I Found Some Blog

a division of the Chersonian Institute

Category: Television (Page 20 of 22)

Cher Talks About Dancing with the Jackson 5

April 2, 2009 / / 0 Comments

12

Follow the link below for a short video of Cher dancing with the Jackson 5 on The Cher Show; and below that is audio of Cher talking about the experience.

I notice on these commentaries (from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, for example), her initial memories go right to the clothes she was wearing or some aspect of putting together the outfit. I think this is why she would be a breathtaking judge on Project Runway. And likewise here, Cher remembers Bob Mackie telling her she was getting too thin. She also remembers how challenging it was for her to learn the J5 moves (it took her all day) but how fun it was to work with so many people on those variety shows.

What the devil is that fellow doing in the foreground?

http://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/2009/03/28/cher-ing-memories-of-a-young-michael-jackson/

 

Cher Scholar Interviews Rona Barrett

March 21, 2009 / / 7 Comments

Ronadvd
My bf and I spent one evening watching the new Rona Barrett DVD Rona Barrett’s Hollywood, a set of iconic interviews of 70s celebrities.

Honestly, we were struck by how fresh and honest the interviews were in comparison to the stale, stiff Barbara Walters interviews we’ve come to know over the last 25 years. Don’t get me wrong: I have loved me some Barbara Walters interview in my day. But seriously, I can’t stand The View and haven’t watched a pre-Oscar special in years.

Interestingly, in Rona Barrett’s interviews there are no “million-dollar” questions and yet somehow she gets into a superstar’s comfort zone with graceful civility. Personally, I think this is because she knows how to have a comfortable conversation and celebrities feel at ease. I’m reminded of Jon Favreau’s Dinner for Five shows except without the extra four dinner guests. Which means less grandstanding chat between stars.

My bf thinks Ron’s gift is that she sounds genuinely interested.

Cher Scholar JeffRey had this to say about the prospect of watching Rona Barrett’s new DVD: it feels like visiting a friend I haven’t seen in a long time.

In the DVD’s Cher interview, Rona says she’s known Cher since Cher was a “street kid” in the 60s and that sheHollywood
admired Cher because she “had guts” and was honest. The interview takes place after Cher’s breakup with Sonny and David Geffen, right as she was falling in love with Gregg Allman. She squeals with affection and like other interviews of the mid-70s, she is unusually unguarded and open. She seems remarkably comfortable. She has striking eyebrows, long eyelashes, glamor nails and uses phrases like “bummed out.”

As I watched it I thought what a beautiful mouth Cher had. And those teeth. The Rona Barrett DVD is full of very 70s celebrity teeth, pre-hyper-perfection. I miss Cher’s teeth. I do not miss Burt Reynolds’ teeth, however. It’s also amazing how candid Rona gets asking about sex and Cher talks about how liberated and sexually free she had planned to be after leaving Sonny. However, she just wasn’t the type to sleep around. Great interview!

 Many people my age also remember Rona Barrett’s fan magazines of the 70s that sat on newsstands right along Picture Screen and Photoplay. Magazines full of Sonny & Cher candid photos and wacky stories. Recently, a friend of mine gave me this copy (cover above; click here to see full image) of Rona Barrett’s Hollywood Hollywood-inside
from a celebrity-signing fair in LA.

Inside Cher is on practically every page, but the magazine has two (two!) full-page articles about her as well. The first one discusses the recent calls for censorship on The Cher Show – was Cher dressing too slutty? According to one Ohio TV station manager she was. Fans were asked to fill out a questionnaire on the topic.

Click here to read the full text and fill out the survey. (You may need to adjust your screen resolution.)

Please forward your responses to the comments section of this blog post!

Laverne
In the back of the magazine there’s a second article, this one an interview in color with Laverne. Sweet! Click here to read the full text. When I saw Cher in Las Vegas last weekend, Cher’s mock interview with Laverne before Laverne’s “I Got to be Me” video reminded me of this article. Laverne deserves more airtime. Cher may have changed. But Laverne stays the same.

Anyway, I had the privilege of being able to interview Rona Barrett last week about the new DVD, her charity foundation and the Rona Barrett magazines.

Click here to read the full interview where she talks about interviewing Cher and Cher’s longevity.

L.A.  readers
should know that Rona will be appearing for a DVD signing Wednesday, March 25 at 
7:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble located at The Grove at the Farmers Market (Fairfax &
Third).

Blogs: Dancing with the Stars and Dave Barry

March 12, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Cherdance Over the last two weeks there has been some blogging Cher activity:

Bloggers think Cher should go on Dancing with the Stars

http://www.mashget.com/most-viewed/2009/03/09/who-should-go-dancing-come-on-cher/

Their argument:

“Cher's used to the outlandish, fringe-filled costumes favored by [the show].”

Hmmm. Weak. Cher did a show where she danced with stars: it was called The Cher Show.  Dancing with the Stars is allegedly scrapping the barrel this season. Cher has better things to do…like coach the upstarts on American Idol.

Dave Barry blogs briefly on Cher

http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/2009/03/why-we-need-str.html

WHY WE NEED STRICTER GOVERNMENT CONTROLS ON CHER: Man Distracted by Cher Shoots Wife

Okay…his post is mostly a one-liner title joke. But I thought it was funny. And I don't usually find him funny anymore.

Here's the actual article on the shooting incident: http://www.murfreesboropost.com/news.php?viewStory=15671

I’m a bit worried about taking my bf to see Cher’s Vegas show this week now. What if he shoots me accidentally during the Laverne video?

Am I being mean or was it surprising that this incident happened in Murfreesboro Tennessee? And what exactly were this couple watching Cher do that was so distracting they forgot they had a gun in play?

Certainly it couldn’t have been last week's Entertainment Tonight segment.

   

Discourse on Cher’s Ass and More Captain &Tennile

March 12, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Cher Scholar Rob sent me two videos recently, The Captain and Tennile song that was written for Cher just prior to her joining with Black Rose (it sounds more like filler to me than something Cher would do): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4nSGvei1aA

And a video of rocker Ryan Adams and Neal Casal  talkin' about Cher’s Ass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYJ02BWesaE

The Cher's ass coversation is pretty funny.

Here are some picture's of Cher's ass to refer to as you are watching the discussion unfold.

Tattoo1

 Tattoo2

You Make Me Feel Like Interrupting

February 19, 2009 / / 5 Comments

Sonnycher-06-1 Over the holiday weekend, we got a lot of wedding stuff done. I think I’ve found dress I like and can afford, we ordered our cake and met another florist. Still have two more florist meetings to go before nailing that down.

In the meantime, I’d like to talk about something that has bothered me since I was a wee child of 7 or 8 years old…as evidenced by the Sonny & Cher Show duet with Sonny & Cher singing "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing." Yes, it’s been something I’ve been harboring for quite a long time but as yet un-uttered.

As giddy as Tinkerbell as I was that S&C were back on the air in 1976 after their divorce, I can barely explain the level of my frustration over the intrusive Laverne and Alvie (or was it Alvin?) sketches that interrupted each opening duet. Grrrrr!! I would think, every time this misforunate thing happened, which was almost every freaking week.

So it was bad enough S&C were not yet re-married and that now on top of that the viewing hour of the new show was past my bedtime due to our family moving from the Mountain to the Central Standard Time Zone which resulted in quite elaborate negotiations with my parents in order for me to have a one-week-exceptionary-later-bed-time-hour, (which would actually come in quite handy the next year when the first Solid Gold special ran late), and I could then still watch the new S&C show, political maneuverings that would impress even our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, by the way…add to all that the fact that this lame modern saloon skit interrupted the festive and heart-warming opening song every week, like a reminder that paradise was not well and Sonny & Cher were not eternally duetting on stage blissfully but in reality un-married and wasting away in some bleak hotel bar slugging back wiskey sours…and you can see why I turned out the way I did.

Dancing Deep breath.

This song is the worst offender that I can recall. Probably I feel this way because when I was 8 years old I loved this song – loved it enough to buy the 45 when I was 15, a 45 that only languished in a shoebox because I grew up to find Leo Sayer grating.

This duet irks me every time I watch it. Here is the video where some kind, agnelic, hero-type has spliced the song together without the skit.

You’d think this would bring me peace after all these years, but somehow it doesn’t.

http://toosweet4rocknroll.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/sonny-and-cher-you-make-me-feel-like-dancing/

  

The 1975 S&C Press Conference & the Inauguration of Barak Obama

January 29, 2009 / / 4 Comments

Normal_promo1975_009 How do I even compare these two events, you ask? Well, they were both intense periods on an axis of history, a great shift in hope. In one we left (or thought we were leaving) the era of David Geffen and Gregg Allman. In another we left the era of George Bush. In one Sonny & Cher announced they were reuniting (for television) and in our blind desire for a personal reconciliation, there was a media frenzy…and in the other we have a similar (some say blind) desire for a national reconciliation resulting in an Obama media frenzy.

So okay, the Obama thing is bigger. I get that. I was VERY excited when Obama was inaugurated a week ago. I took the day off to experience this important American moment in history and I was none too proud. I gleefully gave Bush my own private heave-ho and I enjoyed seeing all the first-day protocol of the new President. Can’t say how heartening the day was, including the balls.

Was Cher there? With all the people crowded on the National Mall, I didn’t happen to see her. But the press reports she was indeed at one of the evening's celebratory balls, not one of the ones Barack and Michele attended, but the Feeding America party.

(By the way, I say this to anyone who will listen on a daily basis: I LOOVE Michele Obama. Sort of like I imagine my mother loved Eleanor Roosevelt. With absolute adoration.)

Continue reading

The Captain & Tennille Show

January 15, 2009 / / 0 Comments

CandtshowFor Christmas, among other things (like the awesome Carol Burnette "Went with the Wind" doll), I received a collection of the Captain & Tennille variety show episodes which aired on ABC on Mondays from September 1976 to March 1977.

I can’t help but compare this show to The Sonny & Cher Show running at the same time. In the episodes I’ve seen so far there are far less skits on C&T and more musical numbers, sometimes more experimental (there was a word jazz segment with Penny Marshall, Tennille and Ron Palillo –Horseshack- and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs -Freddie Washington- from Welcome Back Kotter which was good) but for the most part the show is heavy on Tennille singing alone or with musical guests, including an amazing duet with Dionne Warwick. The Captain actually speaks on the show and is actually pretty charming and has good comedic timing. I like him. They’re talented to be sure. And I do love variety shows, pretty unconditionally, including this one. Trouble is, the show lacks something sparkly that S&C had, despite all the required rhinestones on Tennille’s dresses.

And in the premiere episode they go through a long joke setup with Jackie Gleason, mistaking each other for other iconic celebrities of the time culminating in Gleason confusing them with Sonny & Cher. Which was probably the big elephant in the room. “We’re not Sonny & Cher” the joke seemed to say.

Which is something all new variety seems to feel compelled to say, especially if co-hosted by a man and wife. Nick and Jessica Simpson were emphatic before their TV special a few years ago — we’re not trying to be Sonny & Cher.  Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne also recently declared their new show would not be a new Sonny & Cher. It’s kind of a back-handed compliment. They’re saying simultaneously, we’re not trying to copycat what has become known as the standard of couple-variety shows and we intend to be much cooler than that.

And that’s the fascinating paradox of Sonny & Cher. When they hit town in the 60s, they were hyper-cool, then in the mid-60s they were perceived as waning-cool. Then in the late 60s definitely not cool due to their anti-drug stance and the changing musical culture. Back on TV, they were cool kinda but not cool kinda because older people were now watching them.

Continue reading

Merry Christmas Cherkids!

December 18, 2008 / / 10 Comments

S&cxmasThis will probably be my last posting before Christmas. And here I wanted to get to the latest Cherity news and some neato blog posts out there. Oh well, maybe in a few weeks we can get to those.

In the meantime, it’s a bit gloomy this year as holidays go: what with nobody having any money, all the financial scams being exposed (in both the private and government sectors), pitiful economy news day after day, shopping homicides (!), less sunlight, post-election withdraw, too many parties and obligations between Thanksgiving and the big day, right-wingers still insisting we all say the word Christmas, Christmas, Christmas 40 times a day because they’re inherently intolerant of sharing their holiday with other belief systems (where is the love, y’all?), a barrage of slashed-priced store sales reminding us how desperate the retail industry is, and my favorite holiday grievance–poorly strewn holiday lights on front lawns. I really hate that. I can’t stress this enough. I think subliminally it makes us all very grouchy. (for an example of bad Christmas decorating, see the Sonny & Cher Show set below; who hung that red garland so sloppily?) And people who can’t manage to string up their lights properly are always too lazy to take said atrocities down in a timely manner–which is January 1st people; it’s why you get the day off.

Day off/Lights off: just remember that.

Here are some Cher-related Christmas activities for you to do this week:

Continue reading

The Week That Was Supercalifragalistic

November 7, 2008 / / 0 Comments

HopeSo it was an emotionally busy and exhausting week in the United States in general and in California in particular. My office was off in Cairo Egypt working on tweaking-the-Internet-meetings and our web team did a record amount of work on the website. That left me with little free time or energy. Between that and Election Day, which not only included the incredibly awesome election of Barak Obama for U.S. President (and I must say I supported Obama as a potential president back when I saw him speak at the DNC back in 2004. Not to brag but…) but the surprising passage of proposition 2 in California which ensures larger cages for farm animals  and the heartbreaking constitutional challenge to gay unions.

The ironic combination of those three election results has not been lost on us here in California with the bitter commentary that we expanded the rights of chickens while stomping on the rights of our gay community. In defense of the chickens, I must say I know of no animal rights activist who did not support gay marriage. The problems for proposition 8 were, to my mind, as such:

  1. Misleading proposition language on the ballot: many folk believed a Yes vote meant they supported gay marriage, not that they supported a ban on gay marriage. This confusing language is usually intentional on the part of the proposition’s proponents. They try to trick you into voting for stuff: get educated before you vote, people.
  2. Allegedly large amounts of money spent from the Mormon Church in support of the ban on gay unions. If this is true, it's a bit ironic considering other Christian challengers to gay marriage always claim a slippery slope which would lead to a Mormon-style bigamy. Gay haters (or Gayters as I like to call them) make strange bedfellows.
  3. Other homophobia in various communities.

And although this sucks royally, we have to keep supporting our community with each next step. This is no time to give up. This morning on the Stephanie Miller Show, the commentary-duo Frangela was on the air discussing the alleged lack of support in this proposition from the African-American community, calling on African-American civil rights leaders such as Al Sharpton to speak out against the proposition. Angela V. Shelton (one half of Franglea) has long been an advocate for gay rights and stated unequivocally that “No one is free until we’re all free.”

In other news this week:

Cher went on Access Hollywood…

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

Cher Scholar reserves the right to modify or delete any comments deemed inappropriate at our discretion.

Email Cher Scholar

© 2024 I Found Some Blog

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑