Impress These Apes: Season Three begins Monday, September 22, and this season's contestants have finally been revealed! James Asmus, Seth Dodson, Becky Eldridge, Peter Kremidas, Alan Metoskie, Eve Porcello, Danielle Puterbaugh, and Leigh Vandiver will face off in an arduous eight-week comedy talent contest, to be judged by super intelligent apes from the future. Best! Changes are afoot this season, however. Gone is Game Show Host Jared Logan, sadly, but happily Ken Barnard and Jim......

Photo for Blewt! by Erica Gerdes Tonight is the last-ever Don't Spit The Water comedy show, in which regular folks—like you—attempt not to spit the water while Comedy Professionals try to make them laugh. The show is a blast, and last week's guests included Tron Guy, so we have high hopes for tonight. After a four-year run, DSTW is something of a comedy institution. We're sad to see it go. The show is at......

Second City's Dave Colan and Aimee McKay make Sonic parody commercials. Bahahaha.......

One of our favorite comic strips makes a weather prediction for Illinois.......

I don't even care how old these are. They made me chuckle. All from Senator Obamas.......

Wired's blog Threat Level has an interview with "Defiant" and "EBK," the hackers who took down Comcast yesterday. They say they did it because they hate Comcast. However they got in, the intrusion gave the pair control of over 200 domain names owned by Comcast. They changed the contact information for one of them, Comcast.net, to Defiant's e-mail address; for the street address, they used the "Dildo Room" at "69 Dick Tard Lane." Baaaahahaaha. Feel......

No Pants 2K8, a no-slacks spectacle that was started by the New York-based performance comedy group, Improv Everywhere, is upon us, and you know what that means: Drop trou, pronto! Not so fast...it's not quite as simple as that; there are some basic procedural guidelines. The eventual seminudity begins on Saturday at 2:00 P.M. at the Granville Red Line station and disembarks at Monroe. According to the Facebook page, about 50 people have confirmed that......

We are. Now what're you gonna do the rest of the day? You could.... Watch this creepy weird video (don't say we didn't warn you). The video isn't all that fun to watch, but it IS fun to send to people. Especially with really generic holiday cheer. Anyway, it's gross, but sort of hypnotizing in its way. Read about famous Christmas carols written by Jews. Play Handbell Hero. If you play the piano, this......

Zero7068 has some fun with the tags of this fantastic capture: "yes virginia, there is a crazy rich uncle | I followed this dude all the way from Macy's | he walked awful fast for a guy with an elephant on his back." Heehehehehe. Related, sort of: Elephant jokes, though the article does not include our all-time favorite, which we present toy you here: Q How do you get an elephant out of the......

Given that it gets pitch-black at, oh, 2pm, we always find ourselves staring at the clock right around 5:30pm screaming "Time is standing still!" Anyway, we enjoyed this ode to the "regular, everyday normal guy." Lyrics include, "My parents are really nice people, motherfucka! I'm somewhat afraid of heights, motherfucka!"......

Who doesn't love the Onion? God knows we do, and hey — even Neil Steinberg sort of likes it. And that guy knows funny! Anyway, there are two big reasons to love the Onion even more: First and foremost, their Google map layer — go ahead and play around with it, above — is twenty kinds of amazing. And the company announced today that they're moving their HQ here. Well, business HQ. While the......

It's part of our national schizophrenia as Americans. Every year we bemoan the exploitation of Christmas, and every year we spend more and more money that we really don't have to buy crap to give to each other "in the spirit of the season." There's a great movie to be made about the overcommercialization of Christmas; What Would Jesus Buy? is not exactly that movie, but it still offers a lot of food for......

Extortion is funny, violence is hilarious, and murder provokes a smirk in Bad Guys in Suits, Hobo Junction’s quirky late-night tribute to the hardest times our hard-time town has ever known. It’s 1933 and the mob rules Chicago with an iron fist. When you’re not waiting on a bread line or begging for work, you take solace in a radio voice urging you to keep your chin up. Sound like a riot? Writer Josh Zagoren......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

Kramer and Newman couldn't make it work, but crooks in Ohio and Michigan can. Michigan police officers have busted a crime ring that transports and sells out-of-state, non-redeemable cans and turns them in for that sweet, sweet 10 cent payoff. The 13 crooks were arrested with $500,000 in cash. That's...a lot of cans. The 67-count warrant was a part of Operation Can Scam that busted two smuggling rings based in Ohio and Michigan. Investigators allege......

Thinking about going to the movies tonight? Looks like everyone in town is warning you against Good Luck Chuck, the Dane Cook/Jessica Alba rom-com whose plot keywords on IMDb are ... wow. Inspired by Matthew Baldwin's genius Bad Review Reviews, we present highlights from Chicago media's terrible reviews of GLC. Scott Tobias, AV Club: "Proof that a million MySpace users can be wrong." Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "The film is some sort of humor-deprivation......

Let's start with a tough question: Who is Chicago's greatest filmmaker? When it comes to experimental film some might advocate for James Fotopoulos, whose output is both prodigious and relentlessly probing. When it comes to documentaries, Steve James is more than formidable. And on the narrative end of things although neither Andrew Davis nor John Landis quite make the grade, they've both had their moments. We would argue that the title should go to Tom......

Quirky Places to Take Kids?...

Note: This post has nothing to do with Lollapalooza. Tonight marks the return of Impress These Apes, the comedy octathalon demanding creativity, versatility and a wicked sense of humor. Eight contestants face eight different performance challenges over eight weeks. We missed last year's competition but, thanks to YouTube, are still getting a good chuckle from the dance routines, videos, and goofy spectacles it produced. Now eight new contestants are vying for the most impressive crown.......

Chances are that if you frequent a tavern, you'll eventually find yourself in the middle of a beer promotion, usually entailing scantily clad women giving away free beer and tchotchkes you normally wouldn't buy with money found on the street. However, you were taught not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and free beer is free beer. Such was the case of Ed Evashenke, a retired machinist collecting disability, living on a fixed......

From the Sun-Times today, a study of 4,000 Americans age 13 and up (including 200 in Chicago) found that 12 percent of them check their wireless devices for e-mail while in church or using the bathroom. You're probably thinking that 12 percent of 4,000 people is a small amount. But the study, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation and sponsored by America Online (AOL?!?) shines a light on how pervasive Internet access and email have become,......

In the mid 90's we were television addicts. From soaps to sitcoms, we soaked up nearly everything the tube could offer. Our collection of VHS tapes at the time was chock full of good stuff. But in some cases it was the commercials that we loved most. One of our favorites featured Judy Tenuta drinking Diet Dr. Pepper while "working out" at the gym. The moment she proclaiming "You can't get a body like mine......

What's Carl's Itinerary?...

We're sweltering in the heat here, the CTA sometimes seems to barely function and both of our baseball teams suck. All annoyances no doubt. But let's not forget that in the midst of all this a little thing called the Iraq War just keeps marching on: $442 billion and several thousand lives later. We can protest against it and agitate for change but most of the time it's much easier for us to put it......

Some fairy godmother at the Siskel must be granting wishes lately. Not only did they bring Helvetica to town and decide to mount an Antonioni series (including the radically awesome, hard-to-see Zabriskie Point) but now we've learned that next week they're launching "Lost Highways & Wild Hearts: The Films of David Lynch." Wild at heart and weird on top; or, as Gordon Cole might exclaim, "This is like some sort of miracle. A ...a phenomenon."......

Sort of like the point in an old person's life when they decide they're not going to look behind them when they back out of their driveway anymore, Daley has clearly well past the point in his career where he gives two shits what the media says or thinks about him. Manifesting itself in "playful banter" a'la Dubyauh, his new tactic of dodging questions from reporters by making fun of them is actually pretty hilarious......

Crossing California Stage Adapter Alan Donahue...

We're not sure what to dedicate this week's round up to: Rudy Guiliani salivating as he was "asked" about a fictional terrorist attack in last night's debate, Tom Tancredo's vow to double the size of Guantanamo Bay if elected, or Tommy Thompson's large ears and no neck. Ah screw it, this one is dedicated to Rod Blagojevich's hair. Here we go: Mayor Daley Is a Funny Guy. No, really, he is. Go read Mick Dumke's......

Humor us. Let's say - and this is purely hypothetical - that you were on the wrong side of the law. What lengths would you go to to relieve your targets of their hard-earned money? You could take the impersonal approach with a bank robbery or armored truck jacking. Or you could go hands-on, forcefully coercing individuals to give up whatever cash is on their person or in their back account. Now supposed you were......

In this age of obnoxious reality television, people are comfortable eating bull balls and making asses out of themselves. Yet there is still one show that is what reality TV should be, and that show is "Survivor". This season gives us Mookie, a Chicagoan who keeps pissing where he eats and screws up the game. We also have our favorite survivor ever, Yaoman, a wiry, older Asian fellow who is going to quietly steal all......