Tag: Sonny Bono

And Then The Thing Was Done: The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour

March 16, 2022 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Whew. The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour review is done: https://www.cherscholar.com/the-tv-variety-shows-and-specials.html.

Huge milestone!

I looked at my publication date for episode 1 and it was all the way back to January 25, 2019!! And here I thought I’d finish the whole series in a little over one year. (There are 52 weeks in a year, right? 67 episodes. No problem.) It took me 3 years and 2 months.

I remember starting the project sitting at my old desk at the Central New Mexico Community College job, happy as a clam. Shortly afterwards, I was unfortunately promoted to a job I did not want and went back to ICANN, COVID happened and now possible nuclear antihalation is on the horizon. But hey, at least we’re halfway done with this project! Smiley face.

The 67 Comedy Hour shows are done. We have 63 shows to go (29 Cher shows and 34 Sonny & Cher Show part deux, plus a handful of TV specials). I’m going to take a little break for NaPoWriMo 2022 but then I’ll be back to review the Cher shows, some of which I’ve still never seen, even though they come out on the Time-Life series two years ago. I was waiting to review them here right after watching them. So looking forward to that.

Last night I actually had a dream about the last episode I just posted, #67. I dreamed I was going to write about how this was a typical “clips” show, or “greatest hits” type show we’re so used to seeing now, the retrospective. And I had always read that this was a cobbled-together finale of clips.

But I dreamed a young producer met up with me to set me straight. Btw, none of the show’s producers are young anymore; some are not even alive. And he told me this the last show was assembled from never-before-seen clips that were cut from earlier episodes and thus, new to us. But in any case, not rerun clips.

I thought ‘how novel” and I looked forward to reviewing the episode today to see if this was, in fact, true.

It was!

Christmas with Cher, 2021

December 14, 2021 / Cher Scholar / 7 Comments

It's baking time…so this will be the last Cher Scholar post for the year. I feel like 2021 was mostly getting my head back on track after the drama of last year. Hard to believe I've done not one single Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour recap (and I was so close to the end of that series). Well, hopefully next year.

The Cher Christmas tree is up this year with two more dolls. (Had to upgrade to a bigger tree this year). The nativity of boyfriends is back, as well.

It's Christmas so it's time for people wanting to watch Moonstruck again. Here's one last essay from this year's scholarly readings of Moonstruck-think-tanking, "An Honest Contrivance': Opera and Desire in Moonstruck" by Marcia J. Citron.

Citron talks about the movie's tone, "romantic idealism tethered to the magic of the moon" and how the movie's conceit balances so precariously by successfully between realism and maudlinism. She identifies each part of Puccini's La Bohème as a part of the movie's soundtrack, the actual opera scenes, and the ways in which each Puccini theme ties to a character, mostly Ronny. She concludes "the verismo idiom of Bohème…has a stunning impact on the film." She even provides us with a table listing each act, the DVD timestamp, the piece of the score, the location in the plot and whether the musical element is a soundtrack piece or a literal opera performance. "The visit to the Met to see Bohème occupies a central place in the story, and Bohème is foregrounded as ritual through signs, posters, and phonograph recordings…it's use of opera music…performs important meta-level functions for memory, conciousness, and desire."

Cher's character in the film is explored as well: "Loretta Castorini an uncomprehending novice…throughout the film she has been independent and functioned as an individual with her own mind. Film scholars see her as an unusually strong female character in a genre in which women have been subordinate to men…Loretta appears to have internalized the opera-desire connection and made it her own, even though Ronny instigated and controlled the music." (referring to the scene in his apartment when he put a Puccini record on his turntable and then later when he invites her to the opera).

You can check out the essay on JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30162938

So recently my friend Natalie asked for a Christmas mix. My personal Christmas mix is on my iPod and quite a few of the songs included on it are not available on Spotify, including all of Cher's Christmas offerings. Searching for them today online reminds me how much Christmas material Cher performed on her various TV shows. Maybe this is why she's not in such a hurry to give us a Christmas album. We're insatiable, Chrismastly speaking.

Years ago I did a brief breakdown of all the Cher Christmas shows.

Here are the elements of those shows:

The 1969 Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour with Cher
Where they started singing "Jingle Bells" that tragically hip way. Look, he surprises her with misletoe. Adorable!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT06CBkTkyM

You can now watch the entire show on Amazon Prime.

The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1972 and 1973) Shows

The ultimate Cher Christmas song is, of course, "O Holy Night." Unforgettable. So much so that there was once a yearly tradition to recreate it on David Letterman. Watch Paul Shaffer yearly rendition (as is tradition).

Sonny & Cher do "Jingle Bells" in 1972.

The 1973 show was a big production of festive.

Cher also did this one both years, I believe: "One Tin Soldier/It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"

You can now watch the 1972 show on Amazon Prime.

The 1973 show on Amazon Prime.

Cher, 1975

Cher's opening "White Christmas/We Need a Little Christmas" Medley"

The poinsettia-fest that is "Some Children See Him"

The full cast doing the big finale ("I Love the Winter Weather/ I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm/Let It Snow," "Santa Baby," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "Jingle Bells with a Steel Guitar," "Christmas Island," "Christmas in Trinidad," "Silent Night") with Foxx, The Lennon Sisters and The Hudson Brothers.

The full show, (the Redd Foxx as an elf is a funny sketch.)

The Sonny & Cher Show (1976)

The Divorced Show also had a Christmas episode.

The "Jingle Bells" open.

The kooky medley with Bernadette Peters and Captain Kangaroo which has Elijah's first if not an one very early appearance.

Watch the show on Amazon Prime.

In the 1980s we also had a few Christmas appearances:

Cher on Pee Wee Christmas.

There's a Christmas party scene in Mermaids.

Cher's only official Christmas recording, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" with Rosie O'Donnell.

Have a Cherry Christmas everybody and stay out of trouble. 😉

Christmas Songs, Lucy Arnaz and You’d Better Sit Down Kids

November 24, 2021 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

Christmas Music

So here we are the day before the Thanksgiving weekend. In a few days it will be the appropriate time to binge on Holiday songs. Since last year was like the least festive year I've ever had (truly 'the year without a Christmas tree' for the whole extended family), this year the yen to fest feels strong.

Meanwhile my friend Natalie has been feeling blue and her birthday is coming up so as I was discussing the fact that her gift has been picked out and is on its way she stopped me to say the only thing she wants from me is another Christmas mix tape. (She thinks it's hilarious I studiously curate these mixes as an agnostic). So yesterday I started my Massive Christmas Playlist on Spotify to give to her this weekend.

Sadly, it has not one Cher Christmas song in the whole 6+ hours! Since Cher's best holiday songs were on her television shows (and are at best bootleg-able), none are on Spotify except for the one with Rosie O'Donnell and….eh.

So expect a Cher Christmas song blog post in the next few weeks.

A Night at the Academy Museum

I also want to say something about Cher's appearance on A Night in the Academy Museum. She had three segments. In one she talked about how important costumes are for actors in helping them form their characters. In another short segment, we see her famous fu*k- you dress and in a final segment she highlights her friend Diana Ross' dress from Lady Sings the Blues and an Elton John explosion of an outfit.

The special felt like a the longest commercial for a museum you've ever seen. A very good commercial, but a commercial nonetheless. I have to say my favorite part was Diane Warren's segment at the end talking about how many times she's been nominated and showing us the podium where one could visit the museum and pretend to win an Oscar. She was very funny and her whole spiel was pitch perfect.

You'd Better Sit Down Kids

Despite Lucille's Ball's big presence in Cher's story (which is not insignificant), I have never been a big Lucille Ball fan or an I Love Lucy fan. Although I can say I do enjoy the antics of Lucy and Ethel sometimes and find Desi very attractive and Lucille Ball is excellent in Stage Door (a movie whose flowers determined my wedding bouquet) and in Big Street (a movie Cher showed us on TCM when she hosted).

I can just skip her TV shows is all. And one day last month I was sick with a cold and watched something I normally wouldn't watch, Lucy Arnaz's documentary on her parents, Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie. It was actually illuminating to see Lucy and Desi in private moments before the hoopla of their public life together.

But in any case, Lucy Arnaz talks about the moment her parents, (who in her lifetime where always viciously fighting), were finally separating and she said she can't listen to Sonny Bono's song "You'd Better Sit Down Kids" because, she says, that's exactly how it was.

So I'd like to take a moment to enjoy the song in all its variations today:

Cher's original version on her solo album of 1967 With Love, Cher.

Sonny's later-day version on 1971's duet album All I Ever Need Is You which I have to say I've always loved for its raw (and I would say, brave) sentimentalism.

Sonny's 1973's Sonny & Cher Live, Vol. 2 version.

And Liza Minelli also recorded a version.

As did Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

New-Old Cher Releases, Sonny Bono Dinner Party, Cher in Vogue 1971

July 30, 2021 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Re-Releases!

First things first, Cher has been rereleasing her classic 70s-era Warner Bros. remastered on her YouTube channel. First Stars was released a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/c/cher/videos

Today her channel announced that I'd Rather Believe in You will be next, coming out in August: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQc8H3CgeD8

This is happy news for fans who, although stocked with bootlegs, have been pestering for an official release for over two decades. The remastered Stars sounds pristine and hopefully the albums will someday be available on other streaming platforms or in physical form (with some scholarly words of perspective). Very happy July surprise!

In other music news, the single copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album with the Cher vocals on two songs, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, has been sold by the feds. Follow the story here. The second buyer paid millions once again and their identity will possibly be revealed in a few months. The Wu-Tang Clan wishes that the album be played only in small groups for 88 years from the date it was first sold to the nefarious Pharma Bro back in 2015, which means most of us will not live long enough to hear it. That is unless the resale contract was interrupted by federal confiscation.

Sonny Bono Dinner Party

July has proven to be busy for Cher Scholar. I've started listening to KCRW again (lots of great stuff I’ve missed over the last five years I’ve been away) and I've thrown three small parties in as many weeks, and learned how to use my new braille machine.

For my upcoming birthday I received some meditation/introspection playing cards from a friend and the first one had the question: What makes you weird? I have a million answers to this but the one that pertains here is the fact that last Saturday I threw a Sonny Bono Recipe dinner party. And what's even more weird is the fact that it's not the first one I've thrown. I did it once before when I was 12 years old as a last-hurrah to my Sonny & Cher fandom, right before I decided it would be somewhat less weird in the 1980s to go solo with Cher.

But last Saturday I invited my friends Priscilla and Mikaela over and they were gamely willing to test out a few of these Sonny recipes. Mikaela also came over to teach me how to use my new braille machine. The fact that I just bought a braille machine is also a little bit weird.

I made the recipe for Sonny Bono's Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce from The Dead Celebrity Cookbook by Frank DeCarlo.

Mr. Cher Scholar made Sonny Bono's Pollo Bono from the Baltimore Sun.

He made a vegetarian, fake-chicken version for me.

Cheap table wine: check. Everyone liked the results. The biggest critique came from me, which was to say the fake chicken was rubbery (but very tasty). Mikaela said the chicken was "fantastic, excellent" and she loved the spaghetti too. She said she especially loved watching the video I showed them before dinner of Sonny & Cher cooking on The Mike Douglas Show (thanks to Cher scholar Jay for that). Priscilla said she loved the Pollo Bono too and is usually very picky about her chicken.

Mr. Cher Scholar said, "I like his recipes because they’re authentic stuff made at home, not over-the-top elaborate. Simple ingredients. Simple process." Afterwards he said he would make it again for his brother. "It's not hard."

Alterations: Our chicken breasts were huge. Monstrous. So he ending up baking them for 50 minutes at 375 degrees.

Spinning up the braille machine wasn’t so easy. Mikaela works at a school for the blind and she was able to bring me some braille guides. She showed me the basic concepts of the braille “alphabet.” We had a paper-loading issue which was solved by my googling "braille paper-loading issue" and getting the result "How do I load paper into the ^*#! brailler?"

Then we had an issue with the carriage return that caused us to take the whole machine apart, which Priscilla did with our drill. We all then looked at inside and provided speculative theories about the problem. Mr. Cher Scholar saw some "teeth" inside which needed to catch the return. He adjusted the margins and then it worked.

He usually avoids fixing stuff like an allergy so I asked him later what inspired him to do that and he said it was working with a manual typewriter all those years as a show-biz writer. So this was a real four-person team effort.

Then Mikaela taught me how to use the braille keys! Which are very cool and insanely complicated at the same time. I have to practice, she says, before I start typing out poems on the thing.

Perfect Pork Chops (Correction)

Another early birthday present I received yesterday was Celebrity Recipes, a newsstand publication from the 1980s judging by the big Heather Locklear, Linda Evans and Michael Douglas pictures on its cover. Anyway, on page 32 it claims that Perfect Pork Chop (the recipe I also have from Singers & Swingers in the Kitchen, The Scene-Makers Cook Book by Roberta Ashley) is actually Cher's recipe.

Cher in Vogue

The following spread is from Vogue, September 1, 1971. This was the same year their first live album came out. while they were still on the nightclub circuit.

Their live album cover is unusual in that the gatefold only shows a large photo of Sonny & Cher facing each other, a kind of extravagant gesture for a gatefold of recording artists on the skids. The photos are also very shadowy and almost abstract, especially the front cover.

So it's good to see another shot of Cher in the album outfit and have it described by the scribes of Vogue magazine.

Sonny’s Recipes

October 13, 2020 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Recently Cher scholar Jay notified me about the October 13, 1969, episode of The Mike Douglas Show where among other things we “learn to cook Italian” with Sonny & Cher. We got to discussing Sonny’s cooking and I went on an online scavenger hunt for Sonny’s recipes. I collected all I could find for a dedicated Sonny’s cooking page.

In this episode Sonny & Cher sing “their theme” “The Beat Goes On” and Cher sings “Just Enough to Keep Me Hanging On.” She’s not hanging her hand yet but she occasional snaps her fingers. They also sing “What Now My Love” and Sonny smiles too much for that tragic song.

Cher wears a patterned mini-dress with red hose and has white nails and her bangs have grown past her chin. Her hair is very long! Sonny is in a suit because he says is now rebelling against the “hippie uniform” He says it’s his first suit in 8 years. Cher picked it out, she says. Sonny says he doesn’t like picking out his clothes.

Douglas tells Cher she doesn’t “exude much” and he wonders if she likes the showbiz. She says she enjoys it but “not to the bubbling point.” They talk about Cher’s bracelet and how Sonny & Cher met. Cher says she set up her girlfriend with Sonny but her girlfriend didn’t like him but Sonny liked her girlfriend. The girlfriend and Cher ended up moving close to Sonny. Sonny says you have to like your mate when you’re together 24-hours a day. How did he propose, Douglas asks. Cher said Sonny asked her “where are you gonna ask me to marry you?” Proposals are more conversational now, she says. On bent knee…”that was a million years ago,” Cher says.

Sonny talks about working as a gopher for Phil Spector (the best producer in the biz, he says) and how hustling records takes political influence and that he was well-liked by LA DJs. Douglas notices Cher’s eyes are never off Sonny when he talks.

Also appearing that day are the Ramsey Lewis Trio and Selma Diamond (remember she was the first Night Court bailiff) . She keeps making remarks about Sonny’s sexuality. She says “he showed up ‘straight’” (she means his gender-bending clothes) and when Cher says she once had a dream she was a fairy, Diamond turns to Sonny and asks “how ‘bout you?” Not cool. Diamond then tells some unfunny jokes about the British Royal Family. Marty Brill is also on the show. I had to skip over his stand-up act. Then a football player comes on. Sonny likes to talk to each guest about their line of work.

During the cooking segment, Sonny tells Cher to be careful while she chops onions. Douglas acts silly. Do you cook at all Mike? Cher asks. He says no. “Men make the best cooks,” Cher says. Sonny says he likes to cook. Douglas says the dish smells Italian and complains about garlic on his fingers. Cher says “Italians just have that natural odor anyway” which gets a huge laugh. Douglas is shocked but he’s been making borderline offensive comments himself.

Cher says she enjoys Sonny’s cooking. “It’s really good. It’s really groovy.” Two more courses are promised later in the week. “He always gets to do the artistic stuff,” Cher says,
“I always get to do the crummy stuff.”

Sonny’s Solo Single of 1973

August 26, 2020 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Who even knew this song existed? Thanks to Cher scholar Robrt who informed me of its existence a few weeks ago, a Sonny solo singled called "Rub Your Nose." It was written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown.

The Cashbox review:

SONNY BONO (MCA 40139)
Rub Your Nose (3:15) (Levine & Brown, BMI, I. Levine, L. R. Brown)
Already picking up some air action, the not-as-pretty half of the Sonny & Cher team comes through with his first major chart item in some time as a solo. Reminiscent of the type of material that Cher’s been hitting with, this one looks headed for the Top Twenty. Flip: Laugh At Me (2:40) (Cotillion/Chris —Marc, BMI—S. Bono).

I don't think it made it to top 100. And how is this in any way reminiscent of the material Cher has been hitting with? Those would be hits produced by Snuff Garrett. This is a song produced by Sonny himself and Denis Pregnalato and arranged by future-Toto member David Paich, son of Sonny & Cher's musical arranger Marty Paich.

Here are the lyrics below that I have tried to transcribe. Does it provide any insight into Sonny's illicit and philandering ways? Or is it a critique of a famous wife starting to do the same?

Me and my woman, you and your man were having dinner
all together at the Chinese restaurant
Remember the signals, the ones that we made up in the laundry-mat [that's how he pronounces it]
where I held you and we stole a kiss or two?

Oh rub your nose means I love you,
pull your ear means late tonight. [No, it means Carol Burnett saying hello to her grandmother]
While they're soundly sleeping we'll be doing it up right.
Tap your foot means you want me
right this minute if we could.
Oh, rub your nose, pull your ear, tap your foot.

Show your affection like I'm showing mine.
Pretend you love him.
You're an actress. [Yikes!]
Why you're almost fooling me.
Leave him an egg roll. I'll pass her the rice
and while they're eating in their frenzy
I'll {something, something} once or twice. [Oh dear, what is that he's doing once or twice?]

Oh rub your nose means I love you,
Pull your ear means late tonight. [No, see above.]
While they're soundly sleeping we'll be doing it up right.
Tap your foot means you want me
right this minute if we could.
Oh, rub your nose, pull your ear, tap your foot.

Oh what fun. Feel the danger in the air.
Careful, girl, 'cos you're starting in to stare.
Danger in the air!

[guitar bridge]

Ok, who feels like Chinese food right now? Anyone? Give it a listen and help me decipher the missing words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYPgxAKREGA

Lost TV Land Commercial with Sonny

June 12, 2020 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I've watched a lot of bootleg Sonny & Cher shows from TV Land but thankfully the commercials had mostly been removed, which is a shame because I never saw this gem of a TV Land commercial: https://youtu.be/vZINMYfiHGg

Recently a Cher TV scholar sent me an clip of an episode I hadn't seen before and this commercial was stuck in there too.

It made me very happy to think of Sonny enjoying his reruns on TV Land.

In related news, there's a new Cher TV Time Life series to buy. More on that in an upcoming post.

Murder in Music City

October 23, 2019 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

So I finally had a chance to watch Sonny's 1979 movie, Murder in Music City, sometimes known as The Country Western Murders (I don't know where or why two titles were used or needed). And I never realized before now that this was an NBC TV movie. It aired on January 16, 1979.

Is it me or does his head look Photoshopped (or whatever they called it back in 1979) oddly to his body in that ad below.

It opens with Sonny running from some bad guys. He plays a songwriter named Sonny Hunt (you hear two lines of a song) with a very spunky, likable girlfriend, a supermodel allegedly. They get caught up in a murder mystery because Sonny is so successful as a songwriter that he needs to put his money somewhere and his manager suggests a failing detective agency.

It could happen.

These two kids actually have chemistry and this would have been a better series, like a Hart to Hart. It's not as bad as you might think. Sonny does a pretty good job. He just doesn't have that elusive 'it' as an actor but this performance is far from embarrassing. The script was pretty much what you'd expect a TV movie in the 1970s to be. And considering this is Sonny's only starring movie role, it's worth a watch.

He's shirtless multiple times. I should come up with a Sonny-shirtless-in-movies scale chart because he seems to be shirtless quite often in movies.

And remarkably (since this is a movie about Nashville after all), there are lots of country cameos including Mel Tillis (singing AND stuttering…I love me some Mel Tillis!), Barbara Mandrell (adorable per yush), Ray Stevens singing with Ronnie Milsap, Larry Gatlin, and an unrecognizable Charlie Daniels. Plus you get Morgan Fairchild, Claude Akins, Lee Purcell and that adorable character-actress Lucille Benson as the kooky secretary.

Even more remarkably, this flick was directed by Leo Penn, father of Sean, Chris and Michael.

The interactions between the country singers and Sonny are interesting and unusual. You had to wonder what everyone was thinking. Sonny was a fading hot commodity post breakup with Cher and their TV shows. You got the idea that Cher was more of a country music fan than Sonny (who was all R &B and Soul) and Barbara Mandrell was flying high on her hits "Sleeping Single on a Double Bed" and "If Loving You is Wrong (I Don't Want to Be Right)" and on the cusp of her own variety show. There's a hilarious interchange between Sonny and Barbara where his character doesn't know who Mandrell is. Okay, Sonny Hunt.

The Thrilling Detective website had this to say about the movie:

“Full of logical inconsistencies (Sonny has to break into his own business), wisecracks that don’t so much crack as slither, and a slew of country music celebrity cameos that pretty much define “gratuitous.”

This is the 1970s. Gratuitous has no meaning here. And it was very funny when Sonny broke into his own business. Therefore a fan of Rifftrax, I submitted this movie for their astute consideration.