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Category: Television (Page 21 of 23)

You Make Me Feel Like Interrupting

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

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.)

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The Captain & Tennille Show

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.

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Merry Christmas Cherkids!

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:

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The Week That Was Supercalifragalistic

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…

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Cher TV Alert

Ellen_27 Oooh. I got my first fan club missive! How exciting!

Apparently Cher will appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Monday, November 3rd to show support for Barack Obama.

Aiight!

My secret fan-club communiqué states:

"For information on when the show airs in your local market, visit http://ellen.warnerbros.com/about/whenitson.php for details."  

And then they thank me for being a valued First-Year member. And send their closing regards, Official Cher Fan Club.

Grin!

Other reports this week state Cher has been throwing her support around out there on the radio waves.

"I called radio stations in swing states like Indiana, Iowa and Florida to tell people to go out and vote," Cher said at last night's grand opening of Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills

Did Cher get the same MoveOn.org phone-your-friendly-swing-states email I did? I didn't do it. I so suck.

"I wanted to call the states he needs the votes in most. It was interesting because the stations wanted to talk about music, and I wanted to talk about politics!"

Cher modestly opined that she wasn't sure if she had any power to sway the electorate, but no matter…

"I have no idea if I was able to influence listeners, but I got the message that I was supposed to get across—to vote," she says. "I really think that Obama has a chance to be the president of his time. This is a very dangerous, very sad time for America, and I really think—I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t think it—I really think that he’s the right person for the right time."

And what if Obama loses to Sen. John McCain?  "If you can't say something good about someone, you really shouldn't say anything at all," says Cher. "So what I can say is, if McCain is elected, the idea is so frightening to me, I really can't even bear to think about it."

Maybe this will help in the effort, a hilarious video of what might happen if I, (or you for that matter) forget to vote. Please watch:

http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/index.html?nid=PPsGhGiemYFqBFU3x3kp4jQwOTAxMjA-&referred_by=10596800-960hg5x

Yours in Cher fandom,
Cher Scholar

Maureen McCormick Meets Cher

Cherchas Maureen McCormick’s book about life as a Brady Bunch kid, among other subjects is now available. Cher Scholar Robrt sent me the excerpt where McCormick writes about meeting Cher.

The setup: the group The Brady Kids had their first musical appearance at a music industry show at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Sonny and Cher were there and met the Brady’s backstage.

I was enamored of Sonny and Cher. I couldn’t take my eyes off Cher. It was the first time I had been around a woman who thoroughly mesmerized people, who commanded your attention with her looks. We were introduced to her backstage. She was with her daughter, Chastity, a tiny blond cherub with her mother’s expressions. Eve (Plumb) held Chastity’s hand and sweetly asked, “Can you say ‘elephant’?”

Before she could respond, Cher cracked, “She can say a hell of a lot more than elephant, that’s for sure.”

First of all, in my fantasy version of this episode Cher says “She can f*#king say a lot more than elephant, that's for sure.” I don’t know why but that’s more believable to me for some reason.

Secondly, this brief exchange is interesting on many levels. For one, it shows how caustic and coarse Cher could be even among teen celebrities and her own kid. I’m not judging that; but I can attest to being jarred by it the first time I read Cher's language peppered with the f-bomb all through that People Magazine article of 1979. I was nine years old and sick with the flu at the time and my parents brought me home a milkshake and this Cher gift (Cher gifts becoming somewhat of a rare occurrence after it started to occur to them that I wasn’t outgrowing this Cher fetish). And this was right when my illusions of Cher being the classiest, vulgar-free princess were first shattered. I f*#king got over it but it took a while.

Secondly, it also shows how even the most lusted after teen blonde icon of the early 70s, Marsha Marsha Brady, #1 on every boys ToDo list and #1 on every gals ToLookLike list, was actually enamored of Cher who she saw as fully commanding with her looks; and meanwhile Cher is coveting the look of blonde princesses such as her mom, sister and Marsha-Brady-types. It’s insane, absolutely the stuff Dr. Seuss Sneetches fables are made of and evidence that our collective insecurities cause us to chase our own tales like idiots.

And not only could Chastity say the world elephant, she had probably already ridden one in that parade by then.    

Celebrity Family Feud

Familydvd08A friend showed me a few episodes of her new DVD of All-Star Family Feud. It must have been circa the late 70s because host Richard Dawson made a joke about the Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jerry Brown debates.

This particular episode pitted the cast of The Love Boat against the cast of Eight Is Enough (I never liked Eight is Enough  by the way - was it a comedy, a drama?). The Love Boatcast seemed a bit wild. Cruise director Julie threw a few angry eyes at Doc for his lame answers. Issac looked very flirty. On the other side, it seemed almost like a real dysfunctional family of 8 is Enuffers. To the directive “Name a body part where you would dab perfume” Dick Van P. answered inexplicably “the tip of your tongue.”

One question was “Name an Italian singer.” 100 people surveyed, top 8 answers on the board:

Enrico Caruso – 19 (who?)
Frank Sinatra – 18
Mario Lanza – 16
Dean Martin – 13
Sergio Franci  – 7 (who?)
Sonny Bono –4
Tony Bennett – 3
Perry Como – 1

No one guessed Sonny Bono, including Dick Van Patton, who at some point was golfing friend of Sonny. Maybe that was later, in Sonny’s Palm Springs era.
   

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