Season: 1 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 8
Guest(s): Debbie Reynolds, The Smothers Brothers
CBS Air Date: March 28, 1976
Also aired: GetTV
Open (Video)
Tommy Smothers comes on stage with Cher singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” with Tommy pointing at Cher, punching her arm and touching her hair like Sonny does. It looks like Tommy is also wearing a Sicilian horn necklace like Sonny’s and he holds his hand on his hip like Sonny does. Cher realizes right away he’s not Sonny complains about it and Tommy says Sonny was missing so, trooper that he is, he filled in. Cher isn’t impressed. Cher tells him he’s not short enough to be Sonny.
They’re wearing baby blue outfits. Cher wears less makeup on this show and her hair looks much thicker. Tommy says he always wanted to sing with her and he “respects her immensely.” But it turns out Tommy has locked Sonny in his dressing room after stealing his outfit. Sonny comes out in a robe and they argue about the situation. Then Dick Smothers comes out. They talk about Tommy’s history of stunts like this. Sonny calls Tommy “an unprofessional.” My notes say Cher looks very pregnant in a big baby blue dress.
Opening Song: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You” (Audio)
Cover of Frankie Vallie (1967)
Sonny & Cher also sang this song in 1970 on Playboy After Dark and on episode #15 of the The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. Egregiously, GetTV cuts the end of the banter and Sonny & Cher’s opening song.
Skit: The Sunshine Girls (spoof of The Sunshine Boys movie) has Cher and Debbie Reynolds as a bad, aging duo act who hate each other. They wear purple outfits and Cher uses her Laverne voice. Debbie and Cher bicker about reuniting for a TV special. Debbie wants to know why in the Flashback she’s old and Cher has become young again and Cher says, “because it’s my flashback.” Debbie threatens to leave the flashback so Cher makes her young too. They sing what seems to be an original song, “If I Give Up My Saxophone, Will You Come Back to Me” during which they play a series of instruments very badly. At the end they agree that although they hate each other still, that’s no reason why they can’t be friends.
Skit: On the old Smothers Brother’s Comedy Hour set, Sonny plays Sonny Smothers the other, third brother to The Smothers Brothers. Tommy and Sonny back up Dick as he sings Barry Manilow’s hit “I Write the Songs” and this dissolves into an argument with Tommy stating the song is full of lies. He says to Dick, “one of the things I do know is that you haven’t been alive forever!” Then Tommy supposes that Neal Sedaka probably wrote “the very first song.” Dick tries to explain that the song is “not a direct statement; it is analogous metaphor set to music.” Tommy and Sonny don’t understand what that means. Dick goes on to say the song is a “lyrical abstract celebrating the incandescent spirit of music throughout all the ages.” Tommy says he gets it but Sonny still doesn’t get it. Dick asks Tommy to explain it to Sonny. Tommy tries to parrot all that Dick said, finally saying the song is a bicentennial salute to the spirit of Neil Sedaka or Paul Anka, he can’t decide. Both Dick and Sonny pile on Tommy then and Sonny calls Tommy a bozo. Sonny then restates perfectly what Dick was theorizing. They finish the song.
I’m sorry. Sonny singing Barry Manilow makes me crazy a little bit. Very funny skit and pure Smothers Brothers magic.
Cher Solo: “The Way of Love” (Video)
Cher (1971)
Cher wears another big, blue dress here and and a hair piece of spiraled blue paper which reminds us of Cher’s paper wig for the “Woman’s World” video.
Cher lip syncs the record. They’re not hiding her bigness. Pampass grass sits on pedestals. It looks like she almost makes a mistake at “and the day may come when you’ll see him go” and it registers on her face.
Battle of the Sexes: The voiceover is now more emancipated itself and states this skit is about “the never ending drama of an emancipated woman and of the little man who keeps her home fires burning.” If you remember, on the Comedy Hour it was “and the sniveling coward who emancipated her.” Ouch. This is an improvement.
Sonny has cleaned the house, made Cher’s favorite dinner and put on her favorite outfit. He wants a quiet evening at home with her but Cher has invited her boss (Debbie Reynolds) to dinner. Sonny is angry and storms off to change outfits. Cher says men, you can’t live with ’em and you can’t live without ’em and says if Sonny didn’t look so cute in a bikini…
Debbie arrives and Cher fixes them drinks from their apartment wet bar. Reynolds requests “a woman’s drink,” a drink called a Little Pink Stud. Sonny comes out in a sexy outfit and Debbie asks, “who is this little vision of handsomeness?” Debbie talks Sonny into having a drink and he asks for a “Mickey Rooney.” Reynolds tells Sonny he has a “great bod for a father of three.” Sonny admits the kids were Cher’s from a previous marriage. Debbie and Cher talk about Sonny as if he’s not there. Debbie says she had her own husband shave off his mustache but she likes Sonny’s. Sonny says he’s thinking of having it streaked. Cher leaves the room and Debbie jumps in Sonny’s lap. When Sonny gets upset she calls him frigid. When Cher finds out she kicks Debbie out of the apartment and gets herself fired in the process.
This skit always makes Mr. Cher Scholar laugh. Sonny’s hysterics particularly.
Concert: “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” / “My World Is Empty Without You” (Video)
Cover of The Supremes and The Temptations (1968) and The Supremes (1966)
They also sang this song in the concert segment of Comedy Hour episode #17. Sonny wears a suit and Cher wears a pink dress with a hot pink fringed wrap. She wears big, thick hair extension and hangs her hand.
28th Annual Bozo Awards: The old Bono Awards have been repurposed as the Bozos, awarding ridiculous behavior on award shows. They use audience members as stand-ins for the hot celebrities of the day, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand. Hosts Sonny & Cher play Steven Stunning and Marsha Mundane, a redhead in a wrap dress. There’s a new, bad Bono statuette. The awards are very satirical and all the jokes still probably apply to this day.
The hosts win the first award for the dumbest chit-chat by hosts of an awards show. Cher thanks all the little people. This skit reminds us of Cher’s own Oscar moment in 1988.- The most confusing explanation of the voting procedures of an awards show goes to The Smothers Brothers playing the accountants explaining the procedures of voting. Tommy acts very surprised and excited to have been chosen. The show cuts to the hosts primping while they assume they’re off camera. The Smothers Brothers then say they can change the results at whim and “that’s the way they like it” and the end with Tommy singing the KC and the Sunshine Band song. “How wonderfully arrogant,” Sonny says.
- Movie songs, songs written for no apparent reason other than possibly winning an award (an example was a song from Jaws). This award was cut from the GetTV airing.
- Sorest loser award: nominees were Larry Dalmatian for losing an Emmy and Greg Retriever (the winner) for losing a Tony. This award was cut from the GetTV airing.
- Most outrageously arrogant musical number in an awards show. Real songs are used with rewritten lyrics. This award was cut from the GetTV airing.
- Special effects award: they go through some silly special effects. “The old exploding weiner effect” wins for a Hindenburg movie.
- Golden Bozo award for the most ungracious acceptance speech by someone accepting for a friend. Debbie accepts as Ya Ya Labor, a spoof on Zsa Zsa Gabor. Debbie does a good job with this. She makes a reference to the casting couch.
- Then a streaker (who looks like Billy Van) runs by and Cher laughs like she’s legitimately surprised. Sonny says, “Well, we all have to show our manly-hood some kind of way, don’t we?” This is a direct reference to David Niven presentencing an Oscar in 1974 while a nudist runs behind him. Niven ad libbed a joke about the only way the streaker could get a laugh was by stripping off and showing off his shortcomings. But this is also a famous Cher Oscars moment because you can hear her crane laugh peeling from the audience when it all happens.
- The last award is Worst Performance on the Worst Awards show but they can’t award this one because they’ve planned badly and run out of time.
At the end the cast sings “There’s No Bozos Like Show Bozos” to the tune of “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
It also looks like they recycle Cher’s big C stage for this skit.
IGUB: They shake hands. Sonny says it’s really been great having Cher on his show. She rolls her eyes. Cher plays with her nails. The do a little ending banter. They point at each other. Cher does a hair flip and some loud clapping.
Thanks to Jay for the run-down on the re-airings of this episode, especially the details about the Bozo Awards and where all the missing parts were in the GetTV version. Many online guides have this show airing on March 21, 1976, but Jay has checked the original TV Guide and the episode aired March 28, 1976.
Highlights: The three Smother’s Brothers skit, Battle of the Sexes is another good one, the Bozo awards really stick it to awards shows and that’s fun. Good episode all around.
