5

Vin Diesel Gets A Special Groot-ified Script For Guardians Of The Galaxy

We're definitely getting some hate mail for classifying Guardians Of The Galaxy's Groot as a minor character, but consider this: The guy (tree) only has one line of dialogue. He says it a lot, sure, but one line is one line. On the face of it, Vin Diesel has a sweet gig providing Groot's voice. He doesn't have to don hours of prosthetics, he doesn't have to get tiny balls stuck to his face, and he gets to just sit there and say "I am Groot" in a seemingly random number of ways. Like, can that even be called work? If the entire cast of GOTG walks before the next installment, can we have that job?

Probably not, because the role of Groot actually requires a lot of acting ability -- and we're not merely referring to how Diesel voices the character in 15 different languages.

Although his lines amount to little more than sci-fi baby talk, Diesel got a special script for GOTG 1 and 2 containing the translations of what Groot is saying to help him properly convey the necessary emotions of each scene. It would, after all, be rather noticeable if Groot spent one any of the big feels-inducing moments shouting in a tone normally reserved for the Grootified version of "Turn Down For What." (Before you ask, there's no copy of this script anywhere, thanks to its circulation being restricted to only Vin Diesel and James Gunn.)

Related: 34 Badass Minor Characters You Ignored In Famous Movies

4

Michael Jackson Didn't Sing In His Simpsons Cameo -- He Hired His Own Impersonator

The Simpsons has had more celebrity cameos than actual episodes by now, and perhaps the greatest is Michael Jackson as Leon Kompowsky in Season 3's "Stark Raving Dad" -- not only because it's a great episode, but also because it took years for anyone to admit that yes, that was Jackson. After all, the show's credits list the voice as being provided by "John Jay Smith," while the role itself (a mental patient who thinks he's Michael Jackson) lent the whole thing an air of plausible deniability.

3

Leonard Nimoy Only Appeared In "Marge Vs. The Monorail" Because George Takei Didn't Want To Disrespect Public Transportation

OK, so we could spend an entire paragraph and explain the ins and outs of The Simpsons' "Marge vs. The Monorail," or we could cut the crap and watch not only the show's best musical number, but one of the best musical numbers in all of human history.

Another thing that the episode had going for it was a guest appearance by Leonard Nimoy, but it wasn't always supposed to be him. The producers ruled out asking Nimoy to appear on the show early on because they figured they couldn't get him, so they settled for a more affordable Star Trek actor, George Takei. Mr. Sulu accepted the role and demanded several script changes, only to drop out at the last minute. Why? Because he had a side gig as a member of the board of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. Apparently, Takei decided that appearing in an episode wherein a con man steals the town's money and delivers a substandard service would be an even bigger insult to public transportation than, well, California's public transportation.

2

Richard Karn Landed The Role Of Al In Home Improvement After A Fortuitous Traffic Violation

The '90s sitcom Home Improvement is the main reason we now know Tim Allen as a family-friendly actor and not an unsuccessful cocaine smuggler. It dealt with Allen as the host of a show-within-a-show called Tool Time -- which, if not for Allen's sidekick Al, would have been 22 minutes of Allen grunting and "accidentally" hitting himself in the nuts with a hammer in order to feel a high, any high. Al was biting, bitter, witty, and funny, and we got him because LA traffic is Hell.

The man behind Al, Richard Karn, was an apartment manager and aspiring actor who had recently moved to LA when he got his big break in the form of a ... traffic ticket for rolling through a stop sign. Karn was forced into attending traffic school, where he often found himself sitting next to an agent looking for someone to appear on this pokey show about a pokey DIY show. Originally, Karn wasn't to play Al, just some random guy whose main character schtick was "an ulcer that flared up every time Tim did something stupid."

ABC StudiosWe're assuming he would have been dead by episode two.

1

James Hong Is The Most Prolific Actor In Hollywood History Despite Enduring Endless Racist Bullshit

Even if you don't know who James Hong is, you know who James Hong is. He's played countless roles in productions both big and small, from Airplane! to Chinatown to Blade Runner to Big Trouble In Little China to Seinfeld to Kung Fu Panda to Sherlock Gnomes. His 500+ screen credits mean that he holds an informal record as the most prolific actor in Hollywood, living or dead.

It wasn't easy to do this for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that ... how do we put this? The fact that society is racist as balls?

Despite getting his start in showbiz as a professional impersonator on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, the only roles that were open to actors like Hong were racist caricatures come to life. Instead of sucking it up and resigning himself to playing Chinese Waiter #2 for the rest of his life, Hong decided to do something about it. When he and several other Asian actors were offered roles in Confessions Of An Opium Eater as "prostitutes and opium eaters," they held a sit-in in the director's office and tried to reason with him -- complaints that said director ignored in favor of making the movie anyway. Unperturbed, Hong became president of the Asian American Pacific Artists guild, and began a letter-writing campaign to studio heads imploring them to start envisioning Asian people as, um, people.

If studios weren't offering Asian actors roles, Hong decided to make up some instead, and so teamed up with future Oscar nominee Mako Iwamatsu to put together a stage production of Rashomon. The play ran for two years, and the resulting theater company has continued working for half a century and counting. The troupe's success helped Hong get better parts, although he was still getting racist pushback during this time. And even though things aren't exactly perfect right now, he says, "After 50 to 60 years, things are starting to look better. I never thought it would take this long. At least I'm alive to see it, but it took this long to get this far."

Man, no one tell him about the internet.

Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook, and has a newsletter about depressing history that you should definitely subscribe to.

Although, tell him about our book maybe?

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