The 7 Most Random Celebrity Duos Who Hung Out Before Fame

But before Romero was filming people shambling around his neighborhood in death metal makeup, he tried making a living working on commercials and short films. One of his earliest jobs was shooting a television segment for a Presbyterian minister named Fred Rogers. You probably know him only as "Mister" Rogers.

That's right -- Romero, one of the godfathers of splatterhouse cinema, got his start filming bits for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS. In fact, it was a segment that featured Mister Rogers getting a tonsillectomy that reportedly inspired Romero to go into the horror movie business, though he probably found it hard to top showing a graphic surgical procedure on a show targeted to toddlers.

Rogers was incredibly supportive of Romero, but that support did stop short of letting him use Betty Aberlin (who played Lady Aberlin on Mister Rogers Neighborhood). Romero wanted her to play the role of Judy in Night of The Living Dead, a character whose primary purpose was to explode and be eaten. Mister Rogers said no.

Not that Mister Rogers had a problem with Romero's zombie movies. He went to screenings of both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, and after viewing the latter, he told Romero, "It's a lot of fun, George." Which is fitting, because if Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Night of the Living Dead have taught us anything, it's that it's what's on the inside that counts.

Academy Award winner Tommy Lee Jones began his Harvard education in 1965 on a scholarship, and as the custom for freshmen goes, he was tossed into campus housing with a randomly selected roommate. As any of us who have been to college knows, if you're lucky, you get somebody you can at least tolerate for nine months.

Tommy Lee Jones was fortunate enough to get along so well with his freshman roommate that they requested to room together for the next three years. His roommate? None other than the inventor of the Internet himself, Al fucking Gore.

The two did just about everything together, from playing pool and shooting tin cans to traipsing through the Tennessee wilderness hunting, canoeing, and chasing cows and raccoons in the woods at night to wrapping a turkey in tin foil and cooking it in their dorm room. Presumably their friendship was one of the primary influences behind The Dukes of Hazzard.

As if they could sense their exploits would eventually become both ironic and hilarious, they toured bars as country music singers trying to pick up women. The opening act featured Gore performing stand-up comedy, which given Gore's public speaking style was probably every bit as witty and topical as a Hungry Man dinner.

The two remain close friends to this day, presumably having many heated debates over whether an Academy Award or a Nobel Prize will get you laid more.

While there are admittedly few publicly known anecdotes about their past together, it is interesting to note how both Weiner and Stewart wound up in the political sphere. Keep in mind, these two didn't meet in the "aspiring political figure" club in college. Stewart was an actor/comedian who would go on to have a brief stint on MTV followed by years of character roles in various movies.

He took over as host of The Daily Show in 1999 -- a show that at the time had absolutely nothing to do with politics -- which is the same year Weiner began representing New York's 9th District in Congress. Since then, Stewart has arguably become one of the most influential political commentators, and Weiner's popularity has grown enough to get him elected to six consecutive terms.

And, yes, the Congressman has even been a guest on The Daily Show. So stop for a moment and look over at your stoned, hipster roommate playing Mario Kart behind you. Thirty years from now, you might be president and he might be pope.

Reynolds said of Corso, "Nobody was funnier, especially in the huddles." We assume this was not because Corso was telling jokes, but because his suggestions for the next play were laughably ridiculous. Even so, he left the school as the interception leader, a record that stood until it was broken by Deion freaking Sanders. And as it turns out, not only was Corso friends with the Bandit, he also totally banged all of Reynolds' cast-off football groupies.

Corso said: "One was gorgeous, the other one was ugly. He always took the beautiful girl, gave me the ugly one. But you know what I found out early? Burt Reynolds' ugly girlfriends were better than anything I could get on my own."

But before all that, when he was a student, he studied journalism. While not a huge stretch, the two fields are fairly different. So what put him down this path? His friend George Jung needed a ride to acting class.

After going into the class with Jung, Levinson knew he wanted to spend his life making movies. Jung, on the other hand, dropped out to become the biggest cocaine smuggler in the history of America, a profession that is still very much related to show business.

Levinson didn't make the connection to his old friend until decades later when he saw the movie with Johnny Depp, no doubt cursing himself over the money he could've made as an executive producer had he known.

The People's Court was the first television court show and was presided over by Judge Joseph Wapner, who didn't have a gimmick beyond just not giving a shit. A judgment in The People's Court, was legally binding and Wapner would hand you your ass in front of millions of viewers, usually in under 15 minutes.

But back in high school, Wapner was apparently pretty charming, because he managed to date Lana Turner. For our younger readers, that name might not ring a bell.

Turner was an actress and a sex symbol during the 1940s and 1950s who was married seven times and linked to countless other men, including the gangster Johnny Stompanato.

But during her brief six-week stint at Hollywood High School, she and Wapner dated. Some sources will lead you to believe that they were a steady couple, but Wapner admits it was just a couple of dates, presumably because he doesn't want to be sent to The People's Court for perjury.

Their first date was getting a Coke at the neighborhood drugstore, which as any experienced man will tell you is the one and only path into a woman's vagina. For reasons that cannot be explained, Wapner didn't bring his wallet with him, so Turner ended up paying. Miraculously, she agreed to a second date anyway. Wapner reminisces: "That was on a Monday; on Saturday night, we went to a dance. And that was the last time I saw her. She was gorgeous."

The interview doesn't specify, but we assume he said this while pitching a family-size tent in his judge's robes.

When he graduated from college, he had to make a major career choice that the rest of us couldn't even lie about at our drunkest: play professional football or take a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford. As it turns out, the Rhodes scholarship committee decided to give White a waiver so he could play football for a year before coming to Oxford. He was that badass.

While at Oxford, he took a vacation to the French Riviera, where he met and made friends with another charming young dude, named John F. Kennedy. We can only imagine that White taught Kennedy all the womanizing skills that would launch him into the White House.

Strangely, the two met again later, in 1942, when both were Navy ieutenants serving in the Pacific. When Kennedy's PT-109 boat was destroyed, White was sent in by the Navy to interview the crew and write the official reports, no doubt adding the footnote, "If I'd have been here, the boat wouldn't have exploded."

Nearly two decades later, that smooth-talking guy White ran into on vacation all those years ago would become president. JFK then brought White along as his stickman, making him a deputy attorney general before eventually nominating him to the Supreme Court.

Yes, kids, it freaking pays to make a good impression on people.

Philip Moon is a veteran Cracked writer. His website is PhilipRodneyMoon.com.

Davidb Marchetti has written for www.thecontemporarytheater.com, a live theater company from Rhode Island, for the past five years.

To learn more about your favorite celebrities, check out 6 Insane True Stories Behind The Stage Names of Celebrities and 7 Celebrity Careers That Launched by Accident.

And stop by Linkstorm to learn which columnist used to beat up another one in high school.

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