The Siskel & Ebert (& Roeper) Movie Review Show Story [ UPDATED ]

I've long been a fan of the old "Siskel & Ebert" movie review shows that I recall watching as far back as the late 70's. Back then it was the only way to get reviews of that nature. However, as the years have gone by, there's been a lot of politics, and changing of technical shows. Not to mention the death of Gene Siskel, and the departure of Roger Ebert too due to severe health problems.

I looked up the show's lineage, and have pieced together bits of it. The title graphics were nicked from Wikipedia, no way could I come up with those on my own. :)

SNEAK PREVIEWS

Originally known as "Opening Soon.. ..at a Theatre Near You" (1975-1977), this original incarnation was produced locally (truly, it was local only) in Chicago. It was a monthly movie review show with Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert. After a couple of successful years in local programming, it was decided to take the show national. So, in 1977, it underwent something which is a recurring theme over the entire legacy of the show, a formal name change. The "Opening Soon" name was dropped, and it was renamed to "Sneak Previews". It was first distributed through PBS in 1977, and ran for five years with Siskel & Ebert at the helm of the show.

They left in 1982 over what appears to be contract disputes (I have no memory of this, I was 17 at the time). The show continued on for quite awhile after Siskel & Ebert left. The final episode aired in 1996, 14 years later. Siskel & Ebert left the show in 1982. The show continued on with other hosts (Jeffrey Lyons, Neal Gabler, & Michael Medved) from that point. Gabler lasted from 1982-1985, being replaced by Medved, who ran through till the end. Jeffrey Lyons was the longest tenured person on the show, lasting 14 years.

I sort of remember this tenure. I was more interested at this point in Siskel & Ebert, so I followed them to the new show, and sort of not watched the other guys who were with the old show. I remember Medved fairly well, the other guys not so much - so I did watch it, but really, I was more interested in Siskel & Ebert.

AT THE MOVIES WITH SISKEL & EBERT

Siskel & Ebert founded this show after departing from the original incarnation. Technically (and legally) this was a separate show. The original was produced by WTTW in Chicago, and this show was produced by Tribune Entertainment, again out of Chicago.

While I don't have any specific recollections about Show 2 over Show 1, I do have a vague recollection of thinking around that time that "Hey, this is really Sneak Previews, just called something else because some people got pissy over money", so I was more intersted in this for the nebulous concept of "this is the same spiritual show, even if legally it is not". Anyway, this show carried on until 1986, when again apparently Siskel & Ebert left over contractual reasons.

And again, it carried on without them, only not nearly as successfully as Sneak Previews. This version of the show only lasted four more years (until 1990), with hosts Rex Reed, Bill Harris, and later on, Dixie Whatley. What's amusing about that is that both Harris & Whatley also had tenures on Entertainment Tonight, and from what I recall, the show under their direction was less about movie reviews in the way Siskel & Ebert had done it, but more of a general entertainment thing, still with a lean towards movies.

SISKEL & EBERT AT THE MOVIES

This gets somewhat confusing. Technically this show is still going, but it started in 1986 with Siskel & Ebert. The original title of the show bears this, going under the name "Siskel & Ebert and the Movies" from 1986 through 1999. The last episode with the two of them together was Jan 23, 1999. So it ran quite a long time with Siskel & Ebert as hosts. That is the bulk of the time. However, in 1999 it starts getting confusing.

SISKEL & EBERT AT THE MOVIES

Gene Siskel announced in February of 1999 that he was taking some time off to deal with a brain tumor, and less than three weeks later, he died of that. There was the tribue to Siskel by Ebert immediately after that, and then Siskel's chair was filled with a series of co-hosts.

ROGER EBERT AND THE MOVIES

Ebert kept going with guest hosts - some were serious attempts at getting a new host (AO Scott, Michael Phillips), some were not (Harry Knowles, Martin Scorsese). The original title was kept until Sep 4, 1999, when it was renamed to "Roger Ebert and the Movies".

EBERT & ROEPER AT THE MOVIES

The guest host thing continued until Ebert picked Richard Roeper as the permanent replacement for Gene Siskel, and the show was renamed again on Sep 10, 2000 to "Ebert & Roeper At the Movies". I grew to really like Richard Roeper, some did not. Here's what I have to say about that... With Gene Siskel gone, that is NOT coming back, so you have to move on. Roger Ebert was still there, and this was still the same program, so you have to accept change. You have to accept SOMEONE. Granted, Richard did a better job than just "being someone", I'm speaking to those who say he will never be Gene Siskel. No he won't. But that's not the point. Ebert & Roeper were NOT going to be Siskel & Ebert. What made that show great from 1975 through 1999 died with Gene Siskel. Given that, I was really behind the selection of Richard Roeper. As you watched the guest stars, you got the feeling more and more they were leaning towards either Richard Roeper or AO Scott, guys who were guesting way more than anyone else at that point.

EBERT & ROEPER

The title was yet changed again in the name of length to "Ebert & Roeper" in September of 2001. The show stabilized under this format and lasted for about five years this way.

This went on until 2006, when Roger Ebert had his thyroid problems, and was knocked off air for those reasons. The 2006-2007 season was completed with guest hosts for Roger.

AT THE MOVIES WITH EBERT & ROEPER

For the return of the 2007-2008 season, the show's formal name was changed again to "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper". On April 13, 2008 Michael Phillips was named the permanent on air replacement for Roger Ebert, although the name remained "ATM with Ebert & Roeper".

It was short lived, though as Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert said on July 21, 2008 that they would both be leaving the show over contractual and format reasons. Roger Ebert took the "Thumbs Up" with him, as it was a copyright owned by Siskel's widow and Roger themselves, that did not lie with the producers of the show. It probably had something to do with the fact that the thumbs up/down had disappeared from the show some time before they formally checked out. That's probably part of what contributed to the "artistic direction" remarks we saw around the separation.

Although, in researching this article I ran across an article where Richard Roeper clearly calls out Ben Lyons as being "stupid" and being the reason he left the show. Wow.

And so it ends..

AT THE MOVIES (goes into the toilet)

On July 22nd, 2008 it was announced that the new hosts would be Ben Lyons & Ben Mankiewicz. This was widely disparaged by long time fans of the show (some going so far as to create a Stop Ben Lyons website), and it proved to be true, as their incarnation of the show was generally regarded as completely awful. The show's format was changed, expanded, and bore little in common with the Siskel & Ebert lineage it held (legally). Mankiewicz wasn't all that bad, really. However, Ben Lyons was SO awful, it just drug the whole thing down. Had Mankiewicz been paired with someone else, he might still be there.

One interesting note - Ben Lyons was the son of Jeffrey Lyons, who was one of the replacements for the original Siskel & Ebert show Sneak Previews. That doesn't justify anything, Ben Lyons was still damn awful, despite that quirk to the show's past.

I actually had recorded the final Two Bens episode the same weekend the new hosts came on (see next bit). The final Two Bens episode had gotten better then the absolute crap it was when they started, it had elevated itself to "pretty bad" from the spot it was in earlier in the season.

AT THE MOVIES (gets some cred back)

The two Bens experiment was fortunately realized as bad by the producers, and on Aug 5, 2009 it was announced that the two Bens would not be returning for the 2009/2010 season, which started on Sep 5, 2009. They were replaced by A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips. Both were guest hosts for Roger Ebert during his health problem period; Phillips being named the brief permanent replacement for Ebert in 2008. Much was made in the press for the change in hosts about going back to "serious reviews", and "serious writers". If that was the case, then why did they just not bring back Richard Roeper with Phillips, and restore it to the way it was before the Two Bens came onboard? Probably too many bridges burnt there. Anyway, Scott/Phillips are a welcome return to form, will definitely be watchable. Some of the post Ebert changes remain, but it's mostly back to the way it was (if not with the same hosts).

As I write this, the first two episodes have aired with Scott/Phillips. It's definitely good again. Given they legally can't use thumbs up/down, the "See it, Skip it, Rent it" sort of works. I've seen some backlash against that, but I find my wife and I saying a lot that we will wait for a DVD release to watch a movie, won't spend the boatload it now costs to see a movie in the theatres. They have kept the "chair" motif from the two Bens era of the show, the old movie theatre / balcony idea is gone. Shame, as I always felt that added to the aura of the show. Below is a promo video for AO Scott & Michael Phillips, which is worth checking out. Also there's this video, which is Scott & Phillips talking about movies from their past.

Another thing I found out in researching this article is that the official site for the "At the Movies" show has a huge archive of video reviews of movies they've reviewed over the years. I'm unclear if it's every single movie they've reviewed, but wow. That's a massive past video archive, and it's a blast to run through and look at movies I liked in the past to see what they said. It's also a good tool to find out how different the various eras of the show were. Check out the review of Dragnet from 1987 with Siskel & Ebert, Batman Begins in 2005 with Ebert & Roeper, Casino Royale in 2006 with Roeper & AO Scott, Ratatouille in 2007 with Roeper & Katherine Tulich, Indy IV in 2008 with Roeper & Phillips, Twilight in 2008 with the two Bens, and finally Scott & Phillips' entire show from the weekend before I wrote this story (The Informant, The Other Man, September Issue, Whiteout).

So the original show started by Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert in 1986 is still going now under the name "At the Movies" with rather respectable hosts going forward. This bodes well for the (legal) legacy of the program. However...

EBERT & ROEPER PRESENT "TALKING MOVIES", NO WAIT.. "TWO THUMBS UP".. NO WAIT...

It was stated at the same time when Ebert & Roeper left At the Movies that they would have some new show. That announcement was made on July 21, 2008. They said something like it would be announced "soon", and would restore the legacy of the original Siskel & Ebert show:

TALKING MOVIES

Right when Roeper & Ebert departed, I set up a Google News Alert for "Richard Roeper". I wanted to be told when their new show was talked about. Nothing happened with it after that. It was a dark time, as the old show was only on with the two Bens. Then on June 12, 2009, my alert sent me the following text:

The Thumbs will be returning to television in a new program named Talking Movies, with Richard Roeper, Michael Phillips and Christy Lemire. ...

The alert stopped there, as they don't email you the whole thing, just the first line or so. So I clicked on over immediately and found the link was a 404 Not Found. It had been taken away. What I suspect happened was someone was prepping an article about that, and it got published to the RSS feed, and then deleted before anyone (well, almost anyone saw it). This happens to me a lot when you use RSS feeds as your primary source of access to websites. Anyway, the link was gone, and I could not find anything online about this story other than this link, so I wasn't sure what happened here, exactly. Whatever this "Talking Movies" was, it never got off the ground. I don't know Christy Lemire, but Richard Roeper & Michael Phillips were the hosts who held the spiritual line of sucession going back to the Sneak Previews days of the 70's, so it felt right to have them together. Both were hand picked replacements for Siskel & Ebert (by Ebert themselves), so I'll buy them as the carriers of the flame.

NOTE: I got more info on this "Show 4" stuff - check the update further down.

EBERT & ROEPER PRESENT "TWO THUMBS UP"

But again, nothing happened. It just sat there. On September 7th, 2009 I had discovered that Roger Ebert & Richard Roeper had been working on a website project called "Two Thumbs Up". It had the URL of http://www.twothumbsup.tv. It appeared from what I could tell to be an internet based version of the old TV show. However..

When I saw it in Sep of 2009, it was stale, and had been abandoned more or less, there was nothing current when I saw it. I don't know when it went online, either. This snuck out there with little fanfare, or I would have heard about it, since I was looking for info on them. Either I totally botched it, or this really was a small time thing. Either way, not much appeared to be going on with it, although Christy Lemire's name was still attached to it.

On the day I wrote this section of the article (Sep 15, 2009), I went to grab a screen capture of the site for use here, and discovered it had gone. I have no idea what happened now. If you go there, you get a "Forbidden" error, which generally tells me one of two things. Either the site's server has a serious configuration error preventing you from seeing anything, or someone just nuked the entire content off the server, and there's nothing for it to show. Either way, whatever this experiment was, it appears to be gone.

The trademark is still in use, though. If you look at Roger Ebert's current reviews, they're called "Two Thumbs Up® reviews". So it's still out there. But how it will manifest itself on TV?

What's going on, guys? What happened to the "coming soon" (In the summer of 2008) show that was going to restore the legacy of Siskel & Ebert? Some of us are still waiting, and as you can see by this article are still paying attention. While the old show is in capable hands with Scott & Phillips, I want the Richard Roeper and Roger Ebert show to return. It was said that it would be Richard Roeper & Michael Phillips with Christy Lemire on screen. Well, Phillips has another gig now, so he's out. No matter who is picked as the other host, what the heck is going on with THAT?

UPDATE NOVEMBER 29 2009: ROEPER GOES IT ALONE

This section is based on new information that's come to light since I published this article two months ago. The "In Closing" part is from the original article, but this part is new. So what's happened?

It appears that the attempt at Show #4 has failed, and will not be happening. The why of that I'll get into in a minute, but we do have some solid new stuff.

First off, on Nov 24th, I found an article saying that Richard Roeper was going to be getting back to the movie review thing. He isn't on a new show (like we expected), but he's going to be doing movie reviews from his website, and via some unspecified "deal" with the Starz cable network. The reviews will appear weekly on his website, they will then be on Starz. I wonder if they'll be sandwiched in between movies akin to what is shown by Leonard Maltin on DirecTV. Anyway, it appears from what I read that he'll be doing this by himself. While I'm eager to hear what he has to say again, part of what made him work I think was being with someone else. We'll have to see how they go. Here's a quote from Richard about the "new venture"...

"I'm so excited about this new project," Roeper said Monday. "As much as I loved doing 'Ebert & Roeper,' this will have much more of an unfiltered, uncut, viral feel. As someone at Starz put it, they wanted 'Roeper uncut.' If a film is a piece of shit, I'll say it's a piece of shit. I love the idea of seeing the movie and turning around immediately and telling you what I think about it in a conversational manner. In some cases I'll be recording reviews right there on the street as I'm exiting the theater or the screening room."

There was a minor stink about it the next day from Roger Ebert thinking that Roeper thought he was censored on Ebert & Roeper, and I could see that, but Richard came out with a retraction saying that was not the case. Still, it made for an interesting bit of back and forth for a day there around Thanksgiving. :) One final amusing thing, Richard's website says "Richard Roeper & the Movies" - nice throwback name. Richard had an intro video initially posted on his website (but was later removed - I don't know why). It parodies the recent movie, Paranormal Activities. It's here:

So Richard will be doing movie reviews. That likely brings an end to the hope that the old phoenix will rise from the ashes, as he's now gone off on his own without Roger Ebert. Or does it? Ebert can never be on TV again, so he'll need a "friend" to be on camera, which I assumed would be Roeper. However, in Roeper's article he does leave the door open a bit for a return to syndication, which I'd realy like to see. Hopefully it's with Roger Ebert and the thumbs. That needs to come back.

Which brings us to the other part of the update. Roger Ebert finally spoke out about all of this stuff, the old show, Richard Roeper, the two Bens, etc.. There was a really great journal update by him here detailing a ton of stuff. If you've read this far, you need to read that article too. Roger goes into issues of his own health, what happened behind the scenes after his boot off the air from thyroid cancer, and talks about other names (Philips, Scott, others) that could have been permanent replacements (some of that is covered above).

But the sad part is how Roger talks about the end of his incarnation of the show - the point where the "producers" decided on destroying the old classic balcony stage instead of donating it to something like the Smithsonian. I didn't realize that kind of stuff happened.

But the final nail was when the studio hired AO Scott and brought back Michael Phillips to host the show, Phillips went to Roger Ebert's house personally to tell him. I thought that was classy. Apparently Roger offered to the producers the legal return of the thumbs and his own endorsement of the show (which would have brought a nice closure to all this), but he was rebuffed, saying "the show has moved on". That's sad. That's really sad.

Roger also goes into far more detail on "Show 4" (my term) than I knew of. The reason THAT didn't happen is due to the economy according to Roger. But he says the show can probably still happen, and from what Roger said, it seems to be more than a "glimmer", but not exactly a raging inferno waiting to break out either. But I remain hopeful that the original show's lineage (if not the legal version of it) will rise from the ashes.

Whatever Roger Ebert ends up doing, whether it be with Christy Lemire or Richard Roeper, or someone else, I think there's enough room for their show, and Roger's old show still going on with Scott & Phillips. I'd watch both for sure.

IN CLOSING

So there we are. A twisted history of the Siskel & Ebert movie review show. Many names, many incarnations, I believe I've covered it all. Roger, I know you're online, and do the blog thing, so if you see this, I wanted to say thank you. Have had fun all these years watching, and Richard? I thank you for sitting in the seat all those years for Gene. I miss your show guys, hurry back, please.

I'll leave you with some amusing videos I saw on Youtube of various funny bits from episodes over the years. These show that Richard Roeper & Roger Ebert could still complain at each other like Siskel & Ebert did, they weren't the bland pair that I've read about over the years. Enjoy.

God bless Gene Siskel.