Season: 2 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 31
Guest(s): Anne Meara, Peter Graves, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Shields & Yarnell
CBS Air Date: February 25, 1977
Also aired: Never re-aired
Opening Song: “Swearin’ to God” (Audio)
Cover of Frankie Valli (1975)
Wow. What a dress. This light blue dress with white flowers Cher wears matches Sonny’s dark blue suit and lighter blue shirt. It’s more of a skirt and a bi-lateral bare-midriff top. The only problem is that the skin-colored material at her waist is wrinkling up. Which is an unheard of costume malfunction on this show. This performance, with its hand gestures, shows Cher’s new confidence on stage. They sing the whole song together without a breakout. This is the kind of song Sonny & Cher can do well (and by that I mean Sonny). Sonny does some wordless exclamations. He’s on it!
Opening Banter: Sonny asks Cher “How’s the family.” Cher says quickly, “Fine, fine. They’re fine.” From the 2024 memoir we know all was not really fine, fine, fine. Sonny asks, “How’s the little guy” and Cher answers affectionately, “He’s just fine.” Sonny always seems genuinely affectionate towards Elijah. Sonny pauses and then asks, “How’s the big guy?” Cher says “He’s really fine…he’s also really big.” Sonny tells her he’s always been interested in her family, her sister (it’s easily missed but Sonny calls Georganne ‘Heather’ because she was the first Heather on General Hospital), her mother (he says he’s just teasing, interested platonically, familyish-ly). Sonny wants to know what Cher’s mom said when they split up. Cher says she wasn’t upset. Cher says she didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Sonny says he and Cher’s mother have always been “great friends.” Cher crosses her arms and looks sullen at this point, like her mother is a touchy subject. Sonny admits that in the beginning there was a “personality conflict” between them. “Well, she hated my guts,” Sonny says as Cher mouths “hated his guts.” Is Cher indicating he does right now, too? Hard to say. Cher then happily admits that she lived with Sonny before they were married and that she was only 16 and lied about it and said she was 18. Cher jokes he should have checked it out. Cher taunts him with “coulda, shoulda, woulda.” At one point in the story Cher says, “Stop holding my arm!” And Sonny grabs her waist, which she doesn’t seem happy about either.
Sonny said that in that day and age, you didn’t live with a 17 year old…easily. Cher admits her second lie about telling him she would soon be 17. Cher says her mother was threatening to throw him in jail. The way they tell this true story in 1977 is both kind of shocking and sweet at the same time. Sonny tells the true story about how Cher was living with two girls who kicked her out and since she had “no place to go” and “as usual the old Bones bailed her out” (which is true) and he admits there was no fooling around. And he laughs and says the audience might find it hard to believe. Cher said her mother sure did. Cher tells the story about her mother thinking Cher was living with a stewardess and Sonny quips, “Hi, I’m Sonny. Fly me.” Cher hits him in the shoulder. Sonny says, “this is a true story we’re telling you folks. It really is true.” And he’s right, this is an interesting moment of candor for their variety show mythmaking.
Cher says when her mother came over unexpectedly, she would go into the “a total vapor lock” and throw Sonny’s clothes out the window. “We couldn’t keep this act up forever,” Cher said and her mother found out. Sonny said her mother was very calm when she found out. There’s an extended joke about Cher’s mom putting her head in the oven over their early and Sonny contends that Cher’s mother later came to love him.
They finish the song. Cher does this thing where she kicks back her heel at the end of their duets.
Sonnytone News:
“The nose and mustache of the world, the Sonnytone News.” For some reason Sonny is dressed as a rooster for this recurring skit roundup.
+ Jack Frost Visits Miami Beach during a cold snap. Sam (played by Sonny) and tells his wife (Anne Meara) to loosen up and sunbathe in chilly Florida because the trip is already paid for. Sonny shirtless alert. Anne says “This is not a good beach day!” She says, “Don’t take offense at what I’m about to say, but you are a moron. Face the facts, Sam: nobody wants to be here” and asks if Sonny remembers the woman at the airport yelling, “I hate Florida. I’m through with Florida. Get me out of Florida. I’m through with Florida.” Sonny asks who that yelling woman was and Anne says Anita Bryant. (She was the spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice and an anti-gay activist. Which is very interesting foreshadowing considering Chas Bono will become a gay activist in the 1990s and 2000s.) Anne Meara says she could go to Marine Land and watch the dolphins break through the ice. Sonny accuses her of “going through the change” because she’s so cranky. Anne says she’d give anything for a hot flash. (I love Anne Meara; she’s so funny.) She tells Sonny, “they don’t put a Sears radial tire through what you put me through.” She’s had it and is finished with Sonny forever if the sun doesn’t come out. So the sun comes out and she exclaims to the sky, “I suppose you think that’s funny” because she’s now stuck with Sonny.
+ King Kong: We’re back to putting King Kong in the Sonnytone News segment.
King Kong is depressed. Fay Wray tells him, “when you’re faced with a problem that is bigger than you are, you’ve got to get outside help.” Dr. Joyce Brothers is then shown through a window. Kong and Fay are outside the building. Fay apologizes for she and Kong being late because “they couldn’t take the elevator.” Fay tells Dr. Brothers that King Kong is upset (you can hear Ted Zeigler vocalizing Kong’s distress) because he wasn’t invited to the premiere of the Dino de Laurentis 1976 remake of his own movie. He wasn’t even asked on to the talk shows. Dr. Brothers tells Kong to talk about his hurt feelings and that no one can help him if he doesn’t communicate. Kong vocalizes some displeasure at this idea and Dr. Brothers scolds him to take his thumb out of his mouth.
Today was the worst, Fay says, because his agent at William Morris told him he was turned down again to sing “I’m Sitting on Top of the World” on The Tonight Show. “It’s kind of his theme song,” Fays says. Dr. Brothers tells Fay Kong is going through a “classic neurosis based on feelings of inadequacy” and a lot of other therapeutic jargon. His perceived rejections are triggering his self doubt. Cher asks Brothers what that means and she responds, “It means the big jerk is afraid he’s only got got one picture in him.” This “shock approach” gets Kong willing to talk.
Dr Brothers tells Fay to reassure Kong with her love. Fays says, “Aww King honey, I don’t care about the money or the fame or the success, the bright lights, the good times. King, I love you even if you are a failure.” This backfires and upsets Kong so much Dr. Brothers steps in again to tell him that when he’s afraid of something, it’s good to get it out in the open. Then she tells him there are other plenty of other remakes of old movies he’d be perfect for, The Benny Goodman Story (“You don’t have to play the clarinet. They can dub it in.”) Fay also suggests Gone with the Wind. King objects. Fay says, “King, you can grow a mustache…I can just see you carrying Scarlett O’Hara up the staircase.” Kong chuckles at this. Dr. Brothers offers to use her influence to get him on The Tonight Show. Kong mimics the “Here’s Johnny” and laughs again.
+ Coffee prices are skyrocketing (sigh. it’s like the egss?) and coffee drinkers are trying to kick the habit. At a Coffeeholics Anonymous meeting, Harvey Preston (played by Peter Graves) tells everyone what it’s like to be a Coffeholic. Two months ago he was a happy man with 2.5 kids, 1.6 dogs and a .85 pussycat. But then the price of coffee soared and he had to sacrifice his lunch for coffee. Then he used his mortgage payment for coffee, sold his kid’s bike and then he sold his kid. Then he realized he had to choose between his family or coffee. As a divorcee, he says he now knows the evils of coffee, a Devil’s brew that can strip a man of his last vestige of dignity (and also it stains your dentures). He says “Sanka” instead of “Thank you.” While trying to quit he hung around coffee grinders looking for a spill. He bought Hills Bros. rejected beans. He says he needed to go “cold purkey.” He talked about his withdrawal dreams about Mrs. Olsen (of the Folger’s Coffee commercials). When he hit rock bottom everyone he passed on the street looked like Danny Thomas (of the Maxwell House Coffee commercials). He joined a singles club looking to find a girl that looked like Joe DiMaggio. But he says he made it through thanks to the support group. He “kicked the cup.” Now he’s a “happy, hopeless wino.” They all hold up their bottles in paper bags.
At the end of the Sonnytone segment, the rooster collapses the barn and falls over backwards, bird legs up.
Shields & Yarnell: Sonny talks about Sonny & Cher having the pleasure of working with Shields & Yarnell several times and what great physical comedians they are and how critics agree they are the most inventive mimes currently performing. They are going to perform now, Cher says, one of their classic pieces, Shields & Yarnell at the supermarket.
Shields & Yarnell play robotic shoppers at a grocery store. Shields knocks over a stack of paper towels. Yarnell pushes three carts together. Shields throws oranges in the carts and misses some. Because they are robots, they never self-correct. Yarnell pulls out too many produce bags and Shields squeezes the toilet paper package. A lot of eggs get broken and tomatoes get crushed. “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” plays in the background. Shields accidentally sprays Yarnell’s face with whipping cream and she falls over into the frozen food bin. By the time he rescues her, she has frozen. He struggles with her frozen body but can’t make it walk so he drags her out of the store.
Concert: “You’re Not Right For Me”
Cover of Sonny & Cher (1977)
Cher wears a turquoise knit pantsuit with sparkles. Sonny wears a dark green suit with matching turquoise ruffled shirt. Sonny says he and Cher have an announcement to make. They’ve “just done something we haven’t done for over three years. We cut a new record.” Cher says, “That makes two things we haven’t done in over three years.” Snap! Sonny continues, “Anyway, it’s our first record together since 1973 and it’s a great song with a great title and, if I may say so, by a terrific, really a wonderful, sensitive, marvelous songwriter…me.”
Well, this song is none of those things. Sonny did have his great (and still underrated) moments as a songwriter, but sensitive and marvelous are not the words. But still…wow! Because this is the only performance of the rarest of Sonny & Cher singles, the depressing disco number “You’re Not Right for Me.”
As they continue to introduce it, Sonny and Cher do a little Who’s On First routine with the song title, (Cher: tell the folks the title; Sonny: you’re not right for me; Cher: you’re not right for me either, Why don’t you just tell them the title….) Sonny says the song is available at your local record store. Or Cher says, “in Sonny’s dressing room.” (And if you know something about going into Sonny’s dressing room you might get more than the record you bargained for.)
I bet it was only in the record stores for two minutes because I started looking at those record bins about this time at The Record Bar at Chesterfield Mall in St. Louis didn’t even have a plastic slot card, (much to my despair) for Sonny & Cher anymore by 1977. Cher’s own bin slot card would only last through 1979 and then, too, would disappear until 1987! This so scarred me as a child that for years one of my favorite things to do in L.A. was to visit Amoeba Records just to enjoy the Sonny & Cher bin card there in the oldies section. It’s gone again. Sigh. Life is hard.
Speaking of this single, the b-side is the gimmicky hot mess “Wrong Number.” Whenever I listen to the song I keep trying to track the plot of it but keep losing the thread. They’re really not good songs. I had read about them in a Cher biography and spent all of the 80s trying to track a copy down at the used record stores across the area. It wasn’t until eBay came along that I snared one. (I used to sneak out of meetings at Yonkers Contracting to close out bids that first year of eBay. Good times.)
I had no idea they ever performed the single on their show. This online video uses the audio from the single over some rare footage of the TV performance. Which is a moot point, since they sound like they’re lip synching the song on the show anyway.
Cher does some good hair throws. At certain points Sonny gives inexplicably pained looks, maybe he’s making guitarist faces. But then sometimes he smiles at Cher over the cleverness of the lyric. There’s a pan to the horn section but they’re unlit so it’s pointless. It’s an odd performance because Cher is performing it happily and carefree and Sonny’s seems a bit sour grapes. Although if you know the backstory, that’s off a bit, too. There are personal and professional dynamics at play in the song and on their faces. Sonny and Cher are complicated people.
These were the last two studio recordings made by Sonny & Cher. And on Cher’s Warner Bros. label no-less, a label with most of Cher’s rare 45 experiments of the 1970s, including “A Woman’s Story” (1974) “Baby I Love You” (1974) and “A Love Like Yours” (1975) with Harry Nilsson, all of which were produced by the gun-waving-version of Phil Spector. Allegedly the Nilsson song made when Cher was tooling around during the John Lennon sessions for the album Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Prisoner: The guard starts as usual by saying, “You got three five with your girl, Rocco.” And they argue about the semantics of his grammatical error. And now he has only three minutes. Sonny tells Cher he’s happy to be around someone who “loves me and is listening to what I say.” Cher stifles a yawn. She is very tired and wasn’t listening when he said this and Rocco asks her if she’s been fooling around. She says she just got a new job at the police department. Rocco is very upset by this and asks how could she do that? He says, “They’re the cops and I’m the robbers! You should be on my side.” Cher says “That shows how silly you are. If I was on your side, then we’d both be over there and we wouldn’t have any visitors!” Rocco asks what the heck Cher has been doing as a police officer and she says she’s been a police decoy and it hasn’t been easy pretending to make out at three in the morning in the back of a Plymouth. Rocco then says he’s gonna kill her when he gets out and Cher says, “you’re not jealous are you?” Rocco says of course he is. Then Cher admits she was in the backseat of the Plymouth with the detective that put Rocco behind bars. Cher says, “It’s a dirty job, Rocco, but somebody’s got to do it.” Rocco wants her to quit but Cher says she’s the best decoy the department has ever had. Rocco asks where she stakes out and she says the police department parking lot. Rocco and the guard then talk about trying to keep Cher’s work under cover but not only is the warden going to announce it over the P.A. but the warden is the next in line to do a stake out with Cher in the Plymouth.
Cher Solo: “Reason to Believe” (Audio)
Cover of Tim Hardin (1965)
This lace dress looks very familiar. One of my favorite looks is Victorian Cher. Lots of foliage around (kind of fake looking) and two guitarists. Cher recorded this on her 1968 album Backstage. It’s good to hear Cher revisit this one. And this is a good, more mature, version.
Operetta: “Rootless” a spoof of the 1977 miniseries Roots.
Sonny introduces “the television phenomenon” Roots that “caused every American to re-examine their own heritage.” And that Sonny & Cher have decided to retrace the story (or the mythology, as it were) of Cher’s roots.
Cher says “Of course to trace my entire lifeline is a huge project.” Sonny quips that tracing her last three years is a huge project. Interestingly the 2024 memoir takes about a hundred pages to trace her early lifeline and only a chapter or two to trace the three years Sonny is mentioning. So…yeah.
In this skit, Cher says she’s descended from American Indian and Armenian gypsies, two nomadic cultures (not all the American Indians were nomadic though), and they picked a title that seemed to fit (“Rootless”).
We start with Cher’s Indian Nation side in the year 1310. Cher traces her love of music back to her Indian ancestor Jim who invented the “tom-tom” but it’s really a clarinet. The Indians do a snappy jazz dance. (This is actually kind of funny.) Her sense of humor comes from her ancestor, “Running Gag.” Ted Zeigler does some stand-up and there’s a joke about “Henny Youngblood.” Cher talks about her less admirable traits from a great-great-great grandmother Princess Alimony played by Cher as a blond with braids. Cher does a Jewish-accent for that ancestor and wears Laverne-like glasses. Other ancestors are “Shining Star and Little Dipper” (Sonny and Ann Meara). At least they’re not doing stereotypical Indian voices.
The Armenian side has Esmerelda. Cher sings a few bars of “Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves” and calls it an Armenian spiritual. This is the most colorful gypsy dress Cher has yet worn and reminds me of the Classic Cher residency version (from 2017-2020). It’s really beautiful. Cher’s sharp tongue, she says, came from Natashia (Ann Meara) who threw down Jewish curses. Her love for show business from her ancestors Boris and Karloff (Sonny and Peter Graves). Sonny says he’s invented Gypsy Roulette (Russian Roulette).
Now back to America, Shining Star carries on the family tradition of getting a divorce. Once you are divorced six times you are considered a “woman in our tribe.”(This is probably a joke about Cher’s mother’s many marriages.) Grandmother Cher passes on the family legend to Shining Star (Meara). There’s a Sioux/sue joke.
Back to Armenia: Sonny & Cher are narrating the two segments. Cher calls her ancestor a “woman of independent mind.” Sonny calls it a “smart mouth.” Esmerelda doesn’t know who her father is. (You can see a more modern Cher developing out of this gypsy character.) Her mother keeps cursing her. “May your daughter’s daughter’s daughter’s daughter marry a short Italian man with a mustache.” Peter Graves then gives Sonny more gibberish legend. Shining Star had a daughter Running Water. Family relationships become “hard to follow.” Running Gag’s great-great grandson is Sight Gag (Ted Zeigler, who has been walking through the skits with sight gags).
It’s interesting to see how they make Sonny into characters from Cher’s past. He becomes a mirror to her iconic mythical looks.
Cher insists to her mother that they’re rootless (not entirely untrue from the memoir). Armenian times move faster, Cher narrates, because they’re in a later time zone. Smerldina (Meara, who looks lovely in all these wigs) was raised by her brother and became a smart-mouth feminist. The king of the gypsies, Peter Graves, is summoned. He plays a clarinet (looks like he’s really playing), talking about how they have to move on. There a rushing/Russian joke because, they say, they can’t make a funny pun with the word Armenian.
The branches finally meet in America, Gypsy Rosa Lee and Indian Stolen Gag (Sonny and Cher). They both have gibberish family legends they need to combine to “put down roots.” They can’t combine them and so Sonny suggests they just fool around. The real Cher comes back on to teel about how the couple had two children, Smiling Face and Grinning Bear (they show a picture of Donny and Marie Osmond). Smiling Face had a daughter Sheila, who Cher says was her grandmother (they show a picture of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra) who married a used car salesman (they show a picture of Richard Nixon). There’s a tabloid press joke. Through twists and turns I was born, Cher says. They show a picture of her hatching.
All the prophecies came true. Sonny suggested alternating all the prophecy words to be: “Is that your nose or are you eating a banana?” Cher says, “I was not amused.” Cher says she wasn’t able to “settle down” until she divorced Sonny and she walks off. Sonny smiles at the camera and says, “Don’t you just love happy endings?”
Roots was pretty somber and a serious confrontation with American slavery for network TV. Maybe it wasn’t a good candidate for spoofing, although I’m sure all the variety shows did one like this. Of all of them, I feel pretty confident this skit was the least racist. Maybe the worst of it was calling historical origin stories “gibberish.”
IGUB: No song. They just say “goodnight everybody,” Cher kicks back her heel again and they walk-off stage.
Highlights: Sonny & Cher promoting their very last single. Some monologue honesty. A skit encouraging King Kong to seek therapy (and thusly us all). Cher’s new version of “Reason to Believe.”
