Season: 2 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 33
Guest(s): Tina Turner, David Steinberg, Shields & Yarnell
CBS Air Date: March 11, 1977
Also aired: TVLand, The Sonny & Cher Ultimate Collection DVD
This was the last “normal” show to air for Sonny & Cher, the last show with a solo segment and the last show of recurring skits.
Opening Song: “Teach Me Tonight” (Video)
Cover of Gene de Paul and Sammy Cahn (1953)
Sonny & Cher do look good here. Cher wears a sheer baby-blue gown and Sonny wears a suit with a matching blue shirt. Cher plays with Sonny’s face. (I love those sleeves!) There are weird zooms in the middle and end, but I’ve starred this number.
Opening Banter: Sonny says he likes this jazz standard and remembers it from childhood but that it’s before Cher’s time. Cher says Sonny sings like a basketball player and pretends to dribble a basketball. She keeps playing with his face and accuses Sonny of molting. Sonny talks about Cher’s alleged stumble as she came onstage and how, when he used to watch her solo show, she would stumble a lot. “What’d you come out on a big tongue?” (Ha! Yeah, she did.) Sonny mocks the way she threw her hair around. And how she tried to banter but just wanted it all to be over with (also, a truth there). He says it was a nice show but it was missing “one little thing” and smiles. (And the audience loves this.) Cher says she only has an hour so she won’t go into what Sonny’s solo show was missing. But she then admits she only saw one episode.
Sonny then pivots to say, “So they tell me you’re the sex symbol of this show.” Cher quips, “only by default.” Sonny says the show is structured that way, “I mean, you can see everything!” What would I be, he ponders, if I started taking off my clothes? Cher says, “a short, naked Italian.” Sonny is very revealing when he says, “I’m sure there are some men who find you sexy.” (He’s excluded in that list, see.) And Cher retorts, “I’m sure there are some men who find you sexy.” Sonny says he’s confident in his own sex appeal. He knows he has it and he’s learned to live with it. He talks about when he walks into a bar the the ladies squeal and scream and Cher says this is because after a few drinks he wanders into the ladies room.
Sonny says since the divorce he’s the swinging single and he gets a lot more fan mail. Then Sonny talks about how impressed Cher was when she first saw him (also true). Sonny admitted it was love at first sight for him too, but not with Cher, with her roommate Melissa (another truth). Sonny accesses Cher of still being jealous of the situation. Cher admits she was once jealous of Melissa and that she found Sonny to be a “sharp, sexy guy” and that his is still one of the “sharpest, sexiest guys on television.” Sonny then says he has always wanted to ask her one thing but has never had the courage to do it. Cher gets ready for an intimate compliment but Sonny justs asks her for Melissa’s phone number. Wah-wah.
Vente Nove: In the last Vente Nove, the director says, “Hello, pretty lady” as he descends in his director’s rig. He talks about his new movie, “The Lovers, “a picture with no people,” no vain temperamental people who wear funny clothes and sunglasses. Cher says, but you do too! And Vente Nove says, “But I’m a director! They roll the film which is a Shields & Yarnell segment where they play robots on their honeymoon. I’ve starred this one.
The Prisoner: In the last Prisoner we find out Rocco has been in prison for four years. Cher apologizes to him for being late but she was at her own baby shower. Rocco is, of course, alarmed by this news but Cher tells him she’s going to adopt a boy. Rocco is relieved but then Cher admits the boy is 32 years old and named Richie.
It’s a good time to restate what these shows did with Cher’s version of the femme fatale. Her characters on the show never gets their comeuppance and not only did this break from the film-noir tradition, but it presented Cher as a sexually empowered person. I’ve starred this one, too.
Cher Solo: “Danny’s Song” (Video)
Cover of Loggins and Messina (1971)
The very last Cher solo! Cher wears her hair in a tall bun and she’s in a white, un-Cher-like, high-collared, sleeveless dress. The set is foggy with pillars topped with feathers. This is of my favorite Cher TV show covers. I grew up with the Anne Murray record version and then my brother had the Loggins & Messina version.
A lot has changed in the world since Cher’s first solo spot, “You Made Me Love You.” But some things remain the same. See if you can spot them.
Guest Spot: Tina Turner sings “Watch Closely Now” (Video)
Duet with Guest: Cher and Tina dance and sing to a medley of songs. (Video)
They both wear dresses similar to Cher’s promo for her 1978 television special, Cher…Special.
Tina Turner is one of the few singers who can overpower Cher’s loud voice, a voice Snuff Garrett once said could “cut through a cement orchestra.”
- “Makin’ Music Is My Business” (unknown)
- “Shake Your Music Maker” (Is this a take on “Shake Your Money Maker” by Elmore James, 1961?)
- “I Got the Music in Me” (The Kiki Dee Band, 1974)
- “Mr. Melody” (Natalie Cole, 1976)
The best of many good Cher/Tina duets.
Sonny’s Pizza: In the last Sonny’s Pizza, Sonny hires a temperamental new chef named Pierre, David Steinberg. He flirts with Cher, kissing her arm. She rolls her eyes. Tina Turner plays a customer who loves the new food (he serves her quiche) so much she dances around the restaurant in the fringed, button outfit from an guest earlier episode. There’s a soul food joke.
Skit: David Steinberg plays a psychiatrist and Sonny plays his patient. He convinces Sonny everyone is really talking about him.
IGUB: Just a goodbye. 🙁
Thanks to Jay for the official run-down on this episode.
Highlights: Pretty good episode all around. The lastness of everything is a lot sad. Good solo spot. Funny last sketches. It’s the last of the Tina Turner and Cher duets. In fact, Turner is the last official guest of all the Sonny & Cher variety shows. We started with Jimmy Durante and we end with Tina Turner.
As I recall, fans were not aware the show was ending and, unless you heard show cancellation news, which this seven-year-old was decidedly not hearing, you are still calmly waiting for the next season to this very day. Sigh.
