Six Degrees of ... "Can't Hardly Wait"???

Bear with me for a moment. If you have not seen "Can't Hardly Wait", you are probably not that interested in a movie about an end-of-the-year high school party where our protagonist, Preston Myers, builds up the courage after four years to express his true feelings to Jennifer Love Hewitt. I won't try to convince you that it's a quality film (that's debatable), but what you may not realize is that that movie contained so many actors and actresses that went on to bigger and better things, a surprising achievement for a film that probably seemed like little more than a popcorn flick to most. The list is fairly, and surprisingly, distinguished:

Jennifer Love Hewitt - you know who she is, so we'll move on.
Ethan Embry - played one of the band members in "That Thing You Do", and was in "Freakylinks", and played one of the jerk co-workers of John Cho in "Harold and Kumar"
Peter Facinelli - starred in the failed show "Fastlane" with Bill Bellamy, but then hit the jackpot by marrying Jenny Garth, yes Kelly Taylor of "Beverly Hills, 90210"
Erik Palladino - looks kinda like a puffier Tony Danza, he went on to join the cast of "ER", but then again who hasn't?
Seth Green - hello, Scott Evil and then the voice of Chris Griffin on "Family Guy"? The Griffins rule.
Jenna Elfman - Dharma and Greg, but she may have had that show before the movie. She has a new show coming out
Charlie Korsmo - The nerd in the film who rocked out to "Paradise City" also played the son in "Hook" and the kid from "Dick Tracy"
Lauren Ambrose - played the headache daughter Claire in the HBO series, Six Feet Under
Freddy Rodriguez - played Federico, the assistant and family friend of the Fishers, alson in Six Feet Under
Eric Balfour - had a bit role in Six Feet Under, played Milo, one of the whizzes in "24", was in the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
Jaime Pressly - hot chick from Poison Ivy 2 or 3, got Punk'd really badly and cried when accused of owning a sweatshop, and is now on "My Name is Earl" as Jason Lee's white-trash ex-wife.
Sean Patrick Thomas - co-starred in "Save The Last Dance" with Julia Stiles, teaching her how to dance when in reality, he admitted he couldn't dance worth shit while Julia had to fake having two left feet
Donald Faison - drummer of the band, whom you may remember as Murray in "Clueless", and whom you DEFINITELY know as Turk from the fantastic show "Scrubs", which is now back for its fifth season, Tuesdays on NBC
Breckin Meyer - singer of the band, he played the stoner dude in "Clueless" and the white b-boy in "Go" and had a short-lived tv show about being a sportscaster (instead, they should have just brought back "Sports Night")
Tamala Jones - two words: Booty Call
Jennifer Lyons - not much, but she did play the oft-mentioned Pam Macy in "That 70's Show"
Liz Stauber - she played Mark Wahlberg's wife in "Three Kings", had parts in "Almost Famous" and "The Village"
Clea DuVall - been in a bunch of movies, notably "The Faculty", "Identity", and "21 Grams"
Jerry O'Connell - Verne from "Stand By Me", brother of the former "Bachelor", Cush from "Jerry Maguire", and apparently the new Mr. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. How did that happen?
Melissa Joan Hart - Sabrina the Teenage Witch had a bit part in the flick
Nicole Bilderback - the bitchy Korean cheerleader in "Bring It On", I'm guessing she was adopted because I don't think she's married or anything
Selma Blair - "Legally Blonde", "Cruel Intentions", used to date Jason Schwartzmann from "Rushmore"
Sara Rue - I hate her, she used to be on "Popular", but now she can be found on "Celebrity Poker Showdown"
Jason Segel - the eternally badass Nick Andopolis from "Freaks and Geeks"
Channon Roe - not sure if this counts, but he had a small role in "Boogie Nights" where he paid Dirk Diggler to rub one out in a pickup truck.

Screw Kevin Bacon, this movie is the ultimate branching point for all things Hollywood. Scary, isn't it? Not about the movie, but rather the fact that I've taken the time to think about this. Another cool thing to do is to see how actors and actresses are connected such that their parts often are related. Like if you watch two tv shows created by the same guy, you can notice the same people appearing on both, probably because they've become friends. For instance, some of the stars of "Spin City" have appeared in bit parts on "Scrubs". The common denominator? Creator Bill Lawrence. It's like how Clint Howard is always in his brother, Ron Howard's, films. Or, one of the female ballplayers in "A League of Their Own" ended up playing Bill Paxton's wife in "Apollo 13". Tom Hanks was in both of those films. I think I have too much time on my hands.