SELECTIONS from THE SPOT | MAY 2008 | archives: last issue
LOCAL LAMPOONING
WTTW and Schadenfreude give Chicago some tough love with a new late-night comedy show
by Kim Jeffries
photograph by Joe Michael Reyes
A hipster and a meathead walk into a television studio.
While it sounds like the set-up to a well-planned joke, it's really the groundwork for a new show for Chicago's own public TV station, WTTW.
Look more closely and you'll see two comedians in character heckling each other at WTTW headquarters while filming a segment for the pilot of new late-night comedy show IL-Informed. Between mocking WTTW's own phone-a-thon pledge drive, creatively reimagining the real estate market and poking fun at Mayor Daley's ramblings, IL-Informed simultaneously lampoons and reveres all things Chicago.
Last year, WTTW associate producers Paris Schutz and Sarah Warner had a reality check: Why was there no local current events satire show? The pair came up with a Saturday Night Live-meets-The Daily Show framework and approached Chicago-based comedians Schadenfreude to inquire about consulting. The inquiry evolved
into the group signing on to help write and star in the show. "The thing about Schadenfreude was that they're grizzled veterans who have been doing this for 10 years -- plus they have a journalistic knowledge of current events in Chicago that I think nobody else has," says Schutz, who is co-producing the show with Warner. "They knew what had happened that day in City Hall; they knew what was going on in county government. Whereas most comedians in this city want to pay attention to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and more national stuff, these guys are really focused on the local stuff."
Joining forces, Schadenfreude -- Kate James, Justin Kaufmann, Sandy Marshall and Stephen Schmidt (Los Angeles-based fifth member Adam Witt contributed from the West Coast) -- and Schutz and Warner workshopped dozens of scenarios, and ultimately whittled the material down to squeeze into 30 minutes of air time. "I think the show will work because the audience is going to see WTTW putting on a comedy show and not being afraid to make fun of itself," Marshall says. "In some ways it's kind of insular, but
it's also kind of a duty to poke fun at the medium you're a part of. Or, maybe that's just why we never get asked back."
For a public television station whose most popular shows include evening news program Chicago Tonight and restaurant-review staple Check, Please!, IL-Informed is an attempt to expand their demographic and reach out to a more diverse audience. "There was an
80-year-old woman who volunteers at WTTW all the time," Schutz says of the show's in-studio audience. "There was also an 8-year-old boy who got his braces caught on his mouth and started bleeding and crying. It was just a very strange mix of people."
WTTW hopes this new show -- the survival of which hinges on the reception of the pilot -- will fill a gap in programming and provide a local outlet for social and political commentary. "We are really into public television and what it stands for -- to educate, to inspire, to entertain," Warner says. "It's for you, it's public, it's exciting -- you can learn something about your community. You're
a part of the community and we're a part of the community; we're just sharing information and ideas about it."
And nothing fosters community like the ghosts of comedians past haunting your workspace. Andy Kaufman taped a 1983 episode of Soundstage in the IL-Informed studio; that historical tidbit inspired everyone involved to push harder to continue that legacy in innovative programming. "There was this Andy Kaufman show, this history in Chicago, and WTTW took a risk to put it on, and here we are -- what, 25 years later? -- doing it in the same studio," Kaufmann says, a hint of awe in his voice. "There's no other place you can do that."
IL-Informed debuts May 4 at 10:30 p.m. on WTTW; for more information visit wttw.com or schadenfreude.net
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