TVSquad

When illness prevented Roger Ebert from doing the movie review show he had done since 1982, everyone knew that change was inevitable. But no one could have predicted this much change, not even Ebert.

The Chicago Sun-Times movie critic and original host of At The Movies with his longtime partner Gene Siskel talked about how producers completely remade the show.

The changes ranged from the show's hosts down to the famous balcony set that the studio "tore at our set with sledge-hammers, and it collected in a dumpster in the alley."

[via TVTattle]

This is both hysterical and bittersweet. Someone has found footage of film critic Roger Ebert and his late partner in crime, Gene Siskel, shooting promos for their syndicated program Siskel & Ebert & the Movies. Listen as they both go off on a hilarious tongue-in-cheek rant about WASPs and Protestantism, laugh as they try to get through yet another promo while lobbing insults at one another, and try not to wet your pants when Gene explains that Roger's answer to every question he's asked at McDonald's is "yes."

Funny as all of this is, it does make me miss watching these two guys lock horns with one another. Richard Roeper does okay holding his own against Roger, but it's nothing compared to how he and Gene used to go after one another in what often seemed like an extremely vicious and callous manner. And yet, when it was all said and done they still remained friends.

Note: Links above contain swearing, so probably NSFW.

[via Metafilter]