A television program broadcast in "Low Definition Mono!" on Chicago's local PBS affiliate (WTTW). The show is a Chicago institution, well-known and well-watched.
Each week the show features lifts up a proverbial rock and reveals some bizarre or kitch life swarming just beneath the surface of everyday Chicago-- things that no tourist and even few locals would know about.
The show's motto is no studio, no personnel and no money. To discourage "pretend eccentrics", the camera crews drop in on their intended interviewees unannounced.
Topics have included The Merry Gangsters Literary Society; Blue Man Group auditions; a 24-hour, Elvis-only radio station; a man who buys turkey heads from the butcher, dresses them up as celebrities, and sells them for $200; an evangelical Christian 1930's-style radio soap opera operating out of a downtown storefront studio; and people with bizarre collections, like animal skulls, vintage stainless steel appliances, and antique surgical tools.