Season: 2 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 19
Guest(s): Jack Albertson, Steve Lawrence
CBS Air Date: November 14, 1976
Also aired: Never re-aired
Opening Song: “I Only Want to Be With You” (Audio)
Cover of Dusty Springfield (1963)
Sonny is wearing a dark purple suit with a lighter purple shirt and Cher is wearing a matching dark purple gown with a kind of fringe overlay. Sonny is wearing copious bling around his neck to compete with Cher. One of the necklaces seems to be in the shape of a lower-case R. I wonder what that means. Sonny ad-libs during the song that Cher stepped on his toe. Cher later tries to pinch him but he ducks. Sonny whoops a lot.
Breakout: Bartender Ted Zeigler answers the phone as “Holmes & Yoyo.” (Cher scholar Jay says this was a 1970s TV show. Thank you.) Alvin asks again if that was the ratings people calling and why did the bartender, (I keep forgetting he has a name; it’s Herbie), didn’t admit he was watching The Sonny & Cher Show. Herbie says he got the Yoyo part right. Laverne comes in wearing a pretty needlepointed sweater and wanting a double scotch, no ice. She gargles it. Harry left her that night, she says. Here we go. Alvin asks if she is drinking to forget and she says she is drinking to celebrate. (Watching these episodes out of order was really confusing because Alvie and Laverne’s relationship evolved over the season. This might jube be one of the first shows to carry a plotline over multiple episodes.) Harry is leaving to join the Navy, Laverne says. She says she’ll probably bump into him from time to time, (a joke that she sleeps with men in the Navy). Laverne says they had an argument and he left after packing his Winnie the Pooh pajamas. Harry was upset Laverne never cooked anything anymore and she tried warming up a Twinkie. Alvie says that sounds awful and Laverne says she put tomato sauce on it. Herbie then makes a drinking joke.
Opening Banter: Sonny says he’s learning something new and Cher quips “It’s about time….If you would learn something it would be nice.” “Who’s got the time,” Sonny quips, “not you.” Cher has her arms folded. She says she’s too busy making the cover of The Enquirer to learn something new. Sonny is gonna lay it on us, he says. Sonny says he’s learning the “science of numbers” (numerology). They seem to be bantering away from the script. Sonny talks about lucky numbers and how your future could be affected by numbers. Cher quips that Uncle Luigi got 1-10 for playing the numbers. Cher says the Nielsen ratings are numbers that affect them. Cher kids Sonny for saying “hey Cher” as a segue, that it means “Shut up and let me continue.” Sonny says he can’t say the same things, use the same terms he used when they were married, about how Cher “pops offs at the mouth,” but he can’t say that anymore because “you’re not my responsibility” anymore. (Yikes!) He looks up at the sky as a “thank God” gesture and Cher punches him in the arm. Cher prods him to get on with it. They’re joking about the word “diversification” for some reason. Sonny says you can eliminate risks and live “accident free” and Cher says it must be like Planned Parenthood. Cher has her arms akimbo and Sonny has a hand on his hip. Sonny says he used a book to figure out his number and Cher’s number. “Cher, I’ve had your number for a long time.” The audience claps. “Take your new baby, Cher.” And Sonny does a Henny Youngman joke. Sonny says knowing his number could change Elijah Blue completely. Cher says she changes him completely eight times a day. Sonny says the name Cher may not have the proper amount of letters to be lucky. Cher says she’s changed her name enough lately without that.
Sonny’s Pizza: Who’s the new guy? Ted Zeigler struggles to work with him. Rosa calls them over to show them Steve Lawrence, passed out on a table, who hasn’t left for days. Ted Ziegler says he’s the only guy who eats there every day. Lawrence wakes up to say you’d have to be drunk to eat there every day. Sonny chastises them and is excited because a V.I.P. is coming later to do a photo op in the newspaper for the pizzeria. Rosa folds napkins and quips that only a hold-up man would be exciting. Turns out it’s a congressman played by Jack Albertson playing Congressman Graft. He’s going to ethnic restaurants trying to get the ethnic vote. Lawrence quips something I can’t figure out. There’s a sign behind Sonny and Zeigler that says, “Seat Yourself.” Zeigler asks if this is a loudmouth, pushy politician. Sonny says his press says he’s very quiet. But Graff is introduced by a drummer dressed as Uncle Sam-type character (played by the announcer Peter Cullen). Albertson arrives and gives Rosa a pushy kiss (she looks shocked) and insults different ethnic groups (Jews, Lebanese, Irish, Italians). There’s a joke about the polls which Sonny mistakes for the Poles (ethnic joke). Albertson makes a pass at Rosa and pulls her onto his lap while asking for pictures with “the broad” in his lap and giving him a kiss. It’s creepy but Rosa is acting complicit now and doesn’t seem to mind. The congressman tries to eat the pizza and say it’s good but Lawrence quips that even he can’t lie that much. The congressmen says that all the ethnic food he’s been eating has become the United Nations of indigestion. The congressman wants to take the pizza back to congress as a proposal for capital punishment and he will have the restaurant condemned. His employees clap and cheer for that. Uncle Sam takes a picture of “the meatball,” Sonny. There’s a running gag through this skit of the male employees hitting each other over the head with their chef’s hats. Sonny is outraged and tells Rosa he’ll be voting for his opponent and the drunk, Steve Lawrence, says he’ll run against Albertson. So then Lawrence tries to kiss Rosa, like a politician, but because he’s so drunk he kisses Ted Zeigler instead. It’s funny the whole premise of the skit is how bad Sonny’s pizza is when Sonny was a well-known good cook behind the scenes.
Cher Solo: “I Got It Bad and That Aint Good” (Audio)
Cover of Duke Ellington (1941)
Cher wears a black shiny gown with a matching headcap. The dress has a gold and black ringed collar and sleeves. She sings above a set of a city skyline. Building cut-outs project shadows on the back of the stage. There are also neon effects. Cher sang this solo in episode #11 and episode #43 of the Comedy Hour. This version is short and sweet. A little raspy this time. Cher seems genuinely sad.
Mother Goose: Cher sings the theme for this series as if she’s Mae West, “And That’s the Truth.” She backed by dancers and horses both with and without a merry-go-round. The hat has a heart-shaped broach in the back.
+ Cher plays a bosomy, ditsy stewardess who says the rowboat, a 747-Turbo-Tub, is going to Copenhagen or New York, depending upon the winds. She plays it like the ditzy voice used by Vicky Lawrence. Jack Albertson is in first class and gets caviar. Cher says Sonny is in second class and can only have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Steve Lawrence is in the “no-frills section” and asks what he will get. Cher tells him to put his head under the water and anything you catch in the water is yours. We hear a bullhorn and Albertson makes a fart joke. “Sorry, it must have been the caviar.” Lawrence says his ticket calls for champagne, a movie and a companion. Cher reads some convoluted corporate fine print that exempts him. You can see by their ticket props that airline tickets used to come in envelopes. Sonny insists his ticket says he gets to spend all his time with the stewardess. Cher says that offer expired on Sunday. Sonny says it’s only Saturday. But Cher says they just crossed over the international dateline. Albertson claims his ticket says he gets a special treat. Cher gives him a kiss. Sonny asks what he gets: a hearty handshake. Steve asks too and up pops Ted Zeigler as a drag queen who says, “Hi Sailor. Coffee, tea or a flick of my BIC” from the commercials. It’s both racy and kind of wrong, as if a bad drag queen is the low-rent version of the blonde Cher stewardess. (This skit has been done already and better on The Carol Burnett Show.)
In the interlude, Mother Goose sings the Woodchuck tongue-twister as a song.
+ Lawrence and Albertson play speech therapists in Mother Goose Land. They talk like Groucho Marx. Cher plays Sue who sells seashells by the seashore but she can’t say the tongue twister. (As we’ve seen on a previous variety show, Cher is actually very good at tongue twisters.) Albertson does a pretty good job. Sue learns how to sing the line and the therapists (they all sing the tongue-twisty lyrics) and they ask her for a fifty-dollar fee. Sue then tells them about her brother, Peter Piper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who picked a peck of pickled peppers. They teach her to sing that too and ask for another fifty dollars. Sue says she is so confused. She wants to talk about her father, Theophilus Thistle, a thistle sifter with his thumbs. Sue wants the therapists to combine all the family tongue twisters into one song. The therapists tell her to tell people she’s an orphan. And they ask for another fifty dollars.
Here is the lyric that ends every Mother Goose:
Nothin’ but the truth. I said the truth. I mean the truth.
Now no one can accuse ya of bein’ obtuse
‘Cos now you have the word and you ‘aint got no excuse.
You bought it on the authority of the number one Goose
And that’s the truth, the whole truth and nothin but the truth.
(I swear) oh yeah?
The station break announcer promises an upcoming Battle of the Sexes episode that is not in this episode and The Singing Hotel (which is).
Vente Nove: (Yes!) Cher interviews the director about a new movie called Husband Betrayed. Sonny comes down on the camera rig. “Hello nice-a lady.” It’s nice to see you back (and your front),” Nove says. Luigi comes to give Nove riding crops. Nove tries out the whips on Luigi. Luigi goes off making jokes that crack Sonny up. Vent Nove asks, “What do you think about a film starring Marcello Mastriano, Robert Redford and Sophia Loren? ….But I couldn’t get ’em…They wanted to be paid.” Vente Nove asks Luigi to “Roll ’em” and a beach ball rolls by. “Not the ball, Luigi! The film!” (I always love that).
The film stars and Zeigler and Cher are on a coach playing Marcello Mastriano and Sophia Loren. They play the music of “Bang Bang” and say the movie’s English translation is by Joe DiMaggio. A title card reads “English voices by Brad Binxter and Sally Ann Borgia. Zeigler and Cher make very Italian acting gestures as the stilted translation plays over them. The actions don’ t match the dialogue at all, which is about the weather, but the action is clearly about a woman cheating on her husband. Vente Nove plays the husband coming home. Cher’s Sophia Loren is in a very pretty floral dress. The action shows a big fight but the dialogue is about a baseball game invitation. In the action the husband hits the wife and tries to strangle the lover. The baseball conversation dubbing turns into a car conversation between two men. In the action the husband shoots the lover. The husband physically removes the wife against her will. Very violent and dark but offset but the false and inane dialogue.
Guest Spot: Steve Lawrence sings an odd Ella Fitzgerald / Eric Carmen mashup of the two songs with the same title, “All By Myself.” He walks through hallways containing art and sculpture, finally arriving at a dining room table with champagne. In this episode Sonny and Steve Lawrence seem to be having a rug-showing contest.
Operetta: “The Not-So-Grand Hotel”- It’s 1918 and the Gershwin Brothers (not the famous composers but song salesmen Herbie and Alfie played by Lawrence and Albertson) are checking into the hotel. They do a quick “Alfie” (1966) spoof. Didn’t we just do this with Ziegfeld and Barry Manilow recently? They do the same “I Write the Songs” (1975) intro spoof (maybe this was supposed to be a recurring hotel skit.) Lawrence and Albertson dance with some old lady characters who suddenly do dancing backflips. Sonny plays a German spy circa World War I. They make a joke about Sonny’s German helmet being a coconut opener. He takes off his coat to reveal piano keys on the back of his sweater that Lawrence plays. Cher plays Roberta, Bob Hope’s mother doing Bob-Hope-like one-liners. She claims her son, Bob Hope, is at home waiting to entertain the boy scouts. All the guests, in a warlike manner, try to claim the territory of the couch. When Cher says, “I’ve got the couch,” Lawrence says, “Don’t stand too close to me. I might get it.” There are song spoofs I don’t know. There’s “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” (1929). The songwriters are trying to write a song that will end the war. Then it turns out Sonny is not a spy for Berlin but for the songwriter Irving Berlin. He’s decided to defect to The Gershwins. The war is declared over at the end and world safe for Vaudeville. Everybody plays tiny pianos.
IGUB: Sonny & Cher start with “I Got You Babe” immediately interrupted by a trip back to the bar with Alvin and Laverne who says she has to come to the bar to watch The Sonny & Cher Show because Harry took the TV set when he left and also the wallpaper and the lightbulbs. Laverne thinks she should get her old job back. Alvin thinks she is describing a job as a showgirl. Laverne corrects him. She was a car hop. She met Harry working at the International House of Beans.
Sonny & Cher come back and say goodnight. We miss the whole song with this skit stuff interrupting. These endings are a big letdown without the little banter, the full song and the visit from Chastity.
Highlights: The tongue-twisting songs, another Vente Nove. The irony of the Vente Nove skits is Sonny’s 1960s and 70s dream of being a movie mogul. Cher’s newest version of “I Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good.” Laverne’s unashamed promiscuity. Sadly, no Concert this week.
