This year’s Chicago Humanities Festival, which begins today, is devoted to a topic everyone can relate to: laughter. The kick-off begins appropriately on the South Side (where the roots of improv grow deep).  Here’s the breakdown:

• Tim and Tom: A Comedy in Black and White will take place from 2-3pm today at the DuSable Museum of African American History at 740 East 56th Place. Tim Reid was a Dupont Marketing Manager, and Tom Dressen was an insurance salesman when they met in 1968.  They were at a Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting in Chicago and decided to form a comedy duo, Tim and Tom. Through the increasingly tumultuous ’60s, they were the first (and only) black and white comedy duo. Here, they’ll reflect on their time together through an exciting period in Chicago’s history.

• From 4:30-5:30 PM at the International House at 1414 East 59th Street, An Incomplete History of Comedy in Hyde Park will feature Anne Libera, executive artistic director of The Second City Training Centers, and Sheldon Patinkin, founding member of The Second City and chair emeritus of the Columbia College Chicago Theater Department as they take the audience through the history of Hyde Park’s role in comedy.Chicago comedy might bring up associations with the impov group Second City, but Hyde Park was actually a pivotal place for the development of improvisational comedy. Second City itself came out of a comedy group at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. The evolution and development of Second City included the Compass Players, with Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Wait Until Dark), Elaine May (Primary Colors, the Birdcage), and Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Charlie Wilson’s War), and has concluded with the current form of improv we see today.