The Definitive Guide to Comedy
When there’s smoke, there’s often fire. And when that fire happens in the Piper’s Alley complex in Old Town Chicago that’s home to The Second City, all’s well that ends well with a joke or two on social media. But even as Chicago firefighters arrived on the scene at 1612 …
Today’s guest is Horatio Sanz, born in Chile, raised in Chicago and known by many as cast member for eight seasons on Saturday Night Live. His other credits start with The Second City troupe in Chicago – where he also was an original member of The Upright Citizens Brigade – …
Anne Meara, an actress and renowned comedian nominated for Emmys, Golden Globes and Tonys who started performing comedy with The Second City’s parent troupe, The Compass Players, and enjoyed a six-decade run as comedy and life partner with Jerry Stiller as Stiller and Meara, has died. Meara was 85. Meara …
Before Parks and Recreation, before SNL, before the Upright Citizens Brigade set up shop in New York City, Amy Poehler was a fresh-faced college grad studying with the rogue improv mastermind Del Close and performing with The Second City. In 1995, Poehler and Close starred together in a pilot called …
“Taking a risk — maybe a tiny one, maybe a giant leap, into the unknown.” Spend the next 14 minutes with Susan Messing, who tells an audience last month at a TedX UChicago event that when she wanted to grow up, she dreamed of being goalie for the New York Rangers, …
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has a new correspondent, and his name is Jordan Klepper. Klepper files his first on-air report tonight, “live” from “Ukraine.” And here that is/was! Comedy Central’s news parody program lost two correspondents late in 2013 to other shows — Al Madrigal is co-starring in NBC’s …
Stephen Colbert must keep up appearances as blowhard mouthpiece “Stephen Colbert” on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, but at the tail end of Monday night’s episode, “Stephen Colbert” offered that if he, in fact, were a comedian…”as a young, bookish man with glasses looking for a role model, I might …
Writer/director/comedian Harold Ramis died early this morning, four years after first being diagnosed with the health problems that caused his autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis. Ramis was 69. Ramis was born in Chicago on Nov. 21, 1944, and moved back to the Windy City in 1996 while still a hugely successful writer …
The Second City unearthed and uploaded a comedy first from its archives on Monday, as we can see the July 1990 debut of Chris Farley’s motivational speaker character, Matt Foley, who scares children by telling them they might end up like him, living in a van down by the river. …
Here’s a short documentary for your Throwback Thursday needs, no matter what day it may be. Improv Legends has put together several minutes of interview footage with founders and early participants in The Second City improv and sketch comedy company in Chicago — including the late Bernie Sahlins and the …
