If you'd forgotten what a comedy mecca Chicago is, let Amy Poheler remind you ...

Yep, take her word for it (via NBC Chicago). Improv Olympic — OK, iO ... whatever, copyright nazis — is the other place to explore, besides Second City, for top-notch hilarity. Go for the laughs, stay for the eventual bragging rights and being able to one day drop at a party, "Oh yeah, he's hilarious as the megastar of 'SNL,' and you know, we saw him before he was famous back in Chicago ..."

Catch iO's Tuesday night show this very night, "Drained," featuring Brian Wilson and Dina Facklis (a master of instinct, as noted in a Trib review of the show). Shows are at 10 p.m. (oh come on, you'll sleep when you're dead) and cost a whopping $5.

Also tonight, the now-established improv team the Reckoning — aw, the late great Bastion site described them as "a psychotic dreamscape of madcap comedy" — is on every Tuesday (10:30 p.m.) and Thursday (10:15 p.m.) for, again, 5 whole bucks.