• Howie Mandel was born in Toronto on Nov. 29, 1955.

• Always a joker, Mandel was expelled from his high school for impersonating a school official and convincing a construction company to start building an addition onto the school.

• He began his stand-up comedy career at Toronto's Yuk Yuk's comedy club in the late 1970s. According to a 1978 Toronto Star article, he was billed as a "wild and crazy borderline psychotic."

• He played Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the critically acclaimed St. Elsewhere from 1982 until 1988.

• Mandel makes no secret of the fact that he suffers from mysophobia, which is a fear of germs. For this reason, he refuses to shake hands with people. As host of popular TV game show Deal or No Deal (which began airing in 2005), he does a fist tap with each of the contestants as an alternative to a handshake.

• In June 2009, it was announced that Howie Mandel would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.