Season: 2 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 16
Guest(s): Donny & Marie Osmond, Ruth Buzzi, Alex Karras
CBS Air Date: October 24, 1976
Also aired: TVLand, Sonny & Cher Ultimate Collection DVD
Opening Song: “That’ll Be the Day” (Video)
Cover of the Crickets (1957)
Cher wears a conservative violet version of what will turn into the dress of gold threads, best seen on the 1978 poster for Cher…Special. Sonny wears a suit with a blue shirt. Cher does a dramatic, ironic hair flip and some re-enactments of the lyrics. Her dress sequins still pop camera flares. Sonny is kind of winging it and that’s making Cher laugh. They sang this song on their Comedy Hour episode #52 as part of their concert medley.
Breakout: Alvin & Laverne, here we go. Alvin admits that his wife Myrna would kill him for this but his heart pants for Laverne. Laverne responds by saying she has “heart-pants” too. This feels like the show’s way of giving us back Sonny & Cher as a couple without giving us back Sonny & Cher as a couple. And…eh.
Laverne and Alvin just aren’t….that interesting is the thing. But here is the big reveal that Alvin and Laverne are about to hook up.
Opening Banter: The election is in 9 days. Sonny & Cher bicker more about Ford and Carter. More peanut jokes and more Nixon impeachment jokes.
Vente Nove: The first Vente Nove skit! Whoo hoo! I find these very funny. What came first? Saturday Night Live’s Father Guido Sarducci or this show’s Director Vente Nove? They are very similar schtick. According to Wikipedia it’s Vente Nove.
Vente Nove, which just means 29, always descends from the ceiling sitting in his director’s chair (similar to Cher will do in future concert entrances) and in this inaugural skit, Vente Nove talks about making a disaster movie and Cher is interviewing him about it. His full name in Vinchetti G. Vente Nove, he says, and he claims he was born in a bingo parlor in Palermo, He even has a twin sister named Bingo. He claims he is the father of the disaster film and that Hollywood just keeps stealing his ideas. He mistreats his assistant who grovels and says it is an honor to be mistreated by him.
His new movie is called “The Towering Poseidon, Quake Port, Hinden Jaws Follies ’78”. There were a lot of disaster movies around that time, see. He tells the projection booth to “roll it” but a wagon wheel rolls by instead. This exasperates him. “The film, Luigi! The film.” (That always makes me laugh. There’s a restaurant nearby called Luigis and guess what I like to say when driving by? “The meatball, Luigi! The meatball!”)
The disaster skits of this film include:
+ Detroit Football player Alex Karras and Donny Osmond as pilots on an airline with a hijacker. Someone says “Darn you” to the hijacker. I’m guessing that was probably Donny Osmond.
+ Earthquake in a doctor’s office. Ruth Buzzi does some good physical comedy here.
+ The Poseidon is hit by a tidal wave. Somewhere in here Marie Osmond plays a stewardess and does her crazy cross-eye.
+ A skyscraper catches fire.
+ Cher on The Hindenburg collides with a plane.
+ A shark attacks an airliner at 30-thousand feet. All the characters convene in the cockpit like the characters used to do at the end of the Vamp skits. I’ve starred this ending as good.
Vente Nove always makes a funny and awkward cameo in all these skits, Alfred Hitchcock-like.
These screenshots are not from this particular episode but give you the look of the thing.
Duet with Guest (Video)
Sonny & Cher and Donny & Marie come together with matching outfits which is completely adorable. Some nervous laughter among them all. Donny & Marie are the new face of TV variety, after all. They all talk about each other’s shows. Donny & Marie ask Sonny & Cher where their ice is for skating and Sonny & Cher have to admit they have no brothers to sing with. Sonny tells them about Sonny & Cher’s latest, complicated gimmick. They sing “Silly Love Songs,” (cover of Wings, 1976, yup…wrong bucket). Remember Sonny & Cher opened their show a few weeks ago with this song (#12).
There’s something very off-putting about Donny Osmond. And Sonny seems to agree because he looks physically uncomfortable when Donny puts his arm on his shoulder. Sonny doesn’t reciprocate and even throws his arms forward. And for some reason, dancing next to Donny & Marie, Sonny & Cher look ten times groovier than normal, even with Sonny’s awkward dancing. And the Osmonds all have a mouthful of teeth but Marie Osmond can take that smile to the bank. Terrible ending.
Sonny & Cher had already appeared on The Donny & Marie Show earlier in the month (October 15 with the other guests Edgar Bergen and Loretta Swit).
Battle of the Sexes: Our emancipated couple is celebrating an anniversary. Sonny is dressed in Japanese pajamas. Their neighbor comes by (Ruth Buzzi) to accuse Cher of having an affair with her husband (Alex Karras). Cher’s character always comes across as very blasé and insensitive in these skits (and I guess that’s the point).
Cher Solo: “It Had to Be You” (Video)
Standard (1924)
The camera zooms down to Cher through a spiral staircase. Cher is dressed in a sparkly gold gown and matching headwrap, a big fur coat and it looks like she’s singing from the atrium of some art museum lobby. Kind of a sleeper, this one. Cher also sang this song on episode #2 of the Comedy Hour.
Channel 86 News: a.k.a. The Cutsie News, this is the first throwback to the news roundups of the older Comedy Hour series, Headline in the Papers and Window on the World. This new conceit is a panel of catty newscasters in orange jackets, a cast of their guests (this time Ruth Buzzi, Alex Karras and the last remaining regular, Ted Zeigler) with Sonny & Cher (in a curly short wig). Someone jabs that Cher’s nose has been in the news lately, which is a somewhat weird plastic surgery foreshadowing.
+ First female military commander (Ruth Buzzi) who acts more like a smothering mother than a commander. (Yikes!)
+ Chris Evert (played by Cher) and Jimmie Connors (played by Sonny) visit a restaurant and their conversation sounds like a tennis match. Alex Karras plays the waiter.
+ A Let’s Make a Deal spoof where the gameshow has been made into a sitcom. An outfit is valued at $8.65, someone wins a bowling night with the boys and a handsome gigolo is behind door #3.
IGUB: My notes say Cher punches Sonny. They say goodbye and a walk-off. No song.
Thanks to Jay for the official run-down on this episode.
Highlights: The first Vente Nove! Also the big reveal between Alvin and Laverne (I guess that’s a highlight). Seeing Donny & Marie with Sonny & Cher is always fun.
