Season: 1 (Cher)
Episode: 7
Guest(s): Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Jimmie Walker
CBS Air Date: March 23, 1975
Also aired: VH1
Torch Open/Opening Song: “You’re No Good” (Video)
Cover of Linda Ronstadt (1974) Dee Dee Warwick (1963)
Cher wears a green shiny wrap for the torch part. She has a head-wrap. Underneath it all is a shiny green summer dress and the stage curtain is a greenish-gold glittery fringe. She ends the song kicking up a knee and lot of flipping of hair and hanging of hand.
Monologue: Cher asks “How you doing? She says she feels really good. She says thank you for all the fan letters. She talks about how she doesn’t write because she can’t spell (no word processing spell check then) but she appreciates the letters. Some letters ask the question what she does with dresses after she wears them? She keeps them. She jokes that Jimmie Walker is the only other person who could fit them. She says he has enough money; he can buy his own dresses.
Another question is does she memorize the show or use cue cards? (remember Sonny’s dependence on cue cards? Btw, Cher doesn’t know she’s dyslexic yet). She jokes about memorizing everything like she’s reading a cue card. She says she gets really good letters from kids including one who complimented her jokes, singing and the show but she has a big nose, Susan Johnson, age 8 wrote that and Cher says, “I can dig it.” She got a letter addressed to “Share” asking, “Why do you have a show and I don’t? I’m prettier than you, funnier than you and I sing better than you. Singed Jerry Lewis, aged 46.” (Just watched a Jerry Lewis documentary over the weekend and The Patsy. Would recommend.)
Cher introduces Jimmie Walker as everybody’s best friend and says “Dy-no-mite!” to introduce Jimmie Walker, she talks about Teri Garr as one of her best friends for four years now, her buddy from the Launderette. And she introduces Marty Feldman as one of the stars of “a really far-out movie” Young Frankenstein. She then acknowledges that Teri Garr is also a star in the movie and then says “I told ’em Teri” as if Teri is actually backstage and had put her up to say that. But Teri Garr deserves that introduction as much as Marty Feldman. This was her big movie debut although not her first appearance. She had been in 15 other movies as “girl” or a dancer and was surprisingly prominent in the movie Head.
Skit: Marty Feldman as a door-to-door salesman.
Guest duet: Cher and Teri Garr sing “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” (Video)
Cover of Bob Roberts (1912)
These are ridiculously funny cowgirl outfits, with fuzzy chaps and sheriff stars right on their shoulders. And again this is a great example of Cher dancing next to a real, trained dancer. She can just move better is all. Crazy thing.
Skit: Teri Garr is the wife of Lone Ranger (Marty Feldman)
Cher Medley: “Half Breed” “Gypsies Tramps and Thieves” and “Dark Lady” (Video)
Cher wears the purple pants and sleeveless top outfit (and matching headband). She wears a curly wig. There are backup singers and the band on stage. She says letters have requested her “old songs.” You know, like the ones from last year. She says these songs have been really good to her. I never get tired of seeing that logo roll down in front of the red-carpeted C ramp surrounded by the band. The two backup singers in the foreground are back. Cher really gets into “Dark Lady.”
Skit (Video, 11:29)
Jimmie Walker in a commercial where he’s arguing with the margarine. This is a spoof of Parkay margarine commercials. Jimmie Walker keeps saying “You’re margarine” and the tub keeps saying, “dynamite!’ The tub eventually blows up and Walker tastes it and agrees it’s dynamite and the tub says “margarine.” What a troll that tub of food product! The skit ends with Walker doing his “Dy-no-mite!” which everybody loved at the time. They couldn’t get enough of it.
Skit: Cher is a school principal confronting Jimmie Walker who is a troublemaker.
Saturday Night: Cher has a dateless night. (I would love to see this one.)
Cher Solo: “My Love” (Audio only) (Video)
Cover of Paul McCartney and Wings (1973)
Cher also sang this on episode #48 of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. We open with a closeup on the colorful sequins of Cher’s dress. A white ruffle from Cher’s nude and sequined dress climbs from her shoulder to the top of her head. She’s surrounded by a smokey mist. She really works the sultry out of it.
Finale Skit (Video, 12:28)
“The Flying Garbanzos” are a dysfunctional family of trapeze artists (Cher, Marty Feldman and Teri Garr) who are being questioned by a police officer (Jimmie Walker) over the death of Hilda the Human cannonball. Teri is doing her German accent and Cher is doing a Spanish accents (although they’re family?). Turns out Cher killed Hilda over an affair she was having with Armando (Marty). She had the aid of the circus lion. There’s a double-entendre about “getting what you deserve.” Marty does a “Not tonight, I gotta headache” joke. Hilda turns up in an ape suit. But then she falls off the platform and dies again. All sorts of people come on and off the platform until it becomes structurally unsound and they all fall off.
Close: Cher closes the show from the trapeze platform of the finale. Teri, Marty and Jimmie join her. She thanks her guests including “the beautiful Marty Feldman.” She tells us to try to be with us next week and to be cool and be nice to each other. The credits roll as people fly off and on the platform again.
VHI is missing two Marty Feldman pieces (door-to-door salesman and Lone Ranger) but not the finale skit. The show is also missing the duet with Teri Garr, the Saturday Night sketch, Cher’ssolo and the school skit with Jimmie Walker.
Highlights: The first appearance of the Cher 70s hits medley, which would go on to many tours from the Believe to The Farewell, D2K and Here We Go Again tours and the Caesars and Park Theater residencies. The steamy solo of “My Love.”
