Roger Ebert Despised Gilligan's Island Star Jim Backus' '80s Sci-Fi Movie

In 1976, Kurt Vonnegut released his book "Slapstick," a semi-autobiographical meditation on loneliness wherein the author explores his relationship with his late sister Alice. Despite its name, then, you wouldn't expect "Slapstick" to form the basis of a comedy movie, but for some reason writer-director Steven Paul decided that's exactly what needed to happen. In the process, he managed to offend both audiences and critics, including the great Roger Ebert, who dubbed 1984's "Slapstick of Another Kind" "offensive." What's more, aside from dragging stars Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn into his mess, Paul managed to rope in Jim Backus, the man who'd delivered an acting masterclass in a James Dean classic before becoming a beloved star of "Gilligan's Island."

How on Earth did such a blunder transpire? Well, it seems that a young Paul appeared in the Broadway production of Vonnegut's play "Happy Birthday Wanda June" and managed to charm the author. Paul later bought the rights to "Slapstick" and set about ruining its legacy.

"Slapstick of Another Kind" stars Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn as highly intelligent twins with facial differences who are sought out by the People's Republic of China for experimentation. Sounds hilarious, doesn't it? While Vonnegut's novel does have humorous elements, Paul decided to simultaneously focus solely on that aspect of the book while also managing to create something entirely devoid of humor. It's sort of impressive in that sense. One person who certainly wasn't impressed was Roger Ebert, who during a 1984 episode of "At the Movies," joined his co-host Gene Siskel in savaging the sci-fi comedy. Ebert wasn't above walking out of comedy movies, but managed to make it through the entirety of "Slapstick" only to wish he'd walked out.

"Slapstick of Another Kind" begins with the Chinese government announcing that the key to human knowledge can be found in twins. Meanwhile, Caleb and Letitia Swain (Jerry Lewis and Madeline Kahn respectively) — dubbed the most beautiful people in the world — welcome twins, Wilbur and Eliza Swain. But the siblings are deformed and appear to be mentally disabled, and the doctors tell Caleb and Letitia their children don't have long to live.

15 years later, the twins (also played by Lewis and Kahn) have grown up. Soon, a Chinese ambassador, played by Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi, and Mr. Miyagi himself, Pat Morita, arrive to inform the parents their children are actually secret geniuses. Having not seen them since birth, Wilbur and Eliza visit the twins alongside Jim Backus' President of the United States, where they learn the pair were simply acting mentally disabled and are in fact highly intelligent and even telepathic. Caleb and Letitia separate the siblings, but they eventually find their way back to each other before a spaceship arrives to reveal that the kids were aliens all along and that Earth doesn't deserve their intelligence.

Now, Jim Backus had been in some tripe before. After "Gilligan's Island," Backus struggled to find good projects, and in 1979 he and Alan Hale Jr. had a mini "Gilligan's Island" reunion in a terrible action comedy. But nothing was quite as bad as "Slapstick of Another Kind." Thankfully, Backus managed to get away with just a few short scenes. Everyone else involved, however, probably wished they could quit altogether — at least that's how Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert saw it.

In a 1984 episode of "At the Movies," Gene Siskel predicted that "Slapstick of Another Kind" would "reign supreme" when he and co-host Roger Ebert rounded up their annual "Stinkers of the Year." The film didn't actually make that list, which ultimately included David Lynch's "Dune," controversial '80s slasher "Silent Night, Deadly Night," and "Cannonball Run II" among others. The fact that "Slapstick" didn't make the cut was surprising given the critic's initial reaction.

Siskel called the film "shockingly bad," "the single worst movie of 1984," and even labeled it "insensitive and cruel." Perhaps, then, Ebert liked it, and that's why it wasn't a "Stinker of the Year?" Nope. He hated it just as much as Siskel. "It is a very, very, very unfunny and offensive movie," he said, pointing to the scene in which Jerry Lewis meets his new babies and discovers they're "monsters" as particularly egregious. "That scene is so unsavory and so painful that how anybody could start a comedy with it is beyond me," said Ebert, who went on to suggest that Lewis likely expected something much better from Steven Paul's Kurt Vonnegut adaptation. "I'll bet that [Lewis] had no idea what this movie was going to turn out to be like," continued Ebert. "Because it's based on a novel by Kurt Vonnegut in which the idea of these two twins is used for satirical and political reasons, and a movie faithful to the Vonnegut book would have made a point and could have redeemed almost any subject matter. Not this movie, that's for sure."

If, for whatever reason, you want to see what upset Siskel and Ebert so much, "Slapstick of Another Kind" is streaming for free on Tubi.