Season: 1 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 11
Guest(s): Andy Griffith and Sherman Hemsley
CBS Air Date: April 18, 1976
Also aired: GetTV
This is the last episode of this first season.
Opening Song: “There’s a Kind of a Hush” (Video)
Cover of The New Vaudeville Band (original) and also Herman’s Hermits (1967) and also the Carpenters (1976)
Cher is looking more pregnant every week. Sonny is in a beautifully deep-blue suit and Cher is wearing a matching shawl dress. One thing to note on this show is how much less makeup Cher was wearing than on her earlier shows and she is much less tan. Her hair looks thicker and for that matter Sonny’s mustache seems thicker. They seem to be having a good time. Cher makes fun of Sonny’s hand gestures.
Opening Banter: Sonny & Cher do their handshake and Sonny says Cher made a mistake “but he won’t mention it.” He proceeds to mention it, saying she was supposed to sing harmony at the end. He says, “It was stupid, but it’s alright.” Then Sonny claims he has a new low-profile approach to being on the show. He thinks they should both take a more serious tone and quit with the silly nose and short jokes. Cher suggests he go in 60 Minutes instead. Cher says she would give Sonny the Nobel Prize for comedy (if only that was a thing!) Sonny says he wouldn’t want it and then segues into talking about astrology.
Sonny says everything they do is controlled by the stars. Cher says, “That’s funny, I thought everything we did was controlled by the CBS censors.” Sonny says knowing a person’s birth sign can tell you a lot about that person. Sonny keeps pestering Cher to give him a sign and Cher makes a joke about giving him the finger. He laughs. Cher finally says she’s a Taurus (an earth sign, Sonny says) and Sonny says he’s an Aquarius (an air sign). Cher says that must be why he is full of hot air.
Cher admits she likes astrology and the idea that everything she does is “written in the stars.” Sonny quips that everything she does is written in the National Enquirer. Sonny claims astrology brought them together. He says he married her because he read that a Taurus has a good sense of humor. Cher says no, it said a Taurus loves a good joke and that’s why she married him. She tickles his chin and he grins.
Sonnytone News: In the intro of these skits, Sonny dances next to a barn in a chicken suit. Toward the end of the skits, the barn always collapses.
– Sonny plays a duck hunter who inspires a movie by accidentally shooting down the Hindenburg.
– There’s a shortage of doctors and so medical schools are releasing doctors too early. Chastity plays Cher’s new doctor. Cher, with a short wig, questions Chastity’s qualifications as “a lady doctor.” Oy. Remember when that was a thing? Chastity prescribes “two lollipops and call me in the morning.” There’s a Dr. Spock joke.
– Congress vetoes televising their sessions. This was pre-C-span. Andy Griffith plays the Speaker of the House. Behind him are Billy Van, Ted Zeigler and Gailard Sartain. There’s an urban renewal joke. The congressmen are trying to be funny. They talk about an education bill, the space program and a joke about bribing the aerospace company Lockheed Martin. The president is signing bills with crayon. They promise the best congress money can buy. My notes say I didn’t get most of these jokes.
– New York City is broke and Sherman Helmsley and Sonny are at a toll booth that is part of a fundraising scheme to raise money for the city. The toll booth is charging fifty dollars instead of fifty cents. It ends up costing $500 to exit the toll booth. This is an interesting skit because the Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Power Broker about these NYC toll roads and other infrastructures had just come out in July of 1975. (I just saw the movie about it).
– In another King Kong sketch, Cher as Fay Wray tells King Kong he needs to get a job already. She suggests he become a skyscraper window-washer. She says she’s tired of “cheap living” but King Kong contends he wants to be a movie star. She tells him being tall isn’t enough and that he will have to cap his teeth and fix his nose.
Concert: “Oh What a Night” / “Lonely Night” (Video)
Cover of The Four Seasons (1975) and Neil Sedaka (original, 1975) and also Captain & Tennille (1976)
This is one of those cultural appropriation looks that probably was very well-intentioned and international-seeming at the time (like hey, we’re sharing all the Cher looks); but it reads now as a stereotypically overdone, Japanese geisha look. The dress is a modern print dress of geisha heads and the hair is in the style of old Japanese woodprints.
It is in its own way a very good job of bad appropriation. Sonny is in a matching red suit with a purple shirt. My notes say you can see this show’s musical arranger, Harold Battiste, in the back with the band. Cher carries this number. Sonny seems ill-prepared. What would he do without cue cards? At one point Cher starts belting it out and I almost fell out of my chair. But honestly, this mashup is a hot mess.
I can, however, listen to Cher add vowels to the singing of the word ‘mesmerizing” any day of the week.
Battle of the Sexes: Andy Griffith plays a liberated man giving advice to house-husband Sonny about male liberation. Cher scholar Jay mentions how funny this skit is and how Andy and Sonny are cracking up throughout it. Griffith says men should stop wearing undershirts and burn them all. He says Sonny should earn $32,000 a year for all his housework and recommends that Sonny find out who he is and do his own thing. Sonny says, “I don’t think I have a thing” which ends up sounding like a double entendre (and we haven’t seen many of those on this show…times have changed and censorship is more severe). Sonny thinks about it and then says he can make some “great hot-cross buns.” Sonny breaks out laughing at this line.
Cher comes home wearing her short wig and tiny suit and Andy calls her a female chauvinist pig. Sonny gets mad about how Andy is talking to his wife and Andy calls Sonny fat. Sonny gets mad (really he just cracks up) as he exits saying, “I’ll go heat up my buns!”
Cher Solo: “Feelings” (Video)
Cover of Morris Albert (1974)
This song aired so much in the 1970s, we’re still sick of it today. Cher wears a white dress and white head wrap and big gold earrings. This is a slow version. Yes, even slower than the original slow version. I love the white mic every time they use it. This is pure Cher styling though. You couldn’t do a better Cher impersonation than Cher is doing right here.
Operetta:
It’s story time for Chastity and this story is called Sir Bono the Bold. Cher tells Chastity about Sonny (ostensibly as her great, great grandfather) wanting to be a knight in King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table. (That doesn’t seem like enough ‘greats’ there but okay.) To accomplish this, Sonny has to break the spell that has been put upon Cher (Henrietta) who has been made into a jester. She keeps telling bad jokes and can’t stop.
Sherman Helmsley plays Mervin (vs. Merwin) the Magician. Andy Griffith plays a wandering minstrel with a big hat and shoulder pads. He calls himself “a news man.” Chasity comes in as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Chastity calls Sonny a munchkin. (Wow. This is a real mashup.) Sonny wears a sauce pan on his head (to keep with his Italian cooking theme). There’s a black magic joke, a Brunswick Bowling joke, a Field and Stream magazine joke and a Rona Barret joke. In the end, the spell on Cher is broken and she becomes a pretty princess. Yes she does.
Sonny’s Pizza: This skit is missing from GetTV. Sherman Helmsley owns a competing restaurant and tries to cause Sonny’s restaurant to fail. This was a popular skit from their earlier show and it’s interesting that they’re bringing it back (along with the Vamp skits).
IGUB: Sonny, Cher and Chastity say goodnight. No song.
In some of the airings, GetTV cut the ends off the musical numbers. The Sonny’s Pizza skit has been cut also. Thanks to Jay for the run-down on this episode. Many online guides have this show airing on April 11, 1976, but Jay has checked the original TV Guide and the episode aired April 18, 1976.
Highlights: Happily more Sherman Helmsley, another King Kong skit and a good Battle of the Sexes.
