Season: 2 (The Sonny & Cher Show)
Episode: 19
Guest(s): Jack Albertson, Steve Lawrence
CBS Air Date: November 14, 1976
Also aired: Never re-aired
Opening Song: “I Only Want to Be With You” (Audio)
Cover of Dusty Springfield (1963)
I can hear lots of loud clapping by Cher. Not a great rendition. Sonny seems to be having a hard time keeping up. Sonny sings to Cher “and you just stepped on my toe.” Sonny whoops a lot.
Breakout: Bartender Ted Zeigler answers the phone as “Holmes & Yoyo.” (Cher scholar Jay says this was a 1970s TV show. Thank you.) Alvin asks again if that was the ratings people calling and why the bartender (I keep forgetting he has a name; it’s Herbie) didn’t admit they were really watching The Sonny & Cher Show. Ted says he got the Yoyo part right. Laverne comes in wanting a double scotch, no ice. Harry left her that night, she says. Here we go. Alvin asks if she is drinking to forget and she says she is drinking to celebrate. (Watching these episodes out of order was really confusing. This is probably one of the first shows to carry a plotline over multiple episodes.) Harry is leaving to join the Navy, Laverne says. She says she’ll probably bump into him from time to time. Laverne says they had an argument and he left in his Winnie the Pooh pajamas. They found because she never cooks more than warming up a Twinkie. She says she put tomato sauce on it.
Opening Banter: Sonny says he’s learning something new and Cher quips “It’s about time.” “If you would learn something it would be nice.” Cher says she’s too busy making the cover of The Enquirer to learn something new. Sonny is gonna lay it on us, he says. Sonny says he’s learning the science of numbers (numerology). They seem to be bantering away from the script. Sonny talks about lucky numbers and how you’re future could be affected by numbers. Cher quips that Uncle Luigi got 1-10 for playing the numbers. Cher says the Nielsen ratings are numbers that affect them. Cher kids Sonny for saying “hey Cher” as a segue. Sonny says Cher talks a lot and “pop offs” at the mouth, but he can’t say that anymore because “you’re not my responsibility” anymore. Yikes! Cher prods him to get on with it. Sonny says you can eliminate risks and Cher says it must be like Planned Parenthood. Sonny says he used a book to figure out his number and Cher’s number. “Cher, I’ve had your number for a long time.” The audience claps. “Take your new baby, Cher.” And he does a Henny Youngman joke. Sonny says knowing his number could change Elijah Blue completely. Cher says she changes him completely eight times a day. Sonny says the name Cher may not have the right amount of letters to be lucky. Cher says she’s changed her name enough lately without that.
Sonny’s Pizza: Steve Lawrence comes in drunk. Rosa complains about how long he’s been at the pizzeria, their only good customer, Ted Ziegler says. Sonny chastises them and is excited because a V.I.P. is coming later to do a photo op in the newspaper for the pizzeria. Turns out it’s a congressman played by Jack Albertson. Congressman Graft. He’s going to ethnic restaurants trying to get the ethnic vote. Rosa calls him a hold-up man. Lawrence quips something I can’t figure out. Albertson keeps insulting different ethnic groups (Jews, Lebanese, Irish, Italians). There’s a joke about the polls which Sonny mistakes for the Poles (ethnic joke). Albertson makes a pass at Rosa and pulls her onto his lap while talking about the broad and his respect for working women. All the ethnic food has given him indigestion and that he will use Sonny’s pizza as capital punishment and he will have the restaurant condemned. Sonny is outraged and tells Rosa he’ll be voting for his opponent and the drunk, Steve Lawrence, says he’ll run against Albertson. Lawrence tries to kiss Rosa, too. Har.
Cher Solo: “I Got It Bad and That Aint Good” (Audio)
Cover of Duke Ellington (1941)
Cher sang this solo in episode #11 and episode #43 of the Comedy Hour. This version is short and sweet. A little raspy this time.
Mother Goose: Cher sings the theme for this series, “And That’s the Truth”
+ Cher plays a ditsy stewardess who says the flight is going to Copenhagen or New York, depending upon the winds. She plays it like ditzy Vicky Lawrence. Jack Albertson is in first class and gets caviar. Sonny decides to have some, too. Cher says he’s in second class and can only have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Steve Lawrence is in the “no-frills section” and asks what he will get. Cher tells him to put his head under the water and anything you catch in the water is yours” and we hear a bullhorn. Lawrence says his ticket calls for champagne, a movie and a companion. Cher reads all the fine print.
Sonny insists his ticket says he gets to spend all his time with the stewardess. Cher says that offer expired on Sunday. Sonny says it’s only Saturday. But Cher says they just crossed over the international dateline.
Albertson claims his ticket says he gets a special treat. Cher gives him a kiss. Sonny asks what he gets: a hearty handshake. Steve asks too and Ted Zeigler (another steward?) playing it as a gay man says, “Hi Sailor. Coffee, tea or a flick of my BIC” from the commercials. Racy!
+ Lawrence and Albertson play speech therapists in Mother Goose Land. Cher plays Sue who sells seashells by the seashore but she can’t say the tongue twister. (As we’ve seen on previous variety shows, Cher is actually very good at tongue twisters.) Albertson does a pretty good job. Sue learns how to sing the line and the therapists (they all sing the tongue twisty lyrics) and they ask her for a fifty-dollar fee. Sue then tells them about her brother, Peter Piper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who picked a peck of pickled peppers. They teach her to sing that too and ask for another fifty dollars. Sue says she is so confused. She wants to talk about her father, Theophilus Thistle, a thistle sifter with his thumbs. Sue wants them to combine the whole family into a song. They tell her to tell people she’s an orphan. And they ask for another fifty dollars.
The station break announcer promises an upcoming Battle of the Sexes episode that is not in this episode.
Vente Nove: Yes! Cher interviews the director about a new movie called Husband Betrayed. Apparently the movie will be subtitled. “Hello nice-a lady.” It’s nice to see you back (and your front), Nove says. Luigi comes to give Nove riding crops. Nove whips Luigi. Cher tries to start up the interview again. Marcello Mastriano, Robert Redford and Sophia Loren? But I couldn’t get ’em. They wanted to be paid. “Luigi, roll ’em,” Nove says. “Not the ball, Luigi! The film!” (I love that). They play the music of “Bang Bang” and say the movie is narrated by Joe DiMaggio. A couple is talking about rain. The dialogue is purposefully stilted. The man goes into the closet to look for something. The woman’s husband comes home while her lover is in the closet. The husband meets the lover in the closet and invites him to the baseball game. The lover says he’d rather go with the wife. The laugh track is going crazy. I lose the thread.
Guest Spot: Steve Lawrence sings an odd Ella Fitzgerald / Eric Carmen mashup of the two songs with the same title, “All By Myself.”
Operetta: “The Not-So-Grand Hotel” It’s 1918 and the Gershwin Brothers (not the famous composers but song salesmen Herbie and Alfie played by Lawrence and Albertson) are checking into the hotel. They do a quick “Alfie” (1966) spoof. Didn’t we just do this with Ziegfeld and Barry Manilow? They do the same “I Write the Songs” (1975) spoof. Sonny plays a German spy circa World War I. Sonny claims there is a song that could win the war. Cher plays Roberta, a comedienne doing Bob-Hope-like one-liners. She claims her young son, Bob Hope, is at home waiting to entertain the boy scouts. All the guests, in a warlike manner, try to claim the territory of the couch. When Cher says, “I’ve got the couch,” Lawrence says, “Don’t stand too close to me. I might get it.” There are some song spoofs I don’t know. There’s “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” (1929). There’s a bad joke mashing up Berlin in Germany with Irving Berlin. The war is declared over at the end and world safe from Vaudeville.
IGUB: Sonny & Cher start with “I Got You Babe” immediately interrupted by a trip back to the bar with Alvin and Laverne who is still busy insulting Harry because he took everything when he left, including the TV set, the wallpaper and the lightbulbs. Laverne thinks she should get her old job back. Alvin thinks she is describing a showgirl. Laverne corrects him. She was a car hop. She met Harry on another job. She was working at the International House of Beans.
Sonny & Cher come back and say goodnight. We miss the whole song with this skit stuff interrupting. These endings are a big letdown without the little banter, the full song and the visit from Chastity.
Thanks to Jay for the official run-down on this episode, especially since it has never re-aired and he was cobbling it together from audio.
Highlights: The tongue-twisting songs, another Vente Nove. Cher’s newest version of “I Got it Bad and That Ain’t Good.”
