A TALE OF TWO BUNNIES

Credit where credit's due: Duracell was the first company to use a pink toy rabbit playing a drum as the ideal example of how powerful and long-lasting their batteries were. In fact, the "Duracell Bunny" is still a popular and widely-recognized mascot almost everywhere in the world except North America.

Why the exception? Because quick-thinking Energizer marketing consultants noticed that Duracell's patent on the idea of a pink toy rabbit that played the drum had lapsed, and in 1988 released a commercial that directly referenced Duracell's famous ad campaign-and then did it one better by releasing a number of fake commercials for imaginary products that the unstoppable robot bunny would interrupt, implacably trundling through pitch-perfect parodies of existing commercials.

The campaign was so popular that the bunny appeared on both Letterman and Leno and went on to star besides beloved fictional characters such as Darth Vader, Wile E. Coyote, and Elvis Presley.

DORITOS DOESN'T LIKE CHEVY CHASE EITHER

In 1993, renowned comedian and alleged asshole Chevy Chase was at the height of his popularity. Chase had managed a string of popular movies and TV appearances and had even managed to snaffle his own late-night comedy talk show on Fox and, as a result, he ended up as the frontman for Doritos-brand vaguely-cheese-flavored chips. He appeared in a fairly popular minute-long commercial during Super Bowl XXVII, where he rescued a bag of Doritos from an elderly woman who was subsequently run over by a steamroller.

By the end of '93, Chase's incredibly abrasive personality had destroyed almost all of the goodwill he built up from SNL and movie appearances and his legendarily terrible talk show had been killed off after only five weeks on the air.

However, parent company Frito-Lay was still stuck with him as celebrity frontman. They managed to get rid of him in a uniquely creative manner. During a Superbowl XXVIII commercial break, he started out in an exact recreation of last year's Doritos Super Bowl ad only to be interrupted by a director who subsequently explained that the ratings for his commercial were terrible and that his ad campaign was subsequently cancelled in a direct reference to his awful talk show.

The fourth-wall breaking spot earned numerous ad awards and paid Chase well enough that he was able to survive the next fifteen years until he got hired on "Community", where he was able to vent his horrible wrath on an entirely new generation of writers and comedians.

WHAAASSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

Music video director Charles Stone III had no idea that his short film "True"-a little comedy piece starring him, his childhood friends, and various permutations of the phrase "what's up"-would end up being so popular on the film festival circuit.

He was even more surprised when the buzz "True" generated ended up earning him an audience at Chicago ad agency DDB, who successfully pitched the idea to Anheuser-Busch for the Budweiser brand and wound up with a hugely popular ad campaign based on the "Wassup?" catchphrase that launched in December of 1999 and persisted for at least two years.

That campaign won both the Grand Clio Award and the Cannes Lions International Advertising Grand Prix (the two biggest awards available to advertisements) and was inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame in 2006, but Stone (the son of a Tuskegee Airman who later became a renowned Black journalist) still had control of the intellectual property and used it in 2008 to film a semi-official sequel to "True:" Stone and his friends were now battling Hurricane Katrina and Iraqi insurgents as an implicit criticism of George W. Bush's administration, ending with a clear endorsement of Barack Obama's campaign. Nobody knows for sure how influential "Wassup 2008" was, but if nothing else it was at least nominated for "Best User Generated Video" at the 35th People's Choice Awards.

CONSOLE YOURSELF: ADVERGAMES

Today, it's very common for web-savvy companies to include some sort of simple Flash-based web game that ties in with the launch of a new ad campaign, but in the dark and terrifying days before the Internet, releasing a tie-in game for a popular commercial mascot meant actually contracting a professional software developer to design and write an actual game that could be encoded in a ROM cartridge that met Nintendo or Sega standards-a complicated and expensive process that almost all ad agencies would prefer to avoid.

While this arrangement actually ended up producing a few decent games (the Genesis version of 7up's "Cool Spot" was an unexpected classic of the 2D platform genre, and "McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure" was produced by legendary Capcom refugee company Treasure) more often than not gamers would spend thirty bucks for horrible turds like the NES game "Yo! Noid," a half-assed sprite hack of an already bottom-of-the-barrel Japanese side-scroller where the rabbit-devil-man-thing that Domino's Pizza had unwisely chosen as their spokesman slogged through tedious platform-based levels in search of awful pizza.

THE EVIL EMPIRE OF RONALD MCDONALD

While most sources credit renowned weatherman and professional buffoon Willard Scott with the creation of the character of "Ronald McDonald" (which Scott credits to the popularity of Bozo the Clown and cheap fast food), Mickey D's was quick to claim RMD as its own intellectual property since the combination of clowns and hamburgers immediately became incredibly popular.

Hideous clown-man Ronald soon became a breakaway star, famous even outside the context of nasty greasy 59-cent cheeseburgers, and at one point even earned his own six-episode video miniseries drawn by Rugrats-producers Klasky-Csupo, where the already unsettling McD's character lineup was rendered even weirder by K-C's uniquely bizarre art style.

Ronald also appeared on a positively surreal "radio" album that was played on American intercontinental airliners as part of the airplane's "kid's station" which youngsters could listen to while they watched c-list romantic comedies; the psychological effects of listening to the McDonald's cartoon characters describe their adventures in space while watching Matt LeBlanc hack his way through a tedious romantic comedy have yet to be properly recorded.

"HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF DECENCY, SIR BURGER KING?"

Fledgling fast-food chain Wendy's struck marketing gold in early 1984 with its "Fluffy Bun" ad campaign, a series of TV spots where elderly women inspected hamburgers with an unsatisfactory ratio of bread to beef.

These women were passively polite to the tiny meat patties enclosed within huge buns until character actress Clara Peller boldly asked "Where's the beef?" as a way of pointing out the penny-pinchingly small amount of cooked meat rationed out to the typical fast-food burger. For unknown and perhaps unknowable reasons, the "where's the beef" catchphrase became insanely popular, earning Peller appearances on Saturday Night Live and roles in separate ad campaigns where she claimed to have finally found the beef in various products.

The campaign reached its weirdest and most publicized height during the '84 Democratic primaries, where doomed future presidential candidate Walter Mondale challenged populist and poon-hound by saying "When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad, 'Where's the beef?'" Mondale's campaign continued to capitalize on this theme by distributing pamphlets about his policy proposals entitled "Here's The Beef" and ended up getting steamrolled by Ronald Reagan in one of the least surprising elections in American history.

A PUPPET GETS SOCKED

Online pet-supplies retailer Pets.com is basically a perfect example of the ridiculous dot-com boom of the late nineties: a memorable mascot backed up by a hugely expensive and omnipresent ad campaign that represented an ultimately ridiculous and unworkable business plan.

The Pets.com sock puppet (designed by the same company that created the Taco Bell Chihuahua and voiced by veteran comic Michael Ian Black) became popular entirely out of proportion to the website's success, appearing on Good Morning America, Nightline, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, and even in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade as a gigantic helium balloon, while Pets.com itself hemorrhaged money so badly that at the time of the website's closing, the only item they offered for sale was an official Pets.com sock puppet.

The puppet in question was briefly mocked in a 2001 E-Trade ad parodying the first wave of dot-coms in general, but auto loan company 1-800-BAR-NONE purchased the rights for the popular sock-creature for its bad-credit ad campaign that professed "Everyone deserves a second chance."

SO EASY A LIZARD COULD DO IT

Americans are suckers for a British accent, so auto insurance company GEICO's CGI Cockney gecko has been the brand's most visible spokes-thing since 1999 when a Screen Actors Guild strike made computer-animated reptiles a less expensive alternative to human performers. GEICO's 2004 marketing offensive was lead by an entirely different character, however: a cast of urbane, intellectual Neanderthals who reacted to the company's new catchphrase ("So easy, a caveman could do it!") with arguably justified anger.

The campaign was meant to satirize the idea of "political correctness" and apparently hit some sort of marketing sweet spot-twenty more GEICO caveman commercials eventually aired, and ABC went so far as to buy a pilot sitcom based on the indignant Neanderthals featuring Nick Kroll as an aggressively political and sensitive caveman.

In spite of all logic and reason, thirteen episodes of Cavemen were filmed, although only six actually made it onto airwaves before ABC executives realized what they had done and cancelled the series.

Frank Mir

One quality that characterizes a true trash talker is the willingness to deploy verbal bombshells against any opponent. Frank Mir is a perfect example of that. No matter how terrifying the specimen he's paired up against, Mir will deliver the abuse. He's one of the UFC's most verbally skilled fighters, even doing commentating for WEC for a while, so it should be no surprise that he has a gift for getting under his opponents' skin. From Brock Lesnar to Junior dos Santos, Mir has zinged them all.

Money Quote: "I want to fight Brock Lesnar. I hate who he is as a person. I want to break his neck in the ring. I want him to be the first person that dies to Octagon-related injuries."

Tank Abbott

One of the earliest stars to be made by the UFC, Tank Abbott didn't have an ounce of refinement to him. The beefy brawler learned to fight in the bars of Huntington Beach, and after several arrests he made his debut at UFC 6 and quickly became one of the promotion's most recognizable stars. Tank's lack of polish didn't make him a less effective trash talker, though - he was notorious for his blunt assessments of his opponents like Paul Varelans and Kimbo Slice.

Money Quote: "I don't like beating up people in my hometown. I like to go to their hometown, so they can see what they're all about."

Dan Hardy

Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy is currently on the disabled list due to a recently-diagnosed heart condition, but when he was fighting he didn't spare any words for his opponents. The mohawked British fighter is notorious for his brutal punches, but his words sting just as much. He's taken aim at a number of the biggest fighters in the UFC, including Mike Swick and Georges St-Pierre. When Hardy faced off against Marcus Davis, his brutal needling leading up to the fight had Davis beaten before the bell rang.

Money Quote: "I hope he can take punches better than he can take criticism, or it will be a very short night for him. I really don't mind if he doesn't like me, I don't care for him much either. I do have a big mouth, but I can back it up and I really don't care that he dislikes the way I look, he is hardly a style guru himself! For a start, his website looks like a St Patrick's Day gift shop."

Michael Bisping

British middleweight Michael Bisping isn't over the top with his smack talk, which is what makes it so effective. The fighter has an impressive record against some of the toughest men to ever step into the Octagon, and his opponents know that he's not to be trifled with. When he faced Jorge Rivera, the pre-match trash talk got so intense that the two fighters had to be restrained at the weigh-in, and his pre-match with Vitor Belfort, in which Bisping looked the devout Christian in the eye and said "There is no Jesus," was epically evil.

Money Quote: "I bumped into Hector Lombard for the first time yesterday in the elevator and I thought somebody was playing a practical joke. I was like 'Who's this little poison dwarf?'"

Nick Diaz

Some trash talkers craft their words with care, honing them to a razor focus to cause the most damage. Not Nick Diaz. The Stockton-born welterweight talks smack like a shotgun, blowing up anyone in his vicinity with foul-mouthed tirades. He's even been known to trash-talk during his fights to really get his opponents flustered. Diaz's recent salvo against Georges St-Pierre was effective enough to get GSP to demand a fight with him (which Diaz went on to lose).

Money Quote: "The bottom line is Georges is being a little bitch. He didn't step up and say anything when the UFC pulled me out of this fight. I understand sometimes you have to do what you're told, but why wouldn't you tell the media you still want to fight me? [...] But he sits there like a robot and doesn't say anything at all, just like he's not going to say anything about me calling him a bitch now."

Ronda Rousey

The introduction of women's fighting to the UFC has drawn criticism from long-time fight fans, but these ladies can get it done in the Octagon just as hard as men can. And they can talk trash, too. The female MMA fighter with the most brutal mouth is probably Ronda "Rowdy" Rousey, who puts just about anyone who crosses her path on blast. Her recent explosion on Cris "Cyborg" Santos was epic.

Money Quote: "She can either do the drugs and fight me at 135 and have the drugs be just as much a detriment as a help to her during the weight cut, or she can cut out all the doping and make the weight easily. As long as she makes 135, I don't care if she's injecting horse semen into her eyeballs but that's the only way I feel it would be a fair fight."

Jason Miller

Jason "Mayhem" Miller is one of the sport's true crossover stars, hosting his own MTV show and taking on movie roles including Kevin James' "Here Comes the Boom." Part of what got him such notoriety is his motormouth, which lays down the law on just about every opponent he faces. Miller's 2012 retirement came amidst a flurry of controversy regarding how the UFC and other promotions treat fighters dealing with mental health issues.

Money Quote: "He doesn't deserve to be in there with me, and I'll prove it. I'll prove it in under a round."

Quinton Jackson

The man known as "Rampage" is at the tail end of his UFC career, which is probably a wise move as his last few fights haven't gone well. In his prime, though, he was a dominant fighter who was also incredibly charismatic on the microphone. Jackson brought a street corner sensibility to his pre-fight interviews, delivering smack talk that sounded like it could have come from running the dozens. He has laid down the law on Wanderlei Silva, Matt Lindland and more.

Money Quote:  "When I beat Wanderlei, Imma take his belt, pull down his pants and spank him for being so ugly."

Every single time.

This must have been super painful.

Click here for more odd news headlines.

This is what happens when they let Lance Armstrong do all the drugs.

I'm not a carpenter, but that doesn't look healthy.

This is way better than Atkins.

LOLs externally.

I am totally with you fiyerro. (And I think the Simpsons made this joke at some point, too.)

Are you going to eat that?

DOG SLAP.

In nicer news, here's a bunch of animals giving high fives.

This Mythbusters face swap might be the best face swap of all time.

And if you're not aware, our sister site, Tested.com is run by the Mythbusters and it's awesome.

Will.I.Am.A.House.

This doll is a real shithead.

So you're saying it's win-win?

Balotelli looks delicious.

This horse comic is super, super weird. But also super, super enjoyable.

Click here for the dirtiest sex comic scenes.

Audible sigh.

Click here for more insane Yahoo Answers conversations.

Looks like more than just his Spidey sense is tingling.

Couldn't he at least have put a shirt on while wearing the duck mask? I don't think it would have made a tremendous difference but I'd be able to sleep a little better at night.

Is this an insane request or am I just jealous I didn't think of it first? Maybe a little of both.

I was excited about the pizza but when you offered to throw in that half of a chicken Parmesan toasted sub I became completely overwhelmed!

Did you say you'd give me TWO WHOLE DOLLARS??? Where do I sign up?

This has got to be a joke right? Right? Please tell me this isn't a real thing. Please...

Please! Whoever posted this. I have to go to this party. This sounds like the best day ever.

The stuffed cat is bad enough but adding in the wheels and the artificial purring is absolutely terrifying. Wait until the other cats realizing they're attacking a corpse.

Man...I was really in suspense until I got to the end of the post.

This doesn't feel like prostitution at all does it, you handsome in shape guy? You look great!

I parked my car one time. It got toad.

Woke up sick this morning. Frog in my throat.

Get out of here you tadpoles.

Licked myself. Didn't trip out.

Grumpy? I'm hopping mad.

Think I'm a prince? Kiss my ass.

I secrete highly poisonous toxins? Good.

Am I mad? Just a tad.

Flies. I hate them. 

Maury Levy (Michael Kostroff) in "The Wire"

Ever heard the phrase, "he's a player's coach"? Well, Levy is a "scumbag's attorney" and effectively a co-conspirator with the Barksdale drug organization who enables it to further crimes. Levy defends the group's kingpins, which is not a crime, but he advises them how to avoid police surveillance and when to "clean up messes" - i.e., kill people who might cause problems. Levy could declare moral bankruptcy.

Telling quote: "You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off the culture of drugs..." (To which Omar replies, I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?")

Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) in "The Godfather" (Parts I and II)

Hagen is the German-Irish, mafia-protecting version of Maurice Levy (although Levy is really a later rendition of Hagen) who's loyal to the Corleone family to a fault. Among other moral transgressions, Hagen Esq. once visited the imprisoned Frank Pentangeli, a made man who had turned on Michael with the feds, and suggested that he kill himself to protect his family from retribution; Pentangeli slit his wrists.

Telling quote:  "I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number, I'll wait for your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much."

Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman) in "The Runaway Jury"

The movie is based on the same-named John Grisham novel, most of which contain a candidate for this collection of crooked lawyers. Fitch stands out because he's faux-attorney or "legal consultant" operating a clever scheme for the benefit of tobacco companies: he funnels in video from a camera he plants in the courtroom showing his client querying prospective jurors in order to manipulate the selection process to his client's favor. It gets much worse, as Fitch involves himself directly with the jurors and attempts to blackmail a few. Thank you for smoking!

Telling quote: "You think your average juror is King Solomon? No, he's a roofer with a mortgage. He wants to go home and sit in his Barcalounger and let the cable TV wash over him. And this man doesn't give a single, solitary droplet of sh*t about truth, justice or your American way."

Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckert) in "The Dark Knight"

Well for starters, Gotham's district attorney Dent is also "Two-Face." In his old day job he was an honest, justice seeking White Knight; after the tragedy that claimed half his face, he became a coin-wielding menace hell-bent on exacting revenge on the former police chief and his family, holding them at gunpoint. He's more of a sympathetic figure in the movie than he is in the comics and clearly he's no Joker, but Two-Face definitely checked his attorney's license at the door when he walked out of the hospital and started packing heat.

Telling quote: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Eli Gould (Gene Borkan) in "Se7en"

Two attorneys appear in the 1995 crime thriller "Se7en" but we're talking about the one without a speaking role, i.e., the dead guy. We don't know much for certain about Eli Gould except (1) he was a wealthy attorney (2) whom the killer bled to death for the sin greed. "You guys must have been secretly thanking me for that one!" said the killer. As for the why - apparently the lawyer helped a pedophile beat a conviction for rape of a minor; indeed our justice system guarantees everyone his day in court and it isn't certain that Gould himself committed any atrocity but we're going to take the deranged serial killer's word for it.

Telling quote: "Greed." - written in Gould's own blood on the floor of his office.

Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) in "Dexter"

Since we arrived at the intersection of serial killers and lawyers... there's the matter of Miguel, the Miami assistant district attorney who begins as Dexter's confidant and first real friend, and ends up murdering with him. Some hobbies are best enjoyed alone. Miguel abuses the power of his office, stabs and kills a hit man, and kills an innocent woman (attorney Ellen Wolf) during his downward spiral that concludes on Dexter's table.

Telling quote: "I'll do what I want to whom I want, to whomever I want! Count on it!"

Pugs + Slide = NOOOOOO!

Hold me closer tiny skiier.

Mmmm, delicious.

Now say "Ahhhhh."

This looks like a lot of fun.

Awww, it thinks it's people.

That's a pretty good breakdancing level.

It looks like Lenscrafters had a deal on bubble glasses.

This is what it looks like whenever the Mandatory edit team goes outside.

There's nothing more hipster than a catbeard.

Are my car keys in here?

That's quite a powerful inhale.

Yoink.

They told me I could become anything. So I became a headstand.

That's going to leave a mark.

He's the King of Refs.

I prefer to take my wine in a glass. But whatever you want, dude.

The force is strong in this squirrel.

He has no idea what he's doing, but I'm guessing no one will try to break in.

So that's why he danced like that.

Why the long horse?

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Uhh, hey, I'm kinda busy here.

Almost charged.

Our pizza's almost ready.

Kids these days. AMIRITE?

When you love a present so much...

I'm stripes, and you're an ass.

Click here for more awesome You Had One Job meme photos.

Yes, it's a double standard. But that doesn't make it wrong.

Mark Cuban was a bartender in Dallas.

At age 25, Cuban had graduated from Indiana University and had moved to Dallas. He started out as a bartender, then a salesperson for a PC software retailer. He actually got fired because he wanted to go close a deal rather than open a store in the morning. That helped inspire him to open his first business, MicroSolutions.

"When I got to Dallas, I was struggling - sleeping on the floor with six guys in a three-bedroom apartment," Cuban writes in his book "How to Win at the Sport of Business." "I used to drive around, look at the big houses, and imagine what it would be like to live there and use that as motivation."

Arianna Huffington was traveling to music festivals around the world for the BBC with her boyfriend at the time.

Before she was Arianna Huffington, she was Arianna Stassinopolous and at the age of 21, she met the famed British Journalist Henry Bernard Levin while on a panel for a quiz show.

The two entered into a relationship and he became her mentor while she wrote the book "The Female Woman" attacking the women's liberation movement. The book was published when she was 23.

For the next few years, Huffington traveled to music festivals around the world with Levin as he wrote for the BBC. Her relationship with Levin eventually ended because he did not want to marry or have children and Huffington moved to New York City at the age of 30. That year, her biography of Maria Callas was published, which she dedicated to Levin.

She told William Skidelsky at The Observer:

"[Levin] was my mentor. Our second date was to see 'The Mastersingers' at Covent Garden. Our first trip abroad was to Bayreuth to see 'Wagner's Ring.'"

Lloyd Blankfein was an unhappy lawyer.

Blankfein didn't take the typical route to finance. He actually started out as a lawyer. He got his law degree from Harvard at age 24, then took a job as an associate at law firm Donovan Leisure.

"I was as provincial as you could be, albeit from Brooklyn, the province of Brooklyn," Blankfein told William Cohen at Fortune Magazine.

At the time, he was a heavy smoker and occasional gambler. Despite the fact that he was on the partner track at the firm, he decided to switch to investment banking, joining J. Aron at the age of 27.

Ralph Lauren was a sales assistant at Brooks Brothers.

He was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx, New York, but changed his name at the age of 15. He went on to study business at Baruch College and served in the Army until the age of 24 when he left to work for Brooks Brothers.

At 26, Lauren decided to design a wide European-styled tie, which eventually led to an opportunity with Neiman Marcus. The next year, he launched the label "Polo."

JK Rowling came up with the idea for the Harry Potter series on a train.

In 1990, Rowling was 25 years old when she came up with the idea for Harry Potter duirng a delayed four-hour train ride.

She started writing the first book that evening, but it took her years to actually finish it. While working as a secretary for the London office of Amnesty International, Rowling was fired for daydreaming too much about Harry Potter and her severance check would help her focus on writing for the next few years.

During these years, she got married, had a daughter, got divorced, and was diagnosed with clinical depression before finally finishing the book in 1995. It was published in 1997.

Jay-Z was already in the rap scene, but was 'relatively anonymous.'

Born Shawn Carter, Jay Z grew up in a housing project in Brooklyn, New York and became known as "Jay Z" at the age of 20. For the next few years he appeared alongside various other rappers, but "remained relatively anonymous" until he founded the record label Roc-A-Fella Records at the age of 27 with two other friends. The same year, Jay Z released his first album, "Reasonable Doubt."

Marissa Mayer had just started her job as Google's 20th employee.

At 24, Mayer became employee number 20 at Google and the company's first female engineer. She remained with the company for 13 years before moving on to her role as CEO of Yahoo.

Google didn't have the sorts of lavish campuses it does now, Mayer said in an interview with VMakers, "During my interviews, which were in April of 1999, Google was a seven-person company. I arrived and I was interviewed at a ping pong table which was also the company's conference table, and it was right when they were pitching for venture capitalist money, so actually after my interview Larry and Sergei left and took the entire office with them."

Since everyone in the office interviewed you those days, Mayer had to come back the next day for another round.

Warren Buffett was working as an investment salesman in Omaha.

In his early 20s, Buffett worked as an investment salesman for Buffett-Falk & Co. in Omaha before moving to New York to be a securities analyst at age 26. During that year, he started Buffett Partnership, Ltd., an investment partnership in Omaha.

New York just wasn't for him, Buffett told NBC. "In some places it's easy to lose perspective. But I think it's very easy to keep perspective in a place like Omaha."

Ursula Burns started out as an intern, but worked her way up at Xerox throughout her 20s.

Burns overcame a tough upbringing in a New York City housing project to get a degree in Mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, then a masters from Columbia University.

Since then she's been a Xerox lifer. She started as an intern at age 22 in 1980, and joined full time a year later after getting her masters. She rose rapidly through the ranks, working in various product development roles and was named CEO in 2009.

"When I came to work at Xerox, I just chose to work. Somebody said 'how about this?' And I said OK, and I would go do that in the lab," Burns said in an interview for the PBS documentary, "Makers." "Then somebody said how about doing some business planning. Then I started leaning more towards larger global systems problems. And systems problems are the business."

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook was cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users.

Mark Zuckerberg had been hard at work on Facebook for five years by the time he hit age 25. In that year - 2009 - the company turned cash positive for the first time and hit 300 million users. He was excited at the time, but said it was just the start, writing on Facebook that "the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone."

The next year, he was named "Person of the Year" by Time magazine.

Tina Fey was a child-care registrar at the Y.M.C.A before joining famed improv troupe Second City.

After graduating from the University of Virginia, Fey moved to Chicago and hung around acting workshops and even worked as the child-care registrar at a Y.M.C.A before improv troupe Second City invited her to join.

Fey told The New Yorker that she joined Second City because she "knew it was where a lot of S.N.L. people started," and in 1997 she sent scripts to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels who then hired her as a writer.

Tim Allen was arrested and served the next two years in Federal prison.

While working as a stand up comedian, Allen was arrested at 25 in an airport for possessing more than 650 grams of cocaine. He pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and received two years instead of life in prison for providing the names of other dealers.

The experience was so bad that he was forced to turn himself around. He told Esquire, "When I went to jail, reality hit so hard that it took my breath away, took my stance away, took my strength away. I was there buck naked, humiliated ... this is a metaphor. My ego had run off. Your ego is the biggest coward."

Allen became known to the public for his role on the sitcom "Home Improvement," which premiered in 1991.

Richard Branson had already started the Virgin Records record label.

At age 20, Branson opened his first record shop, then a studio at 22 and launched the label at 23. By 30, his company was international.

Those early years were tough, he told Entrepreneur: "I remember them vividly. It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces, it's difficult to hold your family life together, it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters - and that's surviving."

Sheryl Sandberg had met mentor Larry Summers and was getting a Harvard MBA.

At age 25, Sandberg had graduated at the top of the economics department from Harvard, worked at the World Bank under her former professor, mentor, and future Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and had gone back to Harvard to get her MBA, which she received in 1995.

She went on to work at McKinsey, and at age 29 was Summers' Chief of Staff when he became Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary.

Her time at HBS was a ways before Google, but that experience helped her see the potential of the internet, she said in a commencement speech to HBS grads last year:

"It wasn't really that long ago when I was sitting where you are, but the world has changed an awful lot. My section, section B, tried to have HBS's first online class. We had to use an AOL chat room and dial up service (your parents can explain). We had to pass out a list of screen names, because it was unthinkable to put your real name on the internet. And it never worked. It kept crashing ... the world wasn't set up for 90 people to communicate at once online. But for a few brief moments though, we glimpsed the future, a future where technology would power who we are and connect us to our real colleagues, our real family, our real friends."

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was building a deep background in computer science.

Schmidt spent six years as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, earning a masters and Ph.D. at 27 for early work in networking computers and managing distributed software development.

He spent those summers working at the famed Xerox PARC labs, which helped create the computer workstation as we know it. There, he met the founder of Sun Microsystems, where he had his first corporate job.

In his early years as a programmer, "all of us never slept at night because computers were faster at night."

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was on her way to becoming Florida's youngest female legislator.

Schulz started in politics right after graduating from the University of Florida, working as an aide for then state legislator Peter Deutsch. At 25, she helped him get elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

After he won, he encouraged her to run for his seat in the Florida House of Representatives. At 26, she won, becoming Florida's youngest ever female legislator. To win that seat, she personally knocked on more than 25,000 doors over six months.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz hadn't even started out in the coffee business; he was a Xerox salesman.

After graduating from Northern Michigan University, Schultz worked as a salesman for Xerox. His success there led a Swedish company named Hammerplast that made coffeemakers to recruit him at age 26.

While working for that company, he encountered the first Starbucks outlets in Seattle, and went on to join the company at age 29.

On his job in Xerox, Schultz writes in "Pour Your Heart Into It": "I learned more there than in college about the worlds of work and business. They trained me in sales, marketing, and presentation skills, and I walked out with a healthy sense of self-esteem. Xerox was a blue-chip pedigree company, and I got a lot of respect when I told others who my employer was ... But I can't say I ever developed a passion for word processors."

10. Carice van Houten - Melisandre of Asshai

This red-haired priestess who worships the Lord of Light and likes to torch statues is a Game of Thrones Season 3 wild card. 

Melisandre Quote: 

"Look to your sins, Lord Renly. The night is dark and full of terrors."

9. Oona Castilla Chaplin - Talisa

We hope Talisa doesn't fall the dreaded Game of Thrones dead pool. Being the wife of Robb Stark shouldn't hurt.

Talise Quote:

"I'm not sure I'm a lady. Westoros customs are still a bit foreign to me."

8. Rose Leslie - Ygritte

Ygritte is a Free Folk who lives north of the wall. Her striking red hair matches her super strong personality as she duped Jon Snow 

Ygritte Quote: 

"Is that...is it what lords do to their ladies, down in the south?"

7. Sibel Kekilli - Shae

One of our favorite GoT characters, Shae is a prostitute who is now the love of Tyrion's life. 

Shae Quote: 

"You are still young and stupid."

6. Gwendoline Christie - Brienne of Tarth

On the show, Brienne of Tarth is a monster of a woman - stronger and burlier than most of the men. But in real life Gwendoline Christie is much more attractive than she's portrayed on Game of Thrones. 

Brienne Quote: 

"All my life men like you have sneered at me. And all my life I've been knocking men like you into the dust."

5. Lana Headley - Cersei Lannister

The show's resident evil bitch. But there's a reason why she gets away with it (Hint: It's her looks.)

Cersei Quote:

"When you play the game of thrones you win, or you die. There is no middle ground."

4. Natalia Tena - Osha

I imagine Game of Thrones frat boys sitting around watching episode after episode and just nodding to each other while saying, "Wildings, bro...Wildings. Am I right?"  That's all I can think of when I see Osha.

Osha Quote:

"You're from south of The Wall: that makes you a 'southerner' to me."

3. Natalie Dormer - Margaery Tyrell

Sure, she married a gay guy and then she married an asshole. But let's be honest, who hasn't? (Just ask Liza Minnelli.)

Margaery Quote: 

"I want to be the queen."

2. Roxanne McKee - Doreah

The biggest issue with Game of Thrones is that no matter how important (or beautiful) you are, there's a chance you might die. Sadly, that's what happened to Doreah. Pour a little mead out for our fallen Free City hotties.

Doreah Quote: 

"The Dothraki take slaves like a hound takes a bitch. Are you a slave Khaleesi?"