O.K., it's not Chicago related, but we know the New Zealand duo Flight of the Conchords have lots of Chicago fans, right? Well, we're sad to say that their next season will also be their last. While we're pleased to see that they're going out on a high note before the series has a chance to devolve, we're upset we'll only have one more season to see that hair helmet or see someone get hit......

If you like television celebrities, nonfiction authors, mathematics, illegal drug consumption, or any combination of the above: tonight is your night! Tommy Chong – of Cheech & Chong and That 70s Show Photo Hut fame – appears at the big ol’ Borders on N. Clark Street tonight at 7:30. He’s signing copies of Cheech and Chong: The Unauthorized Biography, so expect to be regaled with at least one gut-busting tale of elicit psychedelic adventure. But......

Richard Roeper and critic-we-actually-like Michael Phillips will be on the upcoming season of Entourage, which returns Sept 7. [Deadline Hollywood]......

Weigel Broadcasting, the local company behind The U, MeTV and MeToo, has announced that this fall it'll be partnering with MGM to produce a new, nationwide digital TV channel to be called This TV. When stations go all-digital in February, there will be many broadcasters that won't be able to fill the new subchannels, due to lack of funds and/or programming. This TV aims to fill the gap, available for lease to broadcasters who......

Bravo’s fashion designer throwdown show Project Runway is in its fifth season, and we have a hometown hero among the pack representing Midwest style. Woot woot! 39-year-old Terri Stevens hails from Chicago and is a Columbia College alum. Looking like a bit of a headbanger herself, Stevens describes her style as “if Aerosmith met Lauryn Hill met Michael Jackson.” So how did that Frankenrocker aesthetic parlay into the first challenge? As a throwback to Season......

Maybe it’s too much hullabaloo. Maybe the circus freaks were unionizing. Maybe the man’s just getting old and all the colors are making him dizzy. Whatever the reason, The Jerry Springer Show, now coming of age in its 18th season, will be taking a more focused approach to its programming this year. Lately the stage has run amok with a cast of crazy recurring characters including Reverend Shnorr, (whose role usually consists of marrying......

The towing business has a bit of a bad rap, a perception seemingly validated by new county legislation meant to put a damper on towing shenanigans. But Wrecked, SpeedTV’s new reality show premiering this month, features local legits O'Hare Towing Service. Business owners Bill and Marci Gratzianna hope the show will help to return some respect to the towing industry, as well as highlight its importance and incredible difficulty: "Marci and I hoped to......

It's sad moment for fans of Twin Peaks and Stargate SG-1. We've just learned that character actor Don Davis passed away on June 29. The cause of death was a massive heart attack. Davis appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows over years (including The X-Files), but we'll remember him best as buttoned-down, extraterrestrial-hunting Major Briggs on Twin Peaks. He had one of the best lines of dialog in the whole series, delivered......

We've made no secret of the fact that we love watching MeTV. You can keep your crappy network reality TV, thank you very much. When it's time to wind down the evening we'll stick with Twilight Zone at 10pm, followed by The Dick Van Dyke Show (which apparently Michelle Obama loves). Especially now that there are two MeTV channels, there's rarely a moment when there isn't a vintage goodie airing that isn't worth watching.......

Mike Kelley's new show Swingtown was supposed to premiere last winter, but the writer's strike shut down production. Instead the hour-long drama debuted on CBS last Thursday, and Kelley actually sees the delay as a blessing in disguise. The show is set in the summer of 1976, and as he astutely points out, it parallels this summer in the sense that tides seem to be shifting. Politics are reorganizing, minds are changing, and our ideals......

An update on the Red Line stoppage: a man was struck and killed by a Red Line train just south of the Chinatown stop at about 4:30 p.m., his body still pinned under the train. Red Line trains are once again running on their designated tracks between Howard and Roosevelt, where they then run on the Green Line tracks to the 35th-Bronzeville Green Line station. [Trib, S-T, CTA] Violence in the City: A man was......

This year Gay Pride Month in Chicago, a.k.a. June, kicks off with a brand new documentary premiering tonight on WTTW. Out & Proud in Chicago highlights almost 150 years of the city’s LGBT history – from the Civil War era through present day. The documentary serves to illuminate the path to liberation for Chicago’s LBGT community, coupling historical milestones with personal vignettes and individual reflection. From the WTTW pressroom: "We're working with voices and history,......

High school students who ride horses in the streets of Philadelphia. An Iraqi who takes to the streets of Savannah to talk to Americans about the war. The life story of people named John Smith. These are some of the stories that will unfold in second season of the TV version of This American Life when it premieres on Showtime Sunday night. Thursday night, in a live performance simulcast to movie theaters across the......

Back in the VHS era we taped a fair amount of movies off TV. Most of the time we were sitting there and editing out the commercials, but now and then we'd use the timer to record something. Those captured commercials, once minor annoyances to fast-forward through, are now fascinating artifacts. Bit by bit we've been digitizing them and posting them on YouTube. A simple search proves that we're not alone: there are scads......

Queen of all media Oprah is facing two lawsuits today, one from a disgruntled audience member and one from a disgruntled other lady. Orit Greenberg is suing Ms. Winfrey for $50,000 plus medical expenses, which is about how much money Oprah's made in the second it's taken you to read this sentence. Greenberg says she was injured on December 5, 2006 at a taping of the show when fellow audience members, in their rush to......

Funny Ha-Ha is a guaranteed good time. Tonight's edition at The Hideout features a host of writers, but seems to be "headlined" by Eric Zorn. We love Zorn, but find it kind of funny his credit is "Chicago Tribune Columnist & Blogger" while Claire Zulkey's is "Blogger & TV Critic for The Onion & Los Angeles Times." Yeah, yeah, yeah, Zulkey rose to fame due to her blog, but even so, once she scored the......

We're not sure than the 2008 White Sox will be any more tolerable to watch than last year's team, but they'll no doubt be easier to listen to -- at least on the radio. That's because Steve Stone will be replacing Chris Singleton alongside Ed Farmer, the team announced on Tuesday. Back in December, the Sox had announced that Stone would be joining the WSCR 670 radio booth for Friday home games -- a total......

Chicago-based Pitchfork, ye olde guardian of all things indie rock and general critical force to be reckoned with, is launching Pitchfork.tv on April 7. When we first saw the press release hit our inbox, we admit our initial reaction was one of great skeptical cynicism. Recently Pitchfork gave a rather naked endorsement to a video game that they just happened to choose the soundtrack for, so the move in to territory dangerously similar to MTV-land......

We've written before about the sad demise of the Chicago Trader Vic's, how it was unceremoniously booted from the Palmer House after the hotel's new owners took over. And we've also sighed about the fact that the reopening of a new Trader Vic's, which was originally supposed to happen in 2006, has still not materialized. Well, we now have some proof that it's finally happening. We even have the address: just north of Oak......

We’ve read (and cried through) her diary and now we get a glimpse into her family photo album. “Anne Frank: A Photo Album” is on display at Ela Area Public Library in Lake Zurich. Funded from a state grant and brought in from the Anne Frank Center in New York, the exhibit features over 70 black and white photos taken by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, who was a talented amateur photographer. The exhibit chronicles......

Filmmaker Taylor Greeson was twelve years old in 1993. That summer, three things occurred: he was ordained with the priesthood in the Mormon church, he lost his virginity to an older man and his older brother Charlie was murdered. Using montages of family photographs and pastoral footage of Montana, where he lived at the time, Greerson revisits that summer in Meadowlark. He uses a cool, seemingly-detached perspective that drains any traces of sensationalism from......

MeTV has been a not-so-guilty pleasure of ours for awhile. Its non-stop parade of vintage TV is a balm to our soul. In fact, we have a Sunday evening routine of sorts. If we're at home, at ten minutes before 5 we fix ourselves a dry martini, with two bleu-cheese stuffed olives, and settle down for back-to-back episodes of Night Gallery (occasionally continuing on for some Twilight Zone if we're feeling especially couch potatoey).......

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Last week the English Premier League announced its intention to play some regular season matches abroad. In previous years, international club teams have found financial success by coming to the United States to play some pre- and post-season friendlies with other international powerhouse clubs or local Major League Soccer clubs. The EPL has obviously realized the potential of taking the league to a new level by playing a select few league games in North America......

Porn is like a money tree. If you need some cash, just go out and shake the silicone until a few hundred thousand dollars drop out. So how exactly can the nation’s foremost “gentlemen’s magazine” be losing money? Playboy announced a 4th-quarter loss today, losing $1.1 million compared with a $3.7 million profit at this time last year. Subscriptions are down, newsstand sales are off, TV revenue has dropped 10%, and apparently Scott Baio isn’t......

Anyone else spot this TV on the Blue Line this morning? Katie Scully writes it "appeared to be riding alone."......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

A native Chicagoan, it's no wonder that Bob Balaban was bitten early on by the movie bug, since his family is the Balaban of the Balaban & Katz movie threater chain. What's more surprising is how many hats he's worn. He's a character actor royale, appearing in films by everyone from Woody Allen and Christopher Guest to Terry Zwigoff and Robert Altman. (But he's probably best known for playing the NBC exec who's obsessed......

Here are some things to do this evening to consider bringing your voter receipt. Politics: The local chapter of Drinking Liberally is hosting a Super Fat Tuesday party at Sheffield's this evening starting at 7 p.m. Stop in, order a pint or two and watch the results roll in from throughout the country. Seriously, it's politics and alcohol. What could go wrong? Art: Chuck Walker's latest exhibit "Through a Glass Darkly" just opened a run......

21st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins accepted Jesse Jackson's endorsement for Cook County State's attorney Sunday at Jackson's South Side Rainbow/PUSH headquarters. A Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll published today shows that there is no clear front-runner in the race for State's Attorney, and most of the county's Democratic power brokers have stayed out of the race. Jesse Jackson Jr endorsed Larry Suffredin earlier this year, ostensibly as part of the on-going feud between the Jacksons and Bill......