The Weird and Wonderful World of Chess Now

April 7, 2013 11:23 AM

For four years and seventy-nine episodes, Manhattan Neighborhood Network's public access show Chess Now was a revolving door of exuberant hosts (including fan favorites as Tana and Checkerboard Phil), technical difficulties, prank calls, and remarkably little chess. The complete archives are on YouTube.
posted by Shadax (9 comments total)

Chess Queen.

old but cool article.
posted by clavdivs at 11:37 AM on April 7, 2013

thank you thank you thank you
posted by telstar at 2:11 PM on April 7, 2013

Everyone needs to click the Tana link.

Very cool find, Shadax!
posted by sidereal at 5:19 PM on April 7, 2013

Actual tears of joy, Tana wins every internet.
posted by Damienmce at 5:44 PM on April 7, 2013

This is amazing, you all really must watch it.
posted by Damienmce at 5:48 PM on April 7, 2013

Trying to place that Tana accent, it's like Ukraine + Brooklyn
posted by sidereal at 5:38 AM on April 8, 2013

Damn nice work
posted by Bender at 10:15 AM on April 8, 2013

sidereal: "Everyone needs to click the Tana link. "

oh my, it appears the camera man has been drinking. this is fantastically awful!
posted by mannequito at 2:17 PM on April 8, 2013

So back in 2007, I was looking for a career change and landed at MNN, first as a sysadmin then later as their Interim Tech Director. It was, by far, the weirdest place I've ever worked. You never knew what kind of crazy characters were going to walk through the door on any given day. I only lasted a year there before high-tailing it elsewhere, mostly due to some pretty inept management decisions. I sometimes wish I still had access to the many years of archived crazy-shit shows. I regret that I never started a blog that highlighted the weirdest and craziest public access shows--it would have been very popular.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 5:47 PM on April 8, 2013