>
Paula Pell
Growing up in the 1970s, Paula Pell fell in love with comedy, particularly the groundbreaking new show "Saturday Night Live" (NBC 1975- ). After the Illinois native studied acting and visual art at Orlando's Seminole Community College and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, she took a job at Walt Disney World, working in the nightclubs of the adults-only Pleasure Island section of the park. On the side, she worked with a local improv troupe, SAK Comedy Lab, in which she developed several popular recurring characters. When the troupe filmed a sketch comedy pilot called "Chucklehead," the show didn't go anywhere, but one of the handful of people who saw it was SNL Executive Producer Lorne Michaels.