Sneak Previews

In the mid 1970's, public television station WTTW/Chicago wanted to do a movie review program which was unheard of at the time. This show was called "Coming Soon to a Theater near You" and it paired two movie critics from two rival newspapers in Chicago. Gene Siskel from the Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Sun-Times.

Coming Soon... started out as a local show for WTTW, but the show's popularity caught the attention of PBS, who wanted to distribute the show nationally. Coming Soon... changed its name to "Sneak Previews" and the rest is history.

Siskel and Ebert would discuss the current movies that were playing and one of the best parts of their show is where they disagree on film in which one liked and the other lumped it. Keep in mind however that their trademark "Thumbs Up/Down" was not used here. Rather they used a basic Yes/No regarding their take on the movies. For example when recapping the movies you would see a Yes or No on screen and who said. Something like, Ebert: Yes, Siskel: Yes. Not as great as "Two Thumbs Up" but you get the drift.

Siskel and Ebert had a very strong following. A little too strong however and the two had to grow and to do that they had to move to commercial TV. WTTW remained committed to the show and brought in Neal Gabler and Jeffery Lyons to review the movies. In 1985 Gabler was replaced by Michael Medved who brought a conservative slant on the movies.

Sneak Previews had difficulties trying to reclaim its popularity without Siskel & Ebert. It switched to cable and back to PBS in mid 80's. In the late 80's/early 90's Sneak Previews switched its focus on movies on home video rather than at the theater, and then going back to the original format more/less before Sneak Previews ended its run for good in 1996.

Lyons and Medved were critics in their own right, and conservative thinking people that wanted a different slant on the movies had Medved on their side. However that was not enough to keep the show going.

If anything Sneak Previews brought the ideal of movie review shows to the little screen. Without Sneak Previews their would not be a "Siskel & Ebert."

I first saw this show in late 1980 when Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were reviewing the worst movies of 1980. I was immediately impressed by their chemistry and charm and by their approach to reviewing films. I grew up reading Pauline Kael's reviews, and I'm certain that she hated every movie she ever saw. However, Siskel and Ebert were willing to watch and review movies in a different light and even though they often disagreed, they were always entertaining and refreshing. The team sadly came to an end with Gene Siskel's untimely death in 1999, but Roger Ebert continued with his insightful reviews until his passing about 12 years later. In retrospect, I took this show and its charming leads for granted back in the 1980s and 1990s, since no film review show since has even come close.

When this first aired on a local PBS station in Chicago along with many PBS stations in 1975, it became a huge hit and coined the prhase Two Thumbs up!!! The show would go on into syndication on network TV under Disney and became the most popular movie review show of all time, paving the way for rivals and even Youtube critics and a cartoon parody starring Jon Lovitz.

Gene Siskel died this weekend and it brought back memories of the early show when it was on pbs. He and Ebert shattered the image of critics as uptight prigs in dated tuxes and helped explain what made a movie good or bad in ways we could all relate too. I have no idea how many hours of my life were spent with Gene Siskel but they were enjoyable and enlightening ones. Thank you Gene Siskel.

That is I used to watch Siskel and Ebert spar when they were PBS icons, and recall the great reviews they gave cult films, the likes of which were "The Road Warrior", "Sword and the Sorcerer", and then deservedly skewer films like "Porky's" or "The Last American Virgin" ad nauseum. Then, the real gems of the show would appear, and they would lavish praise on films worthy of adulation and respect like "Raging Bull" or "My Dinner with Andre".

Oft times the young portly Ebert would disagree with his slim counterpart. The Abbott and Costello of film reviews. The Laurel and Hardy. No, they weren't intentionally comic, and often were adversarial, but this added a human dimension, and that's what movies, good movies (even a few bad ones) are all about. They pointed out the foibles and flaws of the filmic world, and helped steer and otherwise guide us to more deserving cinematic offerings.

Did we always pay attention? No. Were they always right? Mostly. Did they forever place their mark on media. Indelibly.

The formula has been copied with varying degrees of success (or lack thereof). None has held a torch to the original dynamic duo who gave us opposing, sometimes conflicting, but always informative points of view.

As others mentioned, yes, they went on to mainstream network TV with the thumbs-gag-thing, which made another stamp on our visual media psyche. But the thumbs thing (regardless of Roman origin) would have not meant anything without Siskel and Ebert.

Siskel is with us no more, and Ebert has narrowly escaped the fate of his slimmer partner, but soldier on with his outstanding insight into films and all things visual. One countered the other, and one still feels a sense of loss sans Sikels presence, but those filling in for him, notably Roepert, have done him proud.

The show is to be no more in the coming weeks (again, at the time of this writing), and I for one, not always having been a faithful follower, will miss it. I have fond memories of watching that show from Chicago while in California's smoldering hot and icy cold valley, and likewise when I moved to the relative Mediterranean calm of the San Francisco Bay Area. I didn't know much about Chicago then, but I knew it must be a place of great expectations to produce (or at least bring together) two such outstanding and well educated minds on what we find appealing, what we should like, what we should disdain, and what can fool us if we're not careful.

Thanks for reading.