A Completely Made Up and Totally Fake Interview With Roger Ebert

My guest today is an icon and a legend wrapped in a Pulitzer Prize and coated with ethos.  Roger Ebert is an Emmy Award-nominated American television personality, author and film critic who began writing for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967. His reviews are syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the US and worldwide. He is also the co-host of a syndicated television program featuring his film criticism, first for 23 years with Gene Siskel and, since Siskel’s death, with Richard Roeper on Ebert & Roeper. He has written more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook. In 1975, he became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Ebert has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In February 1995, Chicago’s Erie Street was renamed Siskel & Ebert Way, near the CBS Studios. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 2005, the first professional film critic to receive this honor.  Through his newspaper reviews, books, television shows, and lectures, he has contributed considerably to the appreciation of film among members of the public. He also runs a special section of his website RogerEbert.com devoted to what he deems to be great films. (fake intro stolen from Rotten Tomatoes) Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Roger Ebert:

Mockers:  Good Morning Sir, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today.

Ebert:  Yeah, no problem. I am grateful for the opportunity to interview with a 5th tier, D-list website…especially after single-handedly taking the film review industry from cheap newspaper filler to the multi-million dollar industry it is today. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than sit here and chat with you.

Mockers: um…okay. Um…thanks.  So, um…what’s it like to be the world’s most famous movie critic?

Ebert:  Seriously?  That’s your question?  What’s it like? Okay…well it’s fucking great.  I make well over seven figures a year to sit on my ass and watch movies all day, every day. I mean, maybe I feel bad from time to time that I didn’t use my talents to advance the human condition or to maybe help my fellow man beyond telling them what movie to go see, but c’mon – I SIT AND WATCH MOVIES ALL DAY.  All I have to do is pretend that the medium of film is the most important thing on the planet and I get millions, a fucking Pulitzer, a star on the walk of fame and all the poon I can handle.  I’ll tell you the truth jack, I’m probably the smartest friggin’ guy in America…but I feel guilty about it sometimes.  That why, every once in a while I will get up from my giant home theater and go upstairs to the office and write some left-wing socialistey thing and fire it out to the masses.  Then I feel better.

Mockers:  So can you confirm that you’re a practicing socialist?

Ebert:  I don’t practice shit unless it’s sitting on my ass and watching movies all day.

Mockers: oookay…you’ve said that you both hated and loved Gene Siskel and that you had natural chemistry with him.  Have you ever said anything like that about Roeper?

Ebert: Let me ask you a question.  What’s Roeper’s first name?

Mockers:  Um, Richard?

Ebert:  And when did you first learn his first name?

Mockers:  Um…when I read it in the intro I stole from Rotten Tomatoes?

Ebert:  That’s Goddamned right!  Without me, nobody outside of Chicago knows the guy’s name.  Unless you’re talking about me, Gene Freaking Siskel was the consummate film critic.  Siskel was a know-it-all condescending  jerk and he worked the part like nobody else.  Roeper couldn’t carry Gene’s jock.  For all those years Roeper and I were in the balcony together I kept expecting him to say that he had to go pick up his kids from soccer practice.  Sure, Richard Roeper wrote about movies.  Yes, he kinda knows his stuff – but nobody wants movie advice from some harmless and friendly looking suburban dad…they want their movie advice from guys that people know will be sitting on their ass watching movies instead of participating in social activities or taking in friggin’ nature.  Richard Roeper.  I couldn’t wait to get out of that freakin’ balcony.

Mockers:  I once heard that you had your thumb trademarked.  Is this true?

Ebert:  So now this is a true or false quiz? Hell yes I had it trademarked, you know what that’s worth?

Mockers:  Yeah, but…is somebody going to try and to engage in the use of your thumb for improper monetary gain without your permission?  Isn’t it attached?

Ebert:  No, not just my thumb…any thumb! I’ve got the whole “thumbs up/thumbs down” schtick under lock and key.  Anybody gives something thumbs up, they owe me a quarter.

Mockers:  So…you’ve trademarked, the thumb?  Can I have the index finger? Nevermind, don’t answer that…why did you decide to go with the thumb anyway?  Why not zero to five stars?

Ebert:  Let me ask you a question, smart guy.  Exactly how does one insert “zero to five stars” in a vagina?  I mean, even a red dwarf would vaporize a woman instantly.  This thumb has been inside more vaginas than a warehouse full of plastic applicators. Just being able to tell their friends that “Roger Ebert gave me the thumbs up!” has given me more access to naked smokin’ hot chicks than a fat movie geek should ever know about in a traditional sense, much less in the biblical sense.  Let’s just say that Gene and I did it all for the nookie.

Mockers:  Hey, I know that song.

Ebert:  Word.

And that was Roger Ebert, ladies and gentlemen.  Tune in at some random time in the future when I write a fake interview of William Zabka.

To be honest, this all started when I wondered to myself – What would it be like if Roger Ebert used that thumb to get women? It turned into a longer interview where Ebert was going to be drunk.  There was a joke in there about how he could trademark his thumb, but he couldn’t trademark his chin because he didn’t have it anymore.  Once I got done with the minimum amount of research to at least be historically correct, I started to feel pretty bad.  Ebert is a top notch writer and a pretty decent guy.  So for the first time ever, I backed off a little bit.  Hope you had at least a little bit of fun with it.