Lost in Space (1998) as well as the television series The X-Files (1998–1999) as Diana Fowley. She appeared as the mother of Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley) in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), and in the final season of Dawson's Creek (1998) she played the mother of Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams). In 2006 she starred in a Fox sitcom, The Loop, and in 2010 guest starred in long-running animated sitcom King of the Hill. Also made an appearance as the mother of a child smitten with Alan's son, Jake, on one episode of "Two and a Half Men".

Gedde Watanabe (born Gary Watanabe, June 26, 1955, Ogden, Utah) is an American theatre, film, and television actor.

He was in several dramatic productions in high school, both acting and singing. After graduation, Watanabe left Ogden for San Francisco, where he hoped to make his living as a street musician while honing his acting skills.

He appeared on Broadway in 1976 in Pacific Overtures, originating the role of the Boy in a Tree, and has appeared in a number of films and television shows. Watanabe appeared on Sesame Street for some years and had a recurring role on ER from 1998 to 2002. In 1998 he was the voice for Ling in the Disney film Mulan and reprised the role for the 2004 direct-to-video sequel, Mulan II.

Watanabe's acting parts have been mostly caricatured East Asians with heavy accents (he does not speak Japanese). Jason Buchanan wrote for Allmovie, "The character that Gedde Watanabe is most remembered for is no doubt Long Duk Dong, the clumsy foreign exchange student in Sixteen Candles whose drunken fall from a tree and laughable bastardization of the English language had ninth-graders of the day rolling in theater aisles." Watanabe's role of Long Duk Dong was decried by Asian-American groups as "stereotypical, racist and part of a long history of Hollywood's offensive depictions of Asian men."