Museum of Broadcast Communications — Attraction in Chicago

What a great experience. Wow. The museum was overtaken by "Saturday Night Live" memorabilia. From desks and telegrams, to costumes and props we felt like we were there. The way it was setup was so you could experience as if you were a part of the cast.

The exhibits were, in many cases hands-on. We got to sit on the Wayne's World couch, saw recordings of cast members from the early days up to today, and did a lot of walking in general. I strongly recommend everyone who has any interest in SNL to go see this while you can.

I am still very interested in seeing the rest of the museum when the exhibit is not there. What we did get to see was a collection of old radios and TV sets; we saw memorabilia from Chicago TV shows like Bozo the Clown; we even got to sit at a weather desk with green screen.

Of course, as with any museum, they are not lacking in gift shops. Even though it is a relatively small museum they have two. The one at the end of the tour had an area where you could have your picture taken at the Weekend Update desk and have a host superimposed. For $20, it was fun and will help keep good...

The Museum of Broadcast Communications has been a place I have wanted to check out for a while now. One time they had an entire SNL exhibit but I didn't get to check it out. They had a temporary exhibit from the rock and roll hall of fame which had a wide variety of tv memorabilia. Some memorabilia included items from the Ed Sullivan show, Saturday Night Live, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance outfit, Jackson 5 outfits, and Bozo the clown's outfits. Depending on how much you chose to read and watch, it can take you 30 minutes if you don't read a lot or 2 hours if you read and watch all the information provided. There is also a National Radio Hall of Fame. I didn't have the energy to go through all of that but it was about 2 rooms filled with various types of vintage radios and highlighted the different radio personalities that shaped radio. Definitely not a very popular museum but for $15 a person, it's not a waste of money if you like to see some historic objects that you can't see every day. Also a great change of pace if you are in Chicago but don't want to go to the popular museums, be shopping or...

For someone who grew up when Chicago had only one station WBKB-Channel 4, I was extremely disappointed. There was very little Chicago TV, with only a showing from WGN-TV-9, over looking Chicago's 3rd station WENR-7 / and 4th WNBQ-5 as well. When I think of Chicago TV, I think of Kukla,Fran and Ollie. Especially since we got our TV on the day they debuted Oct.13,1947 and was called "Junior Jamboree". Most of the displays came from the Network Shows of the 1950s. There was one room dedicated to Chicago Sports and had early clips of local ads and a few moments of Cubs/Sox/Bears/ history... but little about their early broadcasters or wrestling and boxing arenas. With today's great interactive displays available... I found them lacking imagination. Chicago had many local TV personalities and none were to be found, Like Ernie Simon,Two-Ton Baker, Whispering Joe Wilson, and Irv Kupsinet. There was nothing new and what they...