WTTW/Chicago

"Tarantella" was an early Super 8 short film directed by Christopher Nolan with his childhood friend Roko Belic. It was made in 1989 while Nolan was studying at University College London. The film aired on "Image Union," a PBS programme in Chicago. It is about the suffering of a young man while he has nightmare about spiders and demons.

Taped for a two-part PBS Soundstage, Petty employs the Chicago locale as an entry into the blues and R&B that are at the foundation of rock & roll, and to a lesser extent, his music. This results in a fascinating and exciting show, where the extensive covers are just as interesting as -- and arguably more interesting than -- the few hits he gets around to playing.

He could have been a character in a Greek tragedy. Rod Blagojevich, the Chicagoan familiarly known as "Blago," was blessed with talent, drive, and charisma, and he capitalized on these qualities to rise to the position of Governor of Illinois. But after a series of disastrous decisions fueled by greed and ambition, he lost it all. Audio-narrated descriptions are available.

Shari Lewis, Lamb Chop, and the gang discover the true meaning of Chanukah in this special holiday program. The story of the special holiday and all its traditions are celebrated with music and song along with Lloyd Bochner, Alan Thicke and Pat Morita.

Quintessential alternative rockers, Sonic Youth, celebrate free-form experimentalism while reinforcing their performance-art driven tradition in this Soundstage performance, recorded on May 7, 2003 at WTTW Grainger Studio in Chicago. The band, which settles just outside the realm of definition, delivers a part rock, part free-form noise, part avant-garde punk performance which features a new song "Sympathy for the Strawberry."

A documentary about the careers of child stars of the '40s in Hollywood, featuring movie clips with Shirley Temple, Margaret O'Brien, and numerous others along with interviews.

Throughout the 1900's, before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1946, black baseball talent blossomed in the Negro Leagues. Baseball buffs still sing the praises of Josh Gibson who could be counted on to hit 70 homeruns in a season, and Satchel Paige who pitched over 100 no-hitters in his career. Only the Ball Was White pays tribute to the many topflight players from the Negro Leagues. Narrated by actor Paul Winfield, the program documents a bygone bittersweet era in baseball and the men who were denied stardom by the color line. Ballplayers throughout the country were interviewed for this program, all of them quick to tell tales of the life, the competition, and the camaraderie. These include: Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Buck Leonard, Jimmy Crutchfield, David Malarcher, Effa Manley, and Quincy Trouppe.

A portrait of a generation at a turning point in 1976: With plans to attend their high school reunion, five members of the first Television Generation gather in an East Village, NYC, apartment where they discuss their dreams, insecurities, past events, and TV shows. They attempt to figure out what to do with their lives as they head toward age 30.

In February 2002, families living in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing development were given a 180 day notice of eviction. In six months, the community that had been their home for generations would be demolished. DISLOCATION chronicles the lives of tenants in one building as they move through the six-month relocation process. The filmmakers follow three families as they prepare for their own move and as they help others around them. Dislocation is a story of a community coping with its own impending demise. It is a tale of courage, hope, and survival.

The history of Chicago's African-American community told like never before -- through the voices of its leading citizens, scholars, artists, politicians, and business leaders.

Discover the rise and fall of the legendary department store Marshall Field’s.

Musicians and nightclub owners reminisce about the heyday of music and dance places on Chicago's South Side during the 1930s through '50s. Swingers and dancers perform music from the time.

The colorful stories of Irish-American immigrants and their descendants who lived the history and exemplify the repeated cycle of the outsider becoming the ultimate Chicago citizen-insider.

In July 1974, a group of Chicago based blues artists who had already achieved legendary status gathered together with some of their younger "blues brethren" from all over the country to pay tribute to the man most responsible for bringing blues from the Mississippi Delta upriver to Chicago, Muddy Waters. Appearing with Muddy that night were his contemporaries Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, Junior Wells and Pinetop Perkins, and from the next generation of blues lovers and performers, Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, Johnny Winter, Dr. John, and Nick Gravenites -- all artists who were on their way to becoming legends themselves. What resulted from that joyous teaming was a truly historic session that not only presented some of the greatest blues classics ever written, but a never-to-be-forgotten hour that truly demonstrates the love of music by one generation for another.

House music is a genre that connects, uplifts, and unites people. It resonates globally and is prevalent on the world’s biggest music stages. Born in Chicago, this sound developed during the turbulent 1970s when a group of predominantly gay Black artists, who faced constant harassment, pioneered a new type of dance music at underground venues. House music became the anthem of safe spaces, free from the racism and homophobia of the outside world, ultimately igniting a cultural and musical revolution.

Grammy Award-winning folk singer John Prine performs his early classics such as "Angel from Montgomery" and "Hello in There" in this 1980 concert filmed for the PBS series "Soundstage," featuring special guest Billy Lee Riley. Interviews with Prine as he tours his Maywood, Ill., hometown and his acoustic versions of "Paradise" and "How Lucky" punctuate live stage performances of songs from his "Bruised Orange" and "Pink Cadillac" albums.

"There was a time, from the late 1940s through the 1960s, when the now-upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood served as the beating heart of Chicago’s huge Puerto Rican community, and the base of operations for a band of Puerto Rican revolutionaries known as the Young Lords. Led by a young man named José 'Cha Cha' Jiménez, the activist group – which evolved from a social club to a street gang to a political force – banded together with the Black Panthers as the Rainbow Coalition to wage war against what they called Mayor Richard J. Daley’s “urban removal of the poor” and the area’s eventual gentrification" (WTTW).

Geoffrey Baer is back to traverse the length and breadth of Chicago’s world-famous “front yard” to explore everything from beloved birds to submerged secrets along Chicago’s lakefront. A fascinating journey from the history of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable to modern-day hikes on Northerly Island, fishing for lake trout, and snorkeling on a prehistoric reef, Touring the Lakefront with Geoffrey Baer Geoffrey takes viewers on a journey to discover how our lakefront was envisioned, built, and defended, and how it has evolved over the centuries.

A look at the screen triumphs and private lives of the screen's number-one singing team.

One of the most loved bands in rock history, as well as one of the most commercially successful-with 50 hit songs in the U.S. alone, 18 gold records, a Grammy, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame-Chicago have maintained the unflagging devotion of millions of devoted fans throughout their 37-year career. ...This DVD documents a live show that was broadcast on PBS in June of 2003 where they play many of their hits from throughout their long career, including `25 or Six to Four,` `You`re the Inspiration,` `Saturday in the Park,` and `Beginnings,` among many others.