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Thursday, February 23

True Confessions: Chic-a-go-go

by Mike on Thu 23 Feb 2006 08:27 PM EST

Miss Mia and Ratso

This probably won't make a lot of sense to those of you who either do not or cannot watch American public access television...That having been said, here is my confession: Chic-a-go-go is one of my favorite TV shows. I am not sure if this says more about my personal tastes or more about the state of American television, but I really, really like this show.

Chic-a-go-go is a public access show that is produced by a crew of volunteers from a local cable channel in Chicago and it is rebroadcast by many other public access stations, including a channel out of Dayton. The show has been on the air for 10 years and they have filmed over 200 shows. Chic-a-go-go is hosted by "Miss Mia" and her sidekick "Ratso.” It’s probably worth noting that Ratso is a large, plush rat puppet. The show is a "dance show" that looks like what you might get if "Soul Train" was filmed in the basement of a thrift store. The dancers on the show are always an eclectic hodgepodge of children, hipsters, punks, ex-hippies, and all sorts of other folks and they dance to just about anything from R&B to new wave and punk.

Each episode also features one or two “live” performances by local and independent bands (once in a while they do manage to book a band from a major label, though). I use the term “live performance” very loosely, because the performances are usually lip-synched...Better make that barely lip-synched in many cases. Around the end of each show, the audience is usually treated to some hijinks from Miss Mia and Ratso. Ratso's shtick is to tell horrible, horrible jokes, but he is usually mic'ed so badly that his punch lines are muffled and unintelligible. I think the crew mic's the puppet instead of the puppeteer. The show always closes with the performance of something called the "El Train" line dance. I guess you have to see this part to really understand it.

There's something about this show that mesmerizes me and whenever it's on, I stop what I am doing to watch. Since public access schedules are relatively unpredictable, I usually catch it by chance when I am flipping channels late at night. It's always a pleasant surprise whenever I get the opportunity to enjoy this bit of fun and weirdness.