Exactly 50 years after their first joint TV appearance on Chicago’s public TV station, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert ’s legacy received a heartfelt celebration Saturday in their hometown — including a live stage performance of the pair’s on-screen dynamic.

The show, starring Zack Mast and Stephen Winchell (both veterans of Chicago’s comedy and improv community), looked back on the early years of their TV pairing. Siskel (Winchell) and Ebert (Mast) presented it as a special episode of their show Sneak Previews , presenting clips of their own work and commenting on how their relationship grew and changed over those years — and how they went from very stiff TV performers at first to, with the help of producer Thea Flaum, the iconic faces of film criticism in the United States.

Exactly 5

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