Common sat down with Jon Stewart this week and talked about the media firestorm surrounding his White House visit back in May. more ›

Lizz Winstead is probably best known for her work in helping create the Daily Show, or perhaps her time spent behind the helm at Air America. She's also well known for her other work in stand-up, her off-Broadway show and in other media at large. more ›

Angie McMahon wants you to come to her social gathering on Saturday. There will be political discussion, comedy, good times, and fellowship. Also, about 5,000 close friends of the Daily Show and Colbert Report should be stopping by, so that'll be fun, too. more ›

Out of the courtroom and unencumbered from any disapproving judge (until the retrial starts), former governor Rod Blagojevich is hitting the road to proclaim his innocence to the masses yet again even as he's now technically a convicted felon (pending appeal, of course). So far, according to Mediaite, Blago's got a pair of local interviews tucked amongst a trio of national interviews. The first crack at Rod goes to the NBC Today Show where Blago will speak with Meredith Vieira. He'll then hit the local airwaves on WLS and WVON for interviews and then, allegedly, take Saturday off, maybe for a jog (or kickball). Then it's a trip to Fox News where he'll sit down with Chris Wallace on Sunday morning. But perhaps the most anticipated of all these interviews will be Blago's return to The Daily Show on Monday night. Blago appeared on the show last September (though you'll now have to watch the edited version of the interview here) and it proved to be one of the few watchable TV appearances Blago made in that media blitz, so be sure to set the DVR. Or don't. We totally understand. more ›

Last Friday we gave you the Chatroulette primer, and this Friday we enlist the aide of Jon Stewart to finally break the whole thing down for you. more ›

Not that that's a bad thing, actually. Writer/humorist/actor John Hodgman is everywhere these days. Hodgman, a Daily Show correspondent and contributor to both McSweeney's and This American Life (and, yes, the PC in those Apple ads), is also now promoting the paperback of his 2008 book More Information Than You Require, a follow-up to 2005's The Area of My Expertise. more ›

Between the Pitchfork Music Fest of a few weeks back and the approaching Lollapalooza marathon next weekend, it's sometimes easy to overlook the lesser known local music stars of our city. One such auteur? Jan Terri. We've posted Jan's videos before and she's actually well known about town and on the interwebs, but Friend of Chicagoist Griff sent us a collection of her videos which included a feature on her from the Daily Show from nine years ago (my God, Jon Stewart has been there that long?). Check out the interview below and after the jump, check out a few more of Jan's videos. more ›

Check out this 2006 Daily Show story that features two pretty classic Blago cameos (at 2:00 and 4:00 in, respectively). [via Fark] more ›

God Bless you, Jon Stewart and writers of The Daily Show. A day after the most watched convention speech in history, it doesn't matter which side of the Obama fence you come down, it's hard not to laugh at another pretty genius piece. more ›

Well, it's finally happened: the Writer's Guild of America declared a strike early this morning after midnight negotiations stalled. Naturally there's been plenty of finger-pointing, with writers claiming that the producers broke off talks while producers say that the writers were the ones who walked out. Regardless, the strike will have some very immediate effects, which the Trib has handily put in chart form. Daily shows will suffer the most at first, with programs like... more ›

What's Carl's Itinerary? more ›

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get... more ›

You know what Chicago needs? More news programs. We just can’t get enough of morning news, along with news at 4, 4:30, 5, 5:30, 6, 9 and 10 p.m. And that’s just the networks. You cable and satellite-lovers must be in headline heaven! more ›

It's easy to watch a lot of crappy comedy on TV. "The Daily Show" is always reliable for some laughs, and "30 Rock" and SNL have their moments. But by and large contemporary TV comedy is a wasteland of retreads, anemia and laughless vulgarity. We're becoming increasingly convinced that the future of television isn't television at all. It's the internet. Because there's plenty of really funny stuff online, and most of it is even free. more ›

Ratings books are out for Chicago radio stations, but there are few surprises for those who’ve been paying attention. more ›

Chicagoist can sympathize with a man burdened by “complete world knowledge” since we share such an affliction. We are wowed when such a man actually tries to transcribe that “complete world knowledge” into an easily navigable almanac as author John Hodgman has done in his excellent tome, The Areas of My Expertise. You might recognize Mr. Hodgman from his appearances as a “square” PC in those Apple ads recently, or as the “resident expert” on... more ›

This has been a rough week for your -ist pals, though you wouldn't know it from the great posts all over the network. Plagued with server problems, our tech team (led by the great Neil Epstein) toiled around the clock to solve the glitches as they arose. Seriously, we've said, typed, and thought the phrase "server problems" more in the past week than we have for the last 35 years combined. Why not say it a few more times, just for fun? For example, SFist is sure the San Francisco Chronicle wishes they could blame server problems for this error. But this San Francisco man that appeared on "The Daily Show" is, sadly, no glitch in the system. It's going to take more than server problems to get Torontoist into hot pants -- and if the short short post wasn't enough to cause us some server problems of our own, how about those eye gazing parties? It's enough to make them contemplate joining the EU. Our friends at Phillyist are having server problems in places where the sun don't shine, caused perhaps by the great Thai food they ate last week. Well, when you're having server problems of the stinky kind, perhaps it's for the best that you stick to phone sex. We thought about asking Gothamist if this building collapse had our server inside it (thus explaining the server problems, you see) , but then we found out the collapse was part of marriage gone wrong. New York's new lacrosse team needs a name, might we recommend "The Server Problems"? Screw lacrosse, we're playing bocce. Or maybe we'll forgo the sports all together and hit Movable Hype 9.0. But how will we get there when server, we mean, traffic problems go unchecked? Over at Miamist, they debate the benefits of server problem-free Starbucks, over local joints. They also look into crashes of a nonserver problem nature, and a court TV show shot on their beaches. It's no server problem when Austinist's local boys The Mercers get love from Esquire. MySpace is also no stranger to server problems but that's not what has Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott pissed at them. Greg, have a crack cookie. Seattlest found a great way around the server problems, as they took it live with their inaugural trivia night. Perhaps author and radio personality John Moe will be an answer at next week's competition? But if you drive there, better not piss off Keith Gormezano, or server problems like you never imagined might rain down on your poor little car. Bostonist would like to send some some server problems toward rejoicing gay marriage opponents. Sigh. Bostonist seems pretty good at bartering, so maybe they can trade some of those anti-marriage busybodies for some problem-free servers. How we regret the server problems in the language section of our brain that keep us from learning Portuguese! We'd love to read Sampaist, but will have to settle for the visual. This week we see "an advertisement from 1974 talking about the inauguration of the subway in São Paulo (also know as SP). The funny thing about this video is that it is totally nonsense. They mixed the subway with a carnival parade and a party inside the subway car." Our pals down south also posted this music
video released by the band Cansei de Ser Sexy. Scroll down for the English portion of this post. Houstonist refuses to butter up nemesis Ken Lay, who had his official send off to that server problem down below last week. (Jesus wept.) Shanghaiist causes us the enviable server problem of "too many awesome social options", as they rock our world with , and encourage us to fag hag it up. Then there's DJ Jazzy Jeff to see. Whatever we do in Shanghaii, we're bringing this guy. But not her. more ›

We like highlights, we like getting them, doing them and giving them. There’s a ton of cool stuff going on this week, check out the quick highlights, and let us know which author is going to get your attention. First off, it’s the closing night party for the Literary Gangs. They’ll finish up with a finale including Andy Ross and Jonathan Messinger. You can see the Literary Gangs on Tues., May 16th, 6:30PM, at the... more ›

The Chicago Improv Festival kicks off tonight at the Gallery Cabaret in Bucktown with Schadenfreude’s first Chicago stage performance since…probably last year’s fest. The “Schadenfreude Rent Party” is an evening of all new material from a group that routinely packed the house at past CIFs, their late night revues, and the national college circuit until Chicago Public Radio got a hold of them. Then they were too busy hobnobbing with, and making fun of,... more ›

In an annual standard of living report, Chicago came in (tied with Washington DC) at 41st place. The study ranks the quality of life in the world's major cities. Zurich came in first, Baghdad last. The top US city is Honolulu. It's nice out and everyone's pulling out their bikes, but who needs a bike when you've got the LimoJet? The Bean is finally finished. Junk food in schools is still ok for now.... more ›

If you’re willing to hit the road, Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival has some gems worth seeing. This year’s festival at the Virginia Theater in stately Champaign, IL runs from April 26th through the 30th. Though all the festival passes are sold out, you can still purchase tickets to individual screenings of some of Ebert’s favorite films including My Fair Lady and the criminally ignored David Mamet film Spartan as well as recent fare like... more ›

In the spirit of last night’s Oscars, we present this montage of thoughts: * Forget pimps: it was hard out there for Jon Stewart. Stewart is and was frequently hilarious, but what works on the Daily Show doesn't work for the Oscars. Like most unconventional hosts (Letterman, Chris Rock), Stewart was done in because he was expected to bring his sharp, cutting wit to a venue that doesn't appreciate it. An organization that rolls three... more ›

Ah, February. You went by so fast, yet you left us with so much political discord. As usual, County Board President John Stroger and Commissioner Forrest Claypool were all up in each other’s business. Maybe we could solve the county’s financial woes by having these two battle it out in a pay-per-view cage match. For a day or so it looked like Senators John McCain and Barack Obama might engage in a full out war... more ›

Rarely do we get the chance, or feel the need, to redeem ourselves around here. Most of the time our readers point out our mistakes, second guess us, and basically call us idiots and we have to take it because, well, most of the time we are. But Chicagoist will indulge ourselves this one time. Ha! We were right: Gov. Blagojevich admits he had no clue what he was getting into on the Daily Show two weeks ago. more ›

Roger Ebert is going to be a guest tonight on the Daily Show. How’s that for a slice of fried gold*? Mr. Ebert posted his Oscar predictions Saturday, and we’re but ten days from the Oscar ceremony itself, which is hosted by – wait for it – Jon Stewart. Chicagoist is a big fan of the Daily Show what with the high and low humor, so we’re looking forward to an intelligent discussion of how... more ›

On Tuesday, a Chicago man was sentenced to 18 months probation for leaving his 82-year old, wheelchair-bound mother outside in the cold while he gambled for 15 hours at the Majestic Star Casino in Hammond. more ›

Governor Blagojevich was featured in a Daily Show segment last night entitled “Pill of Rights” concerning his order to require pharmacists fill prescriptions for emergency contraception regardless of whether or not pharmacists feel that doing so goes against their moral beliefs. more ›

Governor Blagojevich will appear in a segment about emergency contraception on The Daily Show tonight. more ›

Comcast and two other local cable providers are raising rates again this year. Comcast raised its prices 4.5 percent; RCN 8 percent; and Wide Open West, 5 percent. This is the third year in a row Comcast has upped their prices. Their rates went up 6 percent in both 2004 and 2005. more ›