Today is the birthday of Leonard Nimoy, the actor and science-fiction legend who is best remembered for playing the Vulcan character Spock on Star Trek, which remains one of television’s biggest cult and mainstream successes of all time.

Nimoy played a character in Spock which perfectly bounced off of Captain James T. Kirk, the equally memorable character on the show played by William Shatner, and the two men were like a intergalactic Lennon/McCartney in a metaphoric sense and even like a sci-fi version of The Odd Couple sometimes; the cool, emotionless, logical demeanor of Nimoy’s Spock bouncing Saturn-like rings around the emotional, zealous, and passionate fervor of Kirk. The two characters formed a mutual admiration society with each other, regardless of their perceptions of the other’s foibles and shortcomings, and successfully navigated their way through endless adventures, as the famous catchphrase goes, “seeking out new civilizations and boldly going where no man has gone before.”

Today would have been John Belushi‘s 64th birthday. The comedian, who was part of the original era of the “Not Ready For Prime Time Players” on Saturday Night Live from 1975 – 1979 and represented one of the last of the renegade, reckless, revolutionary comedians that was a by-product of the radicalism of the late 1960s which saw comedy conventions being splintered by way of troupes and publications like The Firesign Theater, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and National Lampoon Magazine, died from an injection of heroin and cocaine on March 5th 1982 at the age of 33.

Belushi brought to SNL and to the comedy world in general a kind of madness not often seen on television, and not seen since his passing. Although he grew up as a child in the 1950s and early 1960s of a generation weaned on television that was safe and predictable, Belushi’s style became anything but. He manifested his comedic talents the way he lived, the lines between Belushi the public figure and Belushi the real man were blurred for the most part.

Happy birthday today to the unstoppable, unflappable, invincible comedian Betty White, who has had a career that has spanned over 60 years and through countless generations who have looked up to her benevolent demeanor, her fruitful and sincere championing of animal rights, and her comedic style that has made millions upon millions of fans laugh at all the talents that she has to offer.

Like Lucille Ball or Carol Burnett, Betty White’s career has been almost unbreakable. Everything she does or has done has been met with somewhat success; her characters on the old classic television shows The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls have become the stuff of comic legend and netted her various Emmy awards, not to mention her appearances on countless game shows, like Match Game, the various incarnations of the Pyramid franchise, Tattletales, and especially Password and Password Plus. Most versions of which were hosted by her late husband, the congenial, assured, and Brylcreemed master of ceremonies, Allen Ludden. Her allegiance and unabashed wholehearted love for Ludden was so strong that after his passing in 1981 from stomach cancer, White never remarried again, still cherishing the memory of Ludden to this very day (something she’s stated in recent interviews). Currently she is still going strong on television, as evidenced by the hit show Hot in Cleveland, which airs on TV Land.