Season: 2 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 18
Guest(s): Ed McMahon, Betty White, The Sylvers
CBS Air Date: November 7, 1976
Also aired: TVLand
Opening Song: “Get Right Back to Where We Started From” (Video)
Cover of Maxine Nightingale (1976)
Cher wears a black crumb-catcher (as James calls it) with a very colorful, shiny, hooped underskirt. Her hair is very thick. Sonny wears a suit with a white shirt and matching purple vest. We actually catch Cher looking lovingly at Sonny when she sings, “Do you remember the day when you first came my way.” They look like they’re having fun. I loved this song as a kid.
Breakout: At the bar Alvin and Laverne are watching Sonny & Cher again. Alvin says he has left Myrna because he discovered she was cheating on him with Laverne’s new boyfriend. Shocking! The plot thickens.
Opening Banter: They shake hands. Jimmy Carter won the election the previous week and Cher is waiting to get an invite to the inauguration (she did) and she mock-calls Jimmy Carter from LA to Plains, Georgia. Sonny makes a crooked teeth joke.
Skit: “Video Tape a Date” (Before it’s time!) Ed McMahon runs a video dating service. Mario (Sonny) is a nerdish looking guy seeking for a date. The first video is Ted Zeigler in drag, then Cher as a shy girl, then Betty White as Cher’s more outgoing mother also seemingly looking for a date. Cher reads a poem badly (I’ve starred this.)
Sam Spade: “Night Train Caper to Munich” Sam Spade is back! He needs to deliver 2 million dollars to a secret spy who will be dressed like W. C. Fields on a train. The problem is every passenger on the train looks like W. C. Fields (even Betty White and a little person), all except Cher who looks like Mae West (in a great outfit, my notes say). Cher gets to do her Mae West again. At the end, the little person kicks Sonny.
(This is actually an eerie foreshadowing to Sonny Bono’s appearance on the show Fantasy Island where according to his own autobiography he kept flubbing the lines and Hervé Villechaize also kicked him. It was at that moment, Sonny said, that he felt it was prudent for him to exit show business and pursue another career, which turned out to be restaurateuring in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, frustrations at the later location which led him into politics, first the Mayor of Palm Springs and then U.S. Congressman for California’s 44th District.
Guest Spot: Sonny & Cher announce The Sylvers in their opening outfits. The Sylvers sing “Boogie Fever” and “Hot Line.” (Video)
Cher Solo: “Love Hurts” (Video)
Cover of The Everly Brothers (1957 ) and Nazareth (1975)
Cher wears a turquoise bare-midriff, shredded top and matching pants and a curly wig. They shoot her walking through a tunnel of white tree branches. Cher is going back to her 1975 album Stars for this one and she will record the song again on her 1991 Geffen album Love Hurts. The look foreshadows her 1980s style except for the vestiges of lip licking and hand hanging.
Great Lovers: Sonny does his big band troubadour dance.
+ Sonny plays a sheik with eyeliner and rouge together with his unhappy wife, Betty White. There’s a Camel à la King joke and a Mary Tyler Moore joke.
+ Spoof of Casablanca. Sonny plays Sam. Ed McMahon plays Rick. Ted plays a police captain and Cher plays Ilsa. There are references to Humphrey Bogart’s most famous movies: The Caine Mutiny, The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo and To Have and Have Not.
IGUB: Sonny closes with a message of post-election peace. He says the election is over and he’s glad we live in a country where we can yell and shout about this politician or that one and everyone can go pick who they want and then rally around the new president and that’s how we do things in this country. Sonny can be very parental when he wants to be. I wonder what Sonny would be saying today had he lived to see the political turmoil we are seeing today. It’s a nice message anyway. Cher tells him she appreciates his comments and they sing “I Got You Babe.”
Thanks to Jay for the official run-down on this episode.
Highlights: Sonny takes the high road very well. And we get more Sam Spade! Cher’s solo number foresees her future on MTV. Lowlight: I guess the concerts are a thing of the past.
