Gene Siskel January 26, 1946-February 20, 1999

And we all thought Ebert would go first.

Ok, now that the tasteless joke that everyone has used is out of the way, let’s get on with my rather paltry attempt at a tribute to one half of the most important critical duo of all time.

As a movie lover, I’ve been watching this guy for years. When I heard that he had died last Saturday I felt it a little deeper than I thought I would have. I took him and his partner, Roger Ebert, more seriously than most critics. Of course, that’s not saying a whole lot.

The pairing of these two guys, though, was an inspired one. They kind of looked like Jack Sprat and his wife. Total opposites in looks and, sometimes, tastes. They would argue over the most minute details of movies, but there was something lying under the fights that told us that they were really good friends. After all, who hasn’t had a discussion like that with their best friend? I know I have them all the time. I think my best friend is deranged when he doesn’t like a movie that I thought was brilliant. (This is one reason that I think we would be great on a review show. Anybody got a station they want to fill up?)

Siskel and Ebert started out as rival reporters for the two big papers in Chicago, the Tribune and the Sun-Times. They were pretty fierce rivals, too. In fact, Siskel was pretty unscrupulous in his tactics. He once fell asleep under a table at the tv station they worked at. When he woke up he overheard Ebert talking on the phone and stole the story from him.

When they were offered a show together they didn’t want to do it. They hated each other. That was 1975 and the show was Opening Soon. A year later it became Sneak Previews and they were still not really speaking outside of work. At some point they started using Spot, The Wonder Dog to show the “dog of the week.”

Soon, though, in 1982 they would change the title to At The Movies and they were already friends and they replace Spot with a skunk. In 1986 it became Siskel And Ebert At The Movies and they dropped the animal act. Probably a good idea. This is also when they brought aboard the infamous “thumbs up/thumbs down” icon. The show was nationwide and and broadcast television. Soon they would become two of the most important people in Hollywood without actually living there.

Siskel and Ebert would go on for minutes (and probably could go on for hours if it wasn’t just a thirty minute show) about how stupid the other one was. There was a clip on tonight’s tribute show where Ebert gave Cop And A Half (!) a thumbs up. Now, that’s the movie with Burt Reynolds as a cop who has to take care of a precocious little kid. Yeah. That’s gotta be good. Ebert said that it had a connection between an adult and a kid that he missed in movies like Home Alone 2. Siskel looked at his friend and said, “Where’s you red hat and beard, Santa? You just gave them a great big gift.” It was repartee like this that kept the show going for over twenty years. They even got personal a few times, as only good friends can.

The great thing about these two is that they have a sense of humor about themselves. They showed up on Late Night With David Letterman and The Tonight Show back when Johnny Carson was the master of late night. They took their act with them, often arguing about movies or just life in general. They would also have fun with parodying their own image. Their one appearance on a non-talk tv show was on The Critic. The episode featured the duo breaking up and getting back together on the Empire States Building. Their review of Sleepless In Seattle brought them back to each other. And then, of course, there was their duet. Awesome.

They somehow kept themselves from being annoying, too. That’s an important feature when it comes to tv personalities. One the Bob Saget and Gene Shalit could use a lesson on. First off, don’t laugh so much at your own lame jokes. Second, don’t rhyme every stupid line. Third, don’t make stupid faces unless you’re going for the Jim Carrey thing. There’s a way to do it without making yourself into a fool. You have to learn the art of Foole. (Note the semi-silent e.)

I had always thought of Ebert as the less pompous one. He was actually my favorite of the two. I don’t really know that I agreed with him more, but he always had the connections between the older flicks and the ones that he was reviewing. He also wrote Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, which gives him a great big thumbs up in my book.

But Siskel was really the more fun-loving. Watching movies made him feel like a kid. And that’s what we all want from them, really. We want them to make us feel good. We want them to make us think We want them to entertain us and even change us in some way, and every time Siskel found one that did that he brought that feeling to us. He explained it to us in clear terms that almost gave us the same feelings that he had.

He really cared about movies and he loved reviewing them. By doing it he was doing his part for the rest of the world and for himself. After his initial surgery he came back to the show, at first over the phone, and then in person. Not many people would do that. They would just quit for a while. He had to come back, though. He had to give his opinions and tell people what movies amazed him and frustrated him this week. I can definitely see why he had to come back. There’s no telling if I would have done the same thing and I hope I never have to find out. (Big ol’ knock on wood.)

He also cared about basketball, which I don’t really agree with him on. He was just about as passionate about the game as he was about movies. He became an expert as soon as he learned to like it. He went to every Bulls game he could, and, in fact, made his first public appearance after his surgery at one of their games. That’s dedication. He hung out in the locker room with the players, interviewed them and became “one of the guys.” That’s pretty good for a movie critic. (Not quite as impressive as his interview with President Clinton, though. Wow! How did that happen?)

All of this makes me sound as if I think I knew the man. Well, no. It’s all gotten from other sources. Yes, I plagiarize, but I figure that the two of you who read my pages would maybe read it here first. Yeah right.

It’s hard to think of one of them without the other. I guess we’ll have to from now on. The show will go on. Ebert will stay, but others will come and go for a while. I didn’t see the last one with a replacement, but I heard that it didn’t have the same feeling to it. I wonder how long it will last without that chemistry. That would really make the whole thing stranger. Ebert will even have left us in a different, less permanent way.