I’ve been talking to some Cher fans who believe we’re in a new golden age of Cher, starting from the release of the Funko Pop dolls to the record re-releases through the Christmas album, the Forever compilation, the Hall of Fame moment, the memoirs and now this year’s out-of-the-blue Uber Eats commercial, which was smarter and more self-depreciating than anything Cher has done in a while. Not to mention being hip and well made.

If we digress a moment and go back and count the prior golden ages:

  1. New Artist Phase: 1965-66, Sonny & Cher are the latest music fad
  2. Sonny’s Killer Comeback Phase: 1971-76, TV star and Cher becomes one of the most photographed women in the world
  3. Strong Woman Comeback Phase: 1985-89, Cher becomes a popular and respected actress and charts with a new string of MTV-era hits
  4. Breaking-Age-Records Comeback Phase: 1998-99, I would argue that “Believe” was more of an intense blip (based on one hit song) but it was the most intense of worldwide, culture-dominating blips so it counts
  5. And so this would be the fifth golden age, the Icon Phase (and with humor; so nice we don’t have to deal with all that self-seriousness!)

I’ve been waiting so long to talk about this ad campaign but we had so much else to do first. Here we go…

The Original Ad (from Uber Eats YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UUz5R4FsX0

We are at Cher’s house presumably with many depictions of international luxury, the ornate walls with hidden cupboards, gold records hanging, one of Cher’s iconic pirate outfits on a mannequin (very Australian choice), portable racks of clothes (not something normal people have), high ceilings, jewels hanging randomly off things.

In the second shot we make out that we’re in Cher’s bedroom. She’s looking at herself in the mirror and we see her bed behind her. She’s wearing a now-iconic Cher outfit, the short skirt, embellished leather jacket (in this case studded holes), big hoop earrings. Her own song, “Turn Back Time,” is playing in the background and she’s humming along. We see a closeup of her ordering from Uber Eats, with gem-glued nails, on her smartphone. She types “Time Machine” and you can see her last search was for “antiaging cream.” (Psst! She’s just like us; this is also a foreshadow of the claims of her agelessness to come.) She turns around when the doorbell rings (it’s here already?!). We see her mirror is strewn with jewels.

(click to enlarge)

Cher exits ornate doors. Uber Eats has a diminutive green bag waiting there with a time machine inside. (The foley on her books is too much and not synced, but that’s my only single quibble.) She wistfully asks to be taken to the 80s. (Cher herself is like a time-machine and so this is the most magical of scenarios.) She blissfully awaits the time travel.

But when the time machine is done we see that Cher should have been more specific in her request. We get the best sight gag of the commercial: Cher sitting astride a cannon being pulled by men. It’s the 1680s not the 1980s. It’s now a fish-out-of-water gag with Cher dressed like modern Cher (but with some 80s-throwback references) interacting with technically Restoration Period (I looked it up and asked around) villagers.

This is a big joke about an iconic moment in her 1980s video for “Turn Back Time.” The villagers are caked with grime, exhausted-looking and very perplexed. Cher exclaims, “This isn’t the 80s!” A villager says “Tis the 1680s.” Bad weather looms in the background. A woman looks at Cher closely and with disgust and says, “She’s both young and old…at the same time!” This is a joke about Cher’s face, a joke somewhere between her genetic youthfulness and plastic surgery controversies.

In the background an old woman stuck in a pillory (presumably for being deemed a witch) screams, “She’s a witch!” (After all, only a witch could stay so young looking.) A Ye Olde music band gasps in dismay. Cher defends herself badly, “I’m not a witch, I’m an icon.” (This is funny because Cher is always dismissive about her status as an icon. So she often jokes sardonically about being an icon.)

A somewhat flamboyant judge deems Cher a witch immediately without much of a legitimate trial. (There are a lot of bits in this ad about projection or a sort of defensive judging outward; Cher is also being scapegoated for appearing so strange to them). The band furiously plays “Turn Back Time” which is the second funniest piece of this commercial. That they would know the song, that these performers throw themselves into playing it so enthusiastically.

Immediately Cher finds herself being burned at the stake before the song is even finished. Cher shows no fear while being burned. She just wants to know if one of the villagers has taken her boots. “Are those my boots?” They pan up from the bedazzled knee-high boots as worn on a 1680s man (which is a nod to the first Cher drag moment). Note the man next to boots-guy. He is falling in love with Cher and will appear in a later extension of the commercial. The judge is dancing in his chair to the spectacle, (an early gay male Cher fan?) and the “witch” lady is out of the pillory and the first one to light the straw. Cher just looks annoyed. “This is ridiculous,” she says.

Cher is then back in her kitchen with an Uber Eats bag full of Thyme. The tag reads, “Time Machine No Thyme Yes.” Cher is cooking and humming her song.

In a season full of nostalgic celebrity Superbowl-era ads, this one stood out. Not a false note in it.

Since then, at least three shorts have come out, which is great because these are all fabulous characters to spend time with. For some reason these shorts are not on the Uber Eats YouTube account.

The Turn Back Time Short (posted by Cher World)
 https://www.facebook.com/reel/647856634558628

Maybe it finally rained, extinguishing the stake-burning, or maybe Cher won over the villagers but in these mini-ads she has escaped. In this short she is trying to teach the 1680s musicians how to play “Turn Back Time” but they go crazy with embellishments. They’re actually pretty good but Cher doesn’t like it and and is deflated at the end, saying just “No.”  The tag at the end says, “Band No Bandages Yes” showing a bag full of bandage boxes.

The Uber Eats App Short (posted by CherWorld)
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2082878045459781

Cher is in the middle of explaining to the “she-looks-young-and-old-at-the-same-time” woman what Uber Eats app is. Of course the woman has no cultural context for any of this and Cher is not explaining it very well and getting frustrated. “What’s a phone?” “It’s used to call people!” The woman calls out “Call people? Like ‘Good Morrow!'” Cher gives up and says. “I hate this place.” (as you would imagine Cher would). The ad ends with the tag, “Get almost almost anything.”

These shorts hint that Cher is somehow stuck in this era (maybe the time machine broke) and these frustrating conversations are ongoing.

It’s brilliant because it sparks your own imagination.

17th Century Courting (Cher posted this one on her Facebook account)
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1594724681206784

During the stake-burning, one of the villagers was falling for Cher. Let’s call him bad-teeth guy. He tries a pick-up line on Cher: “Dost thou have a map? For I keep getting lost in thine eyes.” (I can imagine the writer’s room full of these joke pitches: 1960s pickup lines!) And then he raises his eyebrows and winks at her. Cher says, “never gonna happen, honey” looking annoyed. The door bell rings. Off-screen we hear Cher say, “not a snowflake’s chance in hell” and the final tag reads “Romance No Roma Tomatoes Yes” with a bag full of fresh and canned tomatoes showing.

There’s eternally bad weather in this place.

Australian Today Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKvk7Qe0fWU

Australia’s Today Show did a behind-the-scenes interview with Cher in January with Reid Butler and they talk about Cher being called an icon. Cher says (endearingly), “I’m just a working girl.” (A lot of this commercial is about common perceptions of Cher.) Butler sees the commercial as full of “Ozzy humor…being not afraid to make fun of yourself.” Did that draw her to the ad? Cher says no but she loved the humor in it. She talks about her mother’s sense of humor.

They don’t answer the question of what drew her to the ad. Probably the money I would guess.

They talk about the canon-moment of the ad. “It was crazy. Look, it was silly and it was fun.” With a time machine, Cher says she would go back to her 40s (the 1980s) and how that was a great time for her. She says she felt like she was 20 and went from doing a play on Broadway to Silkwood and how things “just fell into place by accident.”

They then talk about Cher’s newly published memoir. And then about how rough 2025 has started and did Cher have some words for those of us who have been feeling down. Cher references her town in California and they show an image of the then-ongoing Los Angeles fires. Cher says she admires the LA spirit and “we’ll come back but people will have to work really hard.” Cher says she missed out on one of the benefits because she wasn’t decisive enough. They show footage of the devastation. She talks about the unfortunate national vs. state politics. “I can’t imagine how terrified people are,” she says.

They then move over to discussing Bob Mackie. They talk about Cher’s two favorite dresses, the 1986 Oscar F.U. dress and the 1974 Met Gala dress. The Australians call her “feisty and fabulous” and “every inch the icon.”

I keep fantasizing that I have moved to Australia and Cher is already there.

Sigh.