Even more interesting regarding Canbadian Howdy, though:
It’s best to quote from the Wiki article:
From their page on Sydney Newman:
I’ve seen specials on the history of Dr. Who and read books about it, but none of them mentioned that the TARDIS might have been inspired by a plot device from the Canadian version of Howdy Doody.
Hugh Laurie starred in House, and Emma Thompson (the first, and I think only so far, person to win Oscars for acting and writing) was in that episode as well. I’d say both of them were “big.”
I can think of quite a few actors who had one-time roles on The Phil Silvers Show before they became “big” (Alan Alda, Julie Newmar, Tina Louise, Charlotte Rae); the problem is, I can’t think of an episode where two “names” both appeared.
Back when she was billed as “Dianne Cannon”, Dyan Cannon got work on an episode of Highway Patrol alongside young Robert Conrad: he went on to star in a bunch of stuff, and she went on to get nominated for a bunch of Oscars.
Good luck finding this episode of NAKED CITY from '61, but it has Robert Duvall and Ed Asner before they got famous. (And they were already in their thirties even then, because it’s physically impossible to picture either of 'em any younger.)
When she was young, Aida Turturro played a lot of bubble-heads on L&O. Now she plays a judge on SVU. I never watched The Sopranos, but somehow it made Dick Wolf decide that Turturro looked smarter.
How about this episode of Kojak from 1975; early roles for Jerry Orbach, F. Murray Abraham, Jennifer Warren, Charles Kimbrough, and Richard Herd. Orbach had done a lot of theater before that, but not a great deal of TV or movies.
If that’s not enough, Eli Wallach is also in it, but he was already quite well known.
The four posh kids were Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Ben Elton. Thompson, Fry and Laurie were in the Cambridge Footlights which is why their college on the show was called Footlights College Oxbridge. Ben Elton was a writer on The Young Ones but went on to greater success writing shows like Blackadder and later having his own show. So all four of the posh kids became very famous later with Laurie and Thompson being the most successful at least to American audiences.
Heh. So they took Requiem For A Heavyweight, which was well-received as a drama presented on live American television, and promptly adapted it into an episode of BBC Sunday-Night Theatre – which was kind of a big deal for then-unknown actor Sean Connery, who wasn’t yet the biggest movie star in the world.
Anyhow, the BBC version had to be modified; the lack of commercial breaks meant otherwise-unnecessary scenes had to be added – so folks playing named characters could be offstage for quick costume changes – which is, apparently, the only reason why a twentysomething Michael Caine got a bit part in that production.
And Phil Hartman and Charlie’s mother from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Lynne Marie Stewart were cast members. Hartman was Captain Carl in the 1st season, and Stewart was Miss Yvonne. S. Epatha Merkerson was also in the cast as Reba, the Mail Lady.
And, a young Natasha Lyonne was one of the kids that Pee-Wee interacted with in the first season.