I Love the Intar-Web

Seriously...Before the 'Net, there was no way to disseminate hilarious videos like these following two clips to a mass audience. Oh, sure, there were "underground videos," frequently traded by college students, experimenting with new concepts in filmmaking like "man lighting his own farts" or "midget tossing." But now, thanks to the Internet, if someone has a hilarious clip of something, they can literally reach tens of thousands of people (or more) within a few days.

This first clip is just an editing job. The good people at Low Carb Comedy have re-synched Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ with new music...No, I'm not going to tell you what music (their website gives away the joke, so try not to read the whole page before the video loads). It's not quite as hilarious as that Passion of the Christ trailer that was resynched to the Kill Bill theme music. I looked for a clip of that online, but came up empty...But it's still pretty funny.

But it's this second clip that really warms the cockles of my heart, provided, of course, my heart has cockles. It's an old clip of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel filming a promo for their show. (How old? The movies they're interviewing that week are The Big Easy and No Way Out, meaning that this particular clip was shot in 1987. Almost 20 years ago! Now I feel old...

Anyway, since Siskel's death, Ebert has tried to honor his memory and has insisted that they were very close friends. But it doesn't look so here. In fact, it looks to me like Ebert loathes Siskel with every fiber of his being, and that Siskel is kind of bemused by Ebert's horrible, mean-spirited attitude. But maybe that's just me...

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I have met Roger Ebert and corresponded with him briefly by e-mail, and he doesn't strike me as a horrible, mean-spirited man at all. In fact, he was quite approachable and friendly. I'm just trying to describe this hilarious clip without giving too much away...

Do yourself a favor and watch them both. Or, if you're like me, watch them both repeatedly while guffawing loud enough to wake up sleeping neighbors five apartment buildings over.

And, of coursy, my ever-lasting thanks and adoration to Gorilla Mask for both links.