When Siskel & Ebert were on "Sneak Previews"

There was a You Tube user back in 2007-2008 named Larry, and he was from Tennessee. He had an enormous collection of At the Movies episodes from 1982 into the 1990s, and posted nearly every episode of At the Movies from 1982 to 1986. His username was Firstmagnitude and his channel was extremely popular with people over 30 who watched his Siskel and Ebert reviews to relive their childhood.

Larry started to have a series of conflicts with You Tube concerning the issue of copyright infringement. The staff were trying to decide whether or not to remove some of the Siskel and Ebert episodes.

Prince was in the process, at least to my understanding, of having all You Tube videos featuring himself and his music removed from the site. Someone (not sure who) came across Larry's channel and found a 1984 Siskel and Ebert review of Purple Rain and had it removed. Larry posted the review several times, but the You Tube staff kept on removing it for fear of being accused of infringing on copyrights.

Larry finally got fed up and deleted his channel and left You Tube. Another user called Gradepoint managed to preserve many reviews that had been posted by Larry, and opened up a You Tube channel to re-post them. Gradepoint was trying to get Larry to come back to You Tube, but had no luck. Larry didn't want to have further problems with You Tube.

This is why many of these reviews showed up on You Tube originally, particularly the 1983 shows above and the review of Ghostbusters. The earliest show that Larry had posted in its entirety was one where you and Gene reviewed Rocky III and E.T. Unfortunately, it is no longer available on You Tube and I don't think Gradepoint preserved it.

There is a 1983 show you and Gene did on James Bond that both Larry and Gradepoint posted in 3 parts, and your 1983 review of Return of the Jedi has also surfaced thanks to them.

Almost every show you and Gene did between 1982 and 1986 was once available on You Tube in their entirety for over a year. I had not seen these shows since I was a kid when they originally aired.

There are other people who have posted Siskel and Ebert reviews from the early 80s that Gradepoint has decided to preserve. The two most recent are your reviews of the Andy Kaufman film Heartbeeps from 1982 and Xtro from 1983.

Best of/Worst of shows from 1983 and 1985 can also be found. Just recently I watched a show you and Gene did on the worst films of 1983, in which you guys discuss 3-D and sequels like The Sting II and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. This show had also been originally posted by Larry in late 2007 and has been preserved by Gradepoint.

Also, there are many videos that have surfaced lately of you and Gene appearing on talk shows such as Joan Rivers (Kate Capshaw is on one which aired about February 1986).

The Halloween review from the Women In Danger show has been surfacing around the internet for a few years. I think I originally found it in 2007. Aside from You Tube, it showed up on other video sharing sites like Daily Motion.

Ebert: Man oh man, have I ever just e-mailed you!

It's funny how you sound like a coupla kids...

(Psst, Rodge, the Larry Kolb site keeps freezing up my browser. It must be overloaded. Don't want people to miss the Pilgrim Teens episode!)

"It was long said they'd been erased by PBS/Chicago, but I never believed it--if only because of my conviction that 30 minutes of Gene and me had to be worth more than half an hour of erased and recycled tape."

Sadly, network execs believed SO MUCH to be worth less-than erasing and recycling tape: most of the the first TEN YEARS of the Tonight Show (Jack Parr), the First & Second Super Bowl, the first season of The Avengers (!!)...and NASA's Apollo 11 footage(?!??) for starters...

Okay, very late to the party this time.

I remember Sneak Previews. Our local PBS affiliate ran it late Friday, or possibly Saturday, around the same time slot that they ran Doctor Who.

It fitted in perfectly. There was a transition from the cheaply-built BBC TARDIS interiors to the "balcony" for SP (sadly, it was an easy transition; it looked like the sets were built on the same budget by the same crew), and then, a nicely confrontational discussion about the movies of the week. I don't recall specific films discussed then; what I do recall was the way you and Gene Siskel got into your discussions, how intense you both were.

It was the kind of reality TV that was actually worth watching. Bright, vibrant minds in contest. I was in my early teens then, but I can still recall how distinctly I had the feeling that, despite the onscreen rivalry, there was a deep respect behind the apparent disagreements. It made for excellent drama.

I had the feeling that you and Siskel met for lunch pretty regularly, and actually liked each other.

In the early 90s, I remember talking with a colleague about your movie review shows. My feeling then was that you had a lighter, more carefree approach to films, while Siskel could be a bit harsh. This was, I suppose, a precursor to the "you give too many stars" idea. My colleague agreed, and agreed with me that when you said a movie was likely to be fun to watch, it probably was.

Though I do confess to wondering just how many thumbs you had then.

You were a part of my secret, somewhat-forbidden, too-late-to-be-up-and-watching-TV life for a while, just like Doctor Who, just like Barney Miller, just like Night Court and Soap.

Earlier generations sneaked a flashlight under the blankets to read a comic. Where I lived I had only UHF on a B&W TV, but it amounted to the same thing: Stolen moments in the dark. (Books were never forbidden in my home, so I devoured them mostly by daylight. I kept my nighttime sojourns to other explorations.)

Maybe that was the best way to do it. Maybe watching Sneak Previews in the dark, quietly, was as close as anyone could be to actually watching the film with you and Gene Siskel, in a balcony, in a theater, with a hushed audience all around -- or better, just a private screening -- and the darkness broken only by the uneven flicker of the light on silver.

In the quiet, stolen moments in the dark.

The closest I ever got to that feeling again was with Mystery Science Theater 3000, when I recognized in Joel and the 'Bots my own behavior with my friends as we sat in a nearly deserted cinema, relentlessly mocking some celluloid trash that deserved all the pillory our adolescent minds could produce.

Camaraderie, friendship, warmth and good feelings.

To this day, well-made cinema is something I treasure, and I'm pretty certain you are partly responsible for that; for a while, in some crucial formative years, you and Siskel provided commentary via Sneak Previews that shaped my tastes.

I can thank my grandmother (and do) for my joy in Godzilla movies, but I believe I can thank you for my appreciation of subtleties such as Tarkovsky's Solaris, or Ozu's Floating Weeds.

Thanks for all those forbidden, stolen, flickering silvery nights.