Photo by Jonathan Lurie (C) Copyright 2008. All rights reserved Ellen DeGeneres taped her talk show here yesterday, and Mayor Daley continued to make Chicagoans proud when -- despite her name in gigantic letters behind him -- he introduced her to the crowd as "Helen" DeGeneres. And Ellen didn't just let it slide: "The city has a whole transportation system named after me. 'El.' 'Ellen,'" DeGeneres told the mayor before a seated audience of......

Ellen at Oprah’s Surprise Birthday Party. Photo by Alan Light. This just in from the Times of India... Oprah Winfrey has lost her title of being America’s No 1 talk show host to Ellen DeGeneres who hosts the popular day-time show Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The article claims that Oprah’s slide is related to her support and campaigning for Barack Obama, and indicates that 65 percent of Americans changed their opinion about Oprah......

The commercial above is the newest entry by that winning combination of McDonald's and Leo Burnett. It's gotten such a response that Jay Leno and Ellen Degeneres have asked about having Quincy Eaton, the pint-sized cross between Ozone and Radio Raheem who stars in the video, on their respective shows. Surely Eaton can teach Ellen how to pop and lock. The commercial also extends the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame for "The Cha-Cha Slide."......

A local tumbling team lost two of its members in a crash this week, and the whole story is seriously pulling on our heartstrings. A van carrying the Chicago Boyz Acrobatic Team apparently crashed due to a fatigued driver and icy conditions near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border, killing tumbler Ricky Jones and his coach, Donny Samson, who were 15 and 27 years old, respectively. The advanced tumbling team has performed at Bulls games and on "The......

Tickets go on sale at 10 AM this morning for Neil Diamond’s August 1st show at the United Center. Of course, alertChicagoist readers have already had their first crack at tickets for Neil’s first world tour in four years in The Chicagoist Neil Diamond Contest. We’re giving away three pairs of tickets to three lucky winners. Tickets for this show are expected to sell out so save yourself the trouble of standing in line and......

The Ellen DeGeneres Show airing on Thursday morning at 10am on NBC5, will be all about Chicago. The people in the audience are from here and the show will be all about our great city. Last week Ellen's production assistant, Houston Rose, was in Chicago selecting audience members at random from the Auto Show, the ice rink at Millennium Park, walking down Michigan Avenue, Portillo's and El stations to be on the show. Teamed up......