Once, while visiting 'The Late Show,' David Letterman introduced Jeff Dunham as "a man who has twice won the prestigious Ventriloquist of the Year Award," to which the crowd tittered. However, when Dunham came out with his Walter character, he killed, as usual.   

From the humblest of beginnings Adam Young has built a 21st Century Pop juggernaut called Owl City that's traveled the information superhighway on a meteoric rise to fame and acclaim. Opening on Young's current tour is the lovely and talented Lights, whose birth name is Valerie Poxleitner. In a way, you could call her the female and/or Canadian version of Owl City. The similarities are striking.  

Whether he knows his '80s Synth Pop or not, Owl City has struck a chord with everyone from Gen Xers to the tween set. Though Owl City is compared to contemporary groups like The Postal Service, echoes of Kraftwerk, New Order and OMD are evident, even if Young doesn’t know who the forefathers of Techno Pop are exactly. He plays a sold out show with Lights at the Madison Theater.  

Comedian Vince Morris isn’t sure at what point he realized he could be funny for a living. “I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure out if I’m being funny for a living,” he says with a laugh. “I realized about two or three years after starting out that I can do this for my career.” He performs at Go Bananas Thursday-Sunday.  

Though he has plenty of material about things like deer not being able to hear car horns and what it was like growing up poor, Jimmy Dore describes his current set as more “current eventsy.” With the success of his DVD/concert special Citizen Jimmy, the Chicago native is taking on more of today’s hot-button issues. “Right now I’m talking about the bailout, the healthcare thing. Gay marriage and medical marijuana, the usual topics.” Of course, it’s not all serious subjects. Dore performs Thursday-Sunday at Go Bananas.  

There are many reasons why you might not have heard of this fine sitcom. It initially ran on Showtime, before pay cable was a hip destination for original programming. A broadcast outlet picked it up, but FOX was only two years into its existence and audiences were still finding out about the “fourth network.”  

Every now and then, some entertainment publication tries to come up with a list of the funniest sitcom episodes of all time. There are a lot of great choices to be sure. “Soup Nazi” (Seinfeld), “The One Where Everybody Finds Out” (Friends) “Turkey’s Away” (WKRP in Cincinnati), the list really could go on and on...  

For Troy Baxley, comedy wasn’t a life-long ambition so much as it was a survival tool. “I started school very early,” he explains, “so I was smaller than other kids. Growing up, I had to be funny and a smart ass to protect myself.” He performs at Go Bananas Thursday-Sunday.  

In addition to the popular Showtime series 'Weeds,' comedian/actor Kevin Nealon is probably most widely known for his work on 'Saturday Night Live,' where he anchored the "Weekend Update" segment for so many years. While he skillfully parodied current events on that program, these days his outlook is more domestic, and that's reflected in his stand-up set.  

At first glance it’s easy to dismiss The Big Bang Theory. Some might have no time for what appears to be clichéd aspects of geekdom. Indeed, there’s lots of video game playing, comic book collecting and Star Trek references to be had here.