Season: 4 (The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour)
Episode: 54 (Years, Part 2)
Guest(s): Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Peter Noone, The Coasters, Wolfman Jack
CBS air date: Date: November 28, 1973
Also aired: TVLand, Get TV, Time Life
Intro: Part 2 of the “very special Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” (Video)
DJ Wolfman Jack is wearing a record-printed blouse and sitting at a turntable ostensibly playing Sonny & Cher records. Cher comes in as his mother who talks the same way.
Opening Song: “Rock and Roll is Here to Stay” (Video, 1:57)
Cover of Danny & the Juniors (1958)
Same opening as episode #46, Years part I, the cast and Sonny & Cher take turns singing. Mr. Cher Scholar says they’re all singing in a manic and annoying way. Cher’s in a white polka dot dress. Sonny’s in a matching white suit with polka-dot shirt and big gold medallion. This is also more evidence of pre-Charlie’s Angels jiggle TV.
Neil Sedaka sings “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” (Sonny & Cher are and it is)
Sedaka’s 1975 song “The Hungry Years” was written about Sonny and Cher.
We went so high we couldn’t stop
We climbed the ladder leading us nowhere
Two of us together
Building castles in the air
The gold ring from the carousel
How could we know the ride would turn out bad
Everything we wanted
Was everything we had
The once upon a time
The lovely long ago
We didn’t have a dime
Those days of me and you
We lost along the way
Not to see the door
Closing on the world
I now hunger for
Looking through my tears
I miss the hungry years
Making plans was so much fun
We set our goals and reached the highest star
The things that we were after
Were much better from afar
With everything and nothing, too
It wasn’t worth the price we had to pay
Honey take me home
Let’s go back to yesterday
The once upon a time
The lovely long ago
We didn’t have a dime
Those days of me and you
We lost along the way
Not to see the door
Closing on the world
I know hunger for
Looking through my tears
I miss the hungry years
I miss the hungry years
Peter Noone sings “Henry XVII” (Sonny yells, “alright!”)
Paul Anka sings “Diana”
The Coasters sing “Charlie Brown.” They look like they may be lip synching.
The guests are all in white again. I’ve always wondered why these 1950s/60s retrospective shows didn’t include any Phil Spector artists.
Banter: There’s a boob joke (Sonny says in the lean years Cher really developed her voice and then he looks at her boobs) and a Nixon joke (Cher jokes that Little Richard is sitting in the little White House sitting on the little tapes). Sonny talks about the days when kids were trying to rip Sonny’s clothes off and Cher jokes the fans would only scream after they ripped his clothes off. They talk about the era of “our passionate seething torrid love affair.” They end with pictures of themselves in the 1960s.
Vamp
– Maharshi with Cher as Pat Nixon.
– Marilyn Monroe: Cher as Marilyn and Sonny and Neil Sedaka in drag. Italian girls with mustaches. I’ve starred this.
– Allegedly there was also a Batman skit but this is missing in the TVLand version.
GetTV was missing the Vamp segment entirely.
The Myth: Wolfman Jack introduces the 1960s Sonny & Cher story about how they were devoted to each other. He says he knew back then that they were rock stars. He introduces their later club scene days. Paul Anka plays the bartender. The rest of the guests are in the audience. The TV plays “We’ve Only Just Begun,” the Carpenters song. Sonny & Cher play themselves. They’re mad at each other after a nightclub performance. He’s sick of the short jokes but then makes a Pocahontas joke and talks about “your Indian cooking” and “buffalo pizza” that made him have to “pick arrows out of his teeth.” They talk about how the fat mother jokes came about and invoke Uncle Luigi and the “Battling Bonos” which was how the early 1970s tabloids referred to rumors at the time of their fighting. They’re owning it here, I guess.
Solo: Wolfman Jack introduces a repeat of “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” from Season 2, episode 7.
The Myth Part 2: Sonny says the 1960s were lucky for him and Cher because they had “hits and breaks” and on March 4, the had Chastity, “a lucky break.” In this skit Cher is in a room giving birth to Chastity. Cher has pigtails signifying her innocence. Teri Garr plays a nurse. The husbands are in the waiting room losing their minds. Sonny’s singing makes Cher cry. At the end, Chastity is born at 7.1 pounds and Sonny walks through the wall. All the men in the waiting room faint. We see more Sonny & Cher candid pics.
TV Land cut this skit.
Concert: (Video)
Sonny & Cher sing “I Dig Rock and Roll Music”
(cover of Peter, Paul and Mary from 1967) as they did in Years 1, Episode #46. Cher has red hair and a sequined dress. Sonny wears a black suit.
The Coasters sing “Poison Ivy”
Neil Sedaka sings “Calendar Girl”
Peter Noone sings “I’m Into Something Good”
Paul Anka sings “Put Your Head on My Shoulder”
Sonny & Cher sing “All I Ever Need Is You,” their hit from 1972.
The Coasters sing “Yakety Yak”
Peter Noone sings “Mrs. Browne”
Neil Sedaka sings “Happy Birthday Sweet 16”
Sonny & Cher sing a moving performance of “I Got You Babe” (their 1965 hit).
Paul Anka sings “Lonely Boy”
Sonny & Cher and the guests all sing “All I Really Want to Do” (Cher’s 1965 Bob Dylan cover hit) with the new lyrics. I’ve starred this.
It’s been a pleasure to sing with you (Sedaka)
Get together and swing with you (Noone)
I’ve had a ball here tonight (Anka)
We really rocked around the hall tonight (The Coasters)
There are some unusual camera angles and the guests all have coordinated outfits.
IGUB: Chastity makes a joke about Sonny reading prompter. They’re all wearing matching outfits. Cher says, “I don’t know how to read but the teacher said she could teach both of us.” (Early reference to Cher’s dyslexia.)
Highlights: Reference to possible reading dyslexia for Chas and Cher. Mythologies about the birth of Chas and Sonny & Cher’s nightclub days. Cher’s Marilyn Monroe is good and a fine version of “All I Really Want to Do.” The teleprompter joke is also often used in retrospectives.
