Season: 2 (Cher)
Episode: 22
Guest(s): Teri Garr, Martin Mull, George Burns
CBS Air Date: November 2, 1975
Also aired: VH1
We’re again using the first season’s opening style of clips instead of the cool, new Cher graphics. What gives?
Torch Open/Opening Song: “Rainy Days and Mondays” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street” (Video)
Cover of the Carpenters (1971) and jazz standard, from the musical Lew Leslie’s International Revue (1930)
Cher wears a rainbow-boa cape. When she throws it off, we see a sheer dress with white plastic circle fringing. The backdrop circle is decorated with green and pink teardrop shapes.
Monologue: Cher gets a big response and she says ‘pshaw’ and tells us the studio audience is crazy but we at home are nice. She introduces George Burns (“the nicest man in show business”) and Teri Garr. During the Q&A, she asks writer John Holland to help read the question cards (no audience contact). He comes on stage and says, “Good evening, Mrs. Allman.” She’s asked who her favorite performer is and she responds, “in show business or privately.” (Nice answer.) She’s asked if she’s had her nose fixed and she says, yes I ran into a wall. (Not a nice answer.) He asks, “When you are 50 years old, will you still be dressing the way you do now?” (Yes, hindsight says. Cher then says, “Of course not; that’s a silly question John” and insists she’ll be much more daring and revealing when she’s 50.) The last question gives Cher the giggles and she has trouble singing.
Guest Spot (Video)
Cher in a ponytail and face curls and an off-the-shoulder blouse and white pants asks George Burns to sing a sad, ballad and he sings “The Baby Song” which has a very funny punchline.
Skit: Teri Garr and Martin Mull are interpreters trying to arrange a royal marriage.
Cher Solo: “Limehouse Blues” (Video)
From the musical A to Z (1921)
This is the video my friends always find and send to me to show Cher doing inappropriate cultural appropriation. And it does veer a bit over the line I would agree. But the dress is beautiful and the set is full of smokey atmosphere. But the Chinese male dancer garb is definitely not okay. There might be a cross-dresser there at the end.
Duet with Guest (Video, 5:28)
George Burns makes a Family Hour joke. Cher wears a black fringed halter dress and a bobbed wig. She wants to do a sand dance with Burns. They sing and dance to “I Ain’t Got Nobody” (standard, Marion Harris, 1915).
Skit: Cher is the heartless clerk at the complaint department again. Garr and Mull play a couple trying to return un-used wedding rings.
Finale (Video, 7:27)
Cher (“I’m Cher!”) and Teri Garr (“I’m Ter!”) play “The Folly Sisters” saluting vaudeville revues with sketches.
+ Gaylard Sartain and Martin Mull do a funny bit about a Christian Scientist being hit by a truck.
+ A doctor sketch with an old Jewish patient and nurses who chase him around.
+ Cher in a long pink dress and a pile of curls meets with George Burns. Cher wants to do an old Burns and Allen routine (me too!!). They do a Burns and Allen routine and then dance together and then do another Burns and Allen bit. Cher is really smiling by the end of it.
+ In the finale Cher and Teri Garr sing out famous Vaudeville names and George Burns comes out to question the last name. Cher says she was sneaking in a call-out to her secretary and bff, then named Paulette Eghiazarian, in lieu of a raise. There’s a lot of Paulette references in the show this year. Incidentally, Paulette was married Allman Brother’s Dickey Betts somewhere in here.
Close: Continuation of the finale. No one ever mentions Martin Mull for some reason.
VHI is a half-hour episode and is missing the Garr/Mull translations skit, the duet with Burns and the complaint department sketch.
Highlights: “Limehouse Blues” is really more of an instructive lowlight, “The Baby Song” is funny.
