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Back in 2009 a guy named Edward McNally wrote an essay for the Washington Post about his life growing up on the same block as filmmaker John Hughes in Chicago, and how over the years he's been unfairly accused of being one of the inspirations for Ferris Bueller. Except he very much is one of the main inspirations for the character, and one look at that essay recalls several scenes from Ferris Bueller's Day Off that happened to McNally in real life.  Many of Hughes' characters and movies were inspired by his own real-life experiences. Planes, Trains and Automobiles, for example, was inspired by a very real trip Hughes took from Chicago to New York, except he got stuck in Witchita and didn't make it home for another five days. With Ferris...

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I’ve decided to push all the Tracy Morgan news into a special edition section of Weekend Meme on page two. Feel free to catch up there.

As I write this, we’re less than 24 hours from the start of the Tony Awards, and our man Neil Patrick Harris has been making the interview circuit. He’s promising the “edgiest Tony’s yet” but much of that seems to depend on whether the 14-time nominated The Book of Mormon can get a song past the censors. As for Nph, he’s not going to make himself the center of the show, and you won’t see him in Spider-Man spandex. Spoilsport. Obviously, I’ll be tweet-snarking the whole thing live.

The Seattle Mariners have become the 4,785,987th baseball team to announce an It Gets Better video. Actually, I’m really happy to see them jump into the project, but I...

Overshadowed somewhat by Molly Ringwald's candid John Hughes reminiscence in the Nyt yesterday was a similar article in the Washington Post, penned by the man who may well have inspired the iconic character of Ferris Bueller. Edward McNally grew up on the same street as Hughes and when the two went to high school, McNally had a tally of absences, car-borrowing adventures, and outlandish excuses that would make even Bueller blush. So what became of our real-life Ferris after he graduated?...

The death of 80's teen movie writer/director John Hughes has unearthed a bunch of new trivia on Hughes' filmography. For instance, did you know that the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was actually based on Hughes' child hood friend? Edward McNally has written an essay for The Washington Post in remembrance of his friend, filmmaker, John Hughes. Here is an excerpt: "Movie director John Hughes and I grew up on the same street in our home town of Northbrook, Ill. We both graduated from Glenbrook North, the high school where he filmed scenes from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "The Breakfast Club," where his mom worked and two sets of our sisters were classmates. Because for years I was relentlessly pursued by a remarkably humorless Glenbrook dean about attendance, pranks and off-campus excursions -- and because my best friend was in fact named Buehler -- I've spent...