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Category: Television (Page 16 of 23)

Family Guy’s Christmas Special

FamilyguyLast Sunday, Family Guy aired a Christmas episode called "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" about the story of Joseph and Mary (and Stewey as Jesus). Mr. Cher Scholar and I watched it and our favorite lines are:

Peter as Joseph to Lois as Mary:

Mary, tell me again how it is that God got you pregnant? Cos when you tell the story it sorta makes sense. But then when I tell the guys at work, they poke all kinds of holes in it.

There's a running Cher joke through the episode starting with when Joseph first asks Mary out on a date:

Peter as Joseph: Hey listen I just got tickets to see Cher in Bethlehem. Wanna go?

Lois as Mary: I guess. How close are the seats?

Peter as Joseph: Row LXVI.

Later when Joseph and Mary are trying to find a room at the inn, the character Mort plays the innkeeper and refuses them.

Mort: Sorry. We're all booked up. Cher is in town. You won't find a room in the city.

Joseph and Mary plead to no avail. Mary's water breaks and Mort gives them space in the inn's manger.

From a distance in the town you hear sounds of a crowd and Cher shouting.

Cher: Bethlehem! I have one question for you.

A dance beat starts.

Cher sings: Do you believe in life after love?

Peter as Joseph: Jah! See? I told you she'd open with that.

The joke being that Cher has been around so long….

Anyway, I wouldn't be a Cher scholar if I didn't point out that Cher never opens with that song. But that's the cross I bear.


Cherfamguy2Family Guy
has done a smattering of Cher jokes over the years. Last year they did this Cher impersonator in a wheelchair joke.

Years before the show hit its stride, they did a scene where Meg pretends she's Cher singing to the troops, but with disastrous results.

In another episode a few years ago Peter writes "Retire Cher" from an airplane similar to the way
the Wicked Witch of the West wrote "Surrender Dorothy."

Cherfamguy1

Truman Capote on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour

So for years I've been telling Mr. Cher Scholar that The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was so popular in the early 1970s that it was able to pull in some pretty unbelievable guest stars.

The penultimate unbelievable guest star, in my humble opinion, was writer Truman Capote.

Truman

As all my S&C episode are in a box somewhere in my garage, I was never able to prove this meeting of the talent ever occurred, thus get Mr. Cher Scholar to believe it.  

Thankfully, the Los Angeles Times recently posted their memory of the event in December, a happening which originally broadcast on October 3, 1973 on CBS along with the LA Times original interview with Capote by Cecil Smith on August 22, 1973:
Capote3

Capote was called onstage to play the
British admiral doing battle with the French. In his most piping
screech, he yelled: “Where’s the mizzen mast?” To which a sailor
shrugged: “I don’t know. How long has it been mizzen?”

I was curious as to what motivates a
writer of the stature of Capote, certainly one of the most important
literary figures of the century, to play the fool for the glory of
toilet bowl and armpits and other objects sacred to television.

“I’ve always liked Sonny and Cher,” said
Capote over some dry Manhattans at the Hotel Bel-Air. “I’ve never done
anything like this and I thought it might be fun.”
Capote4

“I suppose I did it because I was asked.”

This certainly fits with Capote's image at the end of his career. Famous for writing In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's (one of Cher's favorite films when she was younger), Capote had long stopped writing and had become a Hollywood wannabie, hob-knobbing with the star set. There have been a few films about his life but I really liked Capote (2005) starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Here is more information about the episode:

The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour Season 4 Episode 4
Show 47 – Truman Capote, John Davidson
The Vamp segment looks back at the love affair between Lord Horatio Nelson (Capote) and his mistress Lady Hamilton (Cher). Cher also plays another vamp, Sadie Thompson, in a parody of spy movies, with Capote playing the evil Dr. Leadfinger and John Davidson as James Blond.

Music:
Sonny & Cher "Get Down" and "The Weight"
Cher "Superstar"
John Davidson "Behind Closed Doors"

So far this lovely bit of Sonny & Cher history has not shown up on the YouTubes, but here is a very funny roast of Capote by Rich Little.

 

Cher Working on Mother’s Day Special

I can't wait for this. Cher's mother's stories…the untold stories! This should be really good. Cher posted some pics from a recent shoot, which looks like it took place in one of her houses.

Chermomspecial

"Hello lovelies! The second day of shooting Mom's special. Yesterday – many interviews and photo shoots with the whole family until 10P.M. Today is more of the same"

I love that Cher posts twitter pics of herself with self-deprecating commentary. And I also love that she's bringing out the turquoise.

Cherposer

"What a poser! Lighting was interesting! Silly b*tch"

Stories and more pics:

   

Sonny & Cher Redo “Baby Don’t Go” in 1977

This week, BabydontgoCher scholar Robrt Pela sent me a video clip of a Sonny & Cher Show segment neither of us had seen before, although the video stamp shows the episode appeared on TV Land at some point.

Woe is me. When Sonny & Cher were last seen on TV Land, I couldn't talk any of my available dastardly TV-providers in Yonkers, New York, to provide such a far-out channel in their line ups. I was reduced to begging my one friend with TV Land for tapes and buying a few more episodes from entrepreneurs with video-dubbing capabilities. I still haven't seen every show.

This segment is historically interesting. Sonny & Cher mimic their own former 1960s selves to introduce their first minor (LA) hit "Baby Don't Go." It's discombobulating to see them in their old duds but with a mustache and glamorous makeup. Cher slips ever so easily into her teenage body posturings, much more convincingly than Sonny does.

They talk about how their managers had to hock office technology to pay for the recording. More interesting yet, Harold Battiste appears on the show as a special guest to verify the story and to play clavietta on the song, as he originally did back in 1965. Battiste worked heavily with Sonny & Cher as musical arranger and musical director on many projects, probably influencing their "sound" to no small extent.

The segment is charming, funny and downright adorable. At one point Sonny tells about having to ask Battiste to play for free, saying "Harold is a sucker for sweet talk" and Cher rolls her eyes and says, "Aren't we all?" All which illustrates the behind-the-scenes persuasiveness of Sonny working to overcome personal and professional hurdles to "make things happen" with his infamous "sweet talk."

Sonny also retells the famous story about why the intended act of "Cher" became "Sonny & Cher."

Because Cher sounds so differently in 1977 than she did in 1965, this rendition becomes essentially a cover of itself.

What's Harold Battiste up to now?

 

Chad Michaels Excels on Drag Race

Chad3Chad Michaels (far right) made it to the top three of Ru Paul’s Drag Race at the end of the season along with with Phi Phi O’Hara and Sharon Needles (middle, who won). It would seem there was no official second or third place on Drag Race this year.

I watched the entire season for the most part in three days last weekend. By far, Chad was the prettiest in most challenges, and in some challenges the only one to really get it right (see the inaugural ball challenge below).

He was thrown some shade for his age (being over 40), his plastic surgeries and (from judge Michelle Visage) for being too perfect and not messy enough. Ru Paul also challenged Chad at the end of the season to tap into his emotions more.

Chad did a pitch-perfect Cher send-up in the impersonation challenge fThreechersor the “Snatch Game” episode, which was a spoof on The Match Game show. See the animated gifs of the episode from “Of Coursets a Drag.”

Chad, Sharon Needles and Latrice Royale were my favorites. And if Chad was not destined to win, I’m glad it was Sharon.

Sharon Needles pushed the envelope, was witty and cute as a button in his scariness. He raised the competition to a level of performance art.

At the end Ru told Ch Sharonad he raised the level of the competition this season and was a real class act. Which was true: he played the adult in the room, the negotiator, the conversation starter, the mama of this den of bees, always trying always to stay above the DRAMA.

But he was in a real bind competition-wise because it was only in the moments of messy fighting that Chad was able to show that emotional side: fighting with Sharon’s icky hetero-drag-model, confiding in Sharon about Phi Phi’s treachery (on an Untucked episode), and crying when discussing gay marriage and when apologizing for being harsh on Phi Phi’s innocence/immaturity.

If he had showed too many of these moments, maybe he wouldn’t have looked so classy.

Chad1

I’m a huge fan of Drag U but this is my first full season watching Drag Race. This is because watching bitch-fights sometimes gives me high anxiety. But this season was exciting (Willem getting kicked off suddenly, the spectacle of the big finale) and emotional (drag queens crying) and also sometimes uncomfortable (the political challenge, the episode trying to drag out butch dads).

Latrice

Watch for Latrice on Drag U next month. Her blue boat/blue hair outfit killed me!

Latrice Royale
Chad Michaels
Sharon Needles

 

Cher TV Performances in Iconic Mackie Outfits

Perusing the new TV videos online, it's been great fun catching some iconic Cher outfits.

TalonsRemember the black and white jig-jag doll dress with a white feather headdress?

This is the adult version with black feathers.

Cher sings "Just for a Thrill" on The Sonny & Show Comedy Hour.

 

 

Dolldress 

 

 

 

 

 

MacheadI call this look macrame-head.

Cher sings "Working Together."

 

 

 

 

HalterRemember this dress from the back cover of the All I Ever Need is You album?

Cher wears a fringed white halter top and long slit skirt?

Stared at that picture for many hours while listening to that album as a kid in the 70s. 

I wished this outfit had been made into a doll dress. She sings "Aint Misbehavin’" 

PoseStrike a pose!

 

 

 

 

 

FavMy favorite Cher dress of all-time, from The Cher Show in the mid-70s, Cher singing "Aint Nobody's Business."

Loved the fringe and lace overlay over the satin purple, the neckline showcasing some shapely armpits (hey, if you got em).

The dress really moves.

Fav2 

 

 

 

 

 

 

70s Heaven: More Video and David Geffen

IfCher sings the Bread song "If"–a most unfortunate choice to play in your wedding if your wedding happened in the 1970s and 80s.

This is the most hilarious hair style on a Cher TV solo spot…even she looks pissed off about it.

The lyrics of this song really make me nuts, even when I was a preteen and particularly disposed to the sappy effects the song conveys:

If a picture paints a thousand words than why cant I paint you
(who says you can’t?)

The words will never show the you I’ve come to know
(sounds like a You problem)

If a face could launch a thousand ships than why can’t I launch you (No!)…than where am I to go?
There’s no one home but you; you're all that’s left me to.
(You’re all what’s left me to what? You shouldn’t end on a preposition for all this vagueness: that's all you've left me to)
And when my love for life is running dry, you’ll come and pour yourself on me
(Like in a nagging way?)
If a man could be two places at one time, I’d be with you  
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way (tell it to the judge, rock star)
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die (WTF!)
I’d spend it all with you and when the end was through
Then one by one the stars would all go out (this is NOT romantic)
Then you and I would simply fly away. (you think so if-boy?)

The song is mercifully only 2 and a half minutes long.

GotitbadIn this clip of "I Got it Bad and That Aint Good" you see a promo cover of the Bittersweet White Light album (can I say–this was a particularly poetic title for a Sonny-produced Cher album, or any Cher album for that matter). The clip also contains the I-got-it-bad wig.

 

 

DeltadawnThis is a clip I remember seeing in the 1970s, Sonny & Cher singing "Delta Dawn." For days I circled the house singing the chorus over and over again. My lucky mom. Sonny is really rockin it here….but it sounds like they turned his mic off before the end. And that….is quite a shocking bit of yellow.  Deltadawn2

 

 

 

Romancing the Cher

Good Hollywood Reporter story that appeared back in February about David Geffen: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/grammys-cher-david-geffen-289539

   Geffen_a

  

New Old Video

There’s been a surge of cool stuff showing up on the YouTubes. I have a whole list of things to discuss but we can start with these three items:

StaggerleeHere is one of my two favorite Sonny & Cher show duets, "Stagger Lee/Rip it Up" from the early 70s Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. I love that song "Stagger Lee" and they really do a swell Sonny & Cher version of it. The bright lights, the big stage. It's all good.

 

 

 

Twoofus Sonny & Cher singing "Two of Us/We Can Work it Out" from their 1976-77 The Sonny & Cher Show. I loved this one so much after I saw it again on VH1 or Nick at Nite back in the 1990s, I wrote a poem about it. They look so glamorous and happy. Sonnylook

 

 

I love the part where Cher’s earring dives for the deck and Sonny gives her a teasing smile.

 

 

Wonderbat1So the following bits are a bit timely of late, seeing as the comedian Gallagher just got out of the hospital. Remember his silly watermelon bashing bit? Well, Cher did that act five years earlier with the Jack-o-matic, the Wonderbat, the Brick-o-matic, the Mug-o-matic. On the Cher Show in 1975, Cher did a recurringly unfunny skit called Donna Jean Brodine showcasing tools for the new housewife which were basically many forms of sledgehammers Wonderbatfor any task. Since this event predates Gallagher’s Sledge-o-matic debut on television by at least five years, why doesn’t anybody mention this? I guess it’s not the kind of comedic bit you want to take credit for. They’re both southern characters doing fake infomercials and even both borrow the “o-matic” trope. 

 

Lot83027Her outfit for the skit recently sold at Julien's for a whopping $4,500.

The Big Street

Bigstreet This 1942 film was our least favorite of Cher's four TCM choices. Cher called it a woman’s film and said she cried when she saw it. Lucille Ball plays Gloria Lyons, one mean bitch throughout the whole movie. As Cher says, she came up the hard way. Cher calls "Little Pinks" played by Henry Fonda sweet and also said she loves Eugene Pallette who plays a man named Nicely Nicely. He was indeed a very nice fellow. Robert Osbourne called the movie "offbeat" and noted that it's hard to care what happens to Lucille's character. It is.

The movie started with a competitive eating scene. Great, I thought. My husband loves competitive eating contests. But it went wacky from there. Gloria plays a bitchy coming-up Diva who is sporadically nice to Pinks, her number one fan. She pushes her mobster boyfriend too far and he pushes her down a flight of stairs. She suffers a mysterious old-Hollywood movie illness after that. Is it a spinal injury?

She lays in bed for many scenes and then talks Henry Fonda into walking her wheelchair from NYC to Florida. That must be the big street. John and I found it hard to care about either Gloria or Pinks (or their enabling friends). But our one disagreement was over the Lucy Issue. I feel that Lucille Ball plays nasty like an artist, a natural. Which is what has always made her sitcom I Love Lucy so maddening for me to watch. I don't really like the bumbling ditz character to begin with (see Gomer Pyle). But many Gen X gals find Lucy Ricardo hard to identify with as she was so dependent on Ricky and he treated her more like a child than a wife. It's a generational thing. I can’t see myself rewatching those old shows again unless it’s to try to catch Cher’s Mom in the Paris episode where Cher noted she played one of the models. Cher said she played extras in other episodes as well. 

Cher knew Lucille from these times and from running into her at a club or Jack Benny party (the famous Johnny-Carson-bans-Cher-into-another-room story, in this TCM version she elaborates about meeting Rosalind Russell in the other room and Roselind telling her she could be an actress someday).

So for Lucy, I love her in her small movie parts (Stage Door especially). She deserved more movie vehicles in which to shine. But she was too mean in this one. Not enough moments of reformation. For this kind of character, Jack Nicholson nailed it in As Good As it Gets. You can see the character working through it.

John however does not like Lucille Ball in any capacity. Period. He also finds writer Damon Runyon’s penchant for creating quirky and quaint crooks annoyingly naive and old-fashioned. He also complained not a little bit about the fantastical premise.

Then there's the celebrity obsession issue. Even as a person who has been often caught up in a celebrity obsession or two, I wanted to slap Henry Fonda and tell him to snap out of it. He abandons and exploits a hellofalotta friends for his questionable star. He needs to question where he finds value in his life. And re-evaluate his on-the-ground relationships. At least they could have made him a waiter.

The star-wannabie Gloria is herself stalking a rich guy all the way to Florida; they even kidnap him for the final scene (creepy). Kidnapping a man she claimed she didn’t even love early on in the movie. She just saw him as a ticket from poverty.

Then there's the Henry Fonda Issue. He's not my favorite actor. He was always so serious. That said, I loved him in the sentimental On Golden Pond and in the very heady 12 Angry Men. It is great to see how that jury works. Inspired by it, I used its tactics on the one jury trial I was on. And it worked! Miraculously! We moved from most votes guilty to one hold-out guilty in just three voting rounds. That last guy held out for two more rounds. There was no evidence in our trial but the hold-out-guy felt the guy “seemed guilty.”

The Big Street is also about failed dreams and class issues in the way that stardom can take you out of the yucky class. It's also a story about not having health insurance. Gloria has to sell off all her jewelry to pay her hospital bills and then must move in with her number one fan.

The wheelchair-bound Lucy reminded me of the Cher character in Faithful…it was a prop that inhibited their performances. Which brings me back to the old-hollywood movie mystery illness, where all the gals die of heartbreak. Gloria falls down the stairs and the doctors label her "very sick" not "injured." She slowly dies of it. In the final death throes, the doctor says she has delusions of grandeur (maybe Fonda exacerbated that by getting everyone to call her Your Highness). The doctor's final diagnosis is paranoia, which he says means "she believes she’s something she’s not." (The Princess Bride character Inigo Montoya would say: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.")

Gloria does not believe in love and her switch-to-sweet at the end is a little too little, a little too late. Early on she says, “Love is something that gives you one room, two chins and three kids." On the other hand, no love gets you wheelchairs and paranoia.

This was my first Agnes Moorehead movie (that I know of). And I’ve decided I really like Agnes Moorehead.

At the end of the four films, Robert and Cher talked about Cher's favorite films: Gaslight, On Borrowed Time. Cher says she has movies playing in the background when getting ready to work. She says it's calming. She likes Moon Over Miami, Road to Morrocco…all Road movies, Fred & Ginger movies, Gene Kelly movies, Meet Me in St. Louis, which she says has a perfect story and actors (growing up in STL, I loved this movie,especially Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." This is one of my favorite movie scenes AND favorite Christmas song performances. It's so heart-hurting. I love the sad Xmas songs. Cher also loves Now Voyager, All Through the Night with Bogart. Cher asks "Where is Lionel Barrymore when you need him?" They end talking about Casablanca and Cher calls this TMC hosting project “my holiday from myself.”

I loved this very Cher-like holiday from Cher. It was great fun. And I thought it took some balls to pick some imperfect but rarely-shown movies instead of the Classics with a big C. It shows she is really in the trenches of classic-movie-fandom.

 

 

Follow The Fleet

Follow the Fleet - Bake & Sherry This is not how we're used to seeing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, without his top hat and her glamour gown.

But that didn't bother me because I've never seen a Fred and Ginger movie. And this 1936 tale has grown on me.

I thought Fred was cute as a sailor with his odd-shaped head hidden under that white sailor's hat. His awesome sailor's bell bottoms, which pre-dated Cher's by 30 years, moved nicely through the choreography, which we see soon in the first scene on the naval ship, which reminds you uncontrollably of the "Turn Back Time" video.

In Cher's intro, she mentions Fred and Ginger's elegance and how they "rise above the material." The story is a bit fluffy but Ginger and Fred are captivating together with their fussin' and a sparin'.

Cher mentions that her favorite song in the movie is "Get Behind Me Satan" and I guess it's my husband's favorite song too because he sang it to me at the Buffalo Thunder buffet last weekend when I talked him into eating a bite of my cheese cake.

I keep missing the Betty Grable appearance but I cannot miss the Lucille Ball appearance. As Osbourne and Cher agree, she always stands out in her cameos.

This is another movie about stage performers trying to make a living. Ginger is a struggling singer and dancer trying to go solo after success in a duo act with Fred. Fred has been in the Navy for a few years since their relationship faltered.

I appreciated the song "I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket" because that's exactly what the supporting actress, Harriet Hilliard, does throughout her plot thread. She  plays Ginger's sister who has suddenly blossomed with a makeover. She's stuck on the first man she meets, Bilge, a lout who only shows signs of humanity when he's made to understand there's a ship in it for him. But Harriet's character is dim in the love department. She wears her ball gown to cook for her man and talks marriage on the first date.

In these old movies, the girls cry with glassy eyes and no tears. But they also say funny things to each other like Ginger says to her sister: "You look too darn intelligent. Girls gotta be dolled up nowdays. It takes a lotta brains to be dumb."

I did get somewhat tired of Irving Berlin's score, which used the same song ("Let Yourself Go") over and over. But this was the depression after all; maybe they were trying to save money and recycle a theme.

The movie slightly touches on class issues as it has in the other Cher TCM picks. For example, in Hobson's Choice there was a class divide between Willie (a laborer) and Maggie's family (business owners). Here there is an official naval class divide between the crew (Fred Astaire and company) and the officers. Ginger plays off this tension to get back at Fred during the party scene.

Rogg020 Fred and Ginger as you are used to seeing them (to the left).

Of course the movie provides a great ballroom dance and these are always worth your attention.

I loved the ship backdrop in this scene. It reminds me of dining out in Long Beach.

 

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