| The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour | |
|---|---|
Sonny and Telly Savalas begin the show's third season, 1973. |
|
| Genre | Variety |
| Directed by | Art Fisher |
| Starring | Sonny and Cher |
| Theme music composer | Sonny Bono |
| Opening theme | "The Beat Goes On" |
| Ending theme | "I Got You Babe" |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 63 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Chris Bearde Allan Blye |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | August 1, 1971 – May 29, 1974 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Sonny & Cher Show |
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour is an American variety show based on the married couple of American pop-singer Cher and her husband, Sonny Bono. The show ran on CBS in the United States, when it premiered in August 1971. The show was canceled May 1974, due to the couple's divorce, though the duo would reunite in 1976 for the identically-formatted The Sonny & Cher Show (a title sporadically used during the run of the Comedy Hour), which ran until 1977.
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In 1971, Sonny and Cher had stopped producing hit singles. Cher's first feature film, Chastity, was not a success, and the duo decided to sing and tell jokes in nightclubs across the country. CBS head of programming Fred Silverman saw them one evening and offered them their own show. The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was originally supposed to be a summer replacement series, but high ratings gave Silverman sufficient reason to bring it back later that year, with a permanent spot on the schedule. The show was taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood.
The show was a Top 20 hit in the ratings for its entire run. Each episode would open with the show's theme song, which would segue into the first few notes of "The Beat Goes On". Every episode, Sonny would exchange banter with Cher, who was usually very proficient in one-liners, allowing Cher to put down Sonny in a comic manner. Comedy skits would follow, mixed in with musical numbers. One of the regular cast members was a young Teri Garr who danced and acted in various comedy sketches. At the end of each episode, Sonny and Cher would sing their hit "I Got You Babe" to the audience, sometimes with daughter Chastity Bono in tow.
The show was scheduled to return for a fourth season in October 1974. However, Sonny and Cher separated that fall, resulting in the cancellation of the show.
In 2004, selected episodes from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour were released in a three-disc set on Region 1 DVD.
In 1974, Sonny and Cher agreed to end the show as they were separating from each other. Their timeslot was given to Tony Orlando and Dawn the next fall. They both starred in separate variety shows over the next two years. Sonny Bono's 1974 variety series, The Sonny Bono Comedy Revue, only lasted a few episodes. Initially, people assumed that his show would be the greater success when it was heard that Cher was to appear in her own show.
Starting in early 1975, Cher also returned to network television with her solo variety show, entitled Cher. It did well during its abbreviated run, and was renewed for the 1975-76 season. However, during the second season, Cher herself decided to end the show to work with Sonny again. Although, Sonny's show had all the cast and crew from the comedy hour and was expected to be the bigger hit, Cher's show easily became the greater success with ratings. Due to contracts, Cher was unable to perform many of her sketches and characters from the comedy hour on her show, instead, Sonny had them on his show.
In February 1976, the bitterness of their divorce behind them, the couple reunited for one last try with The Sonny and Cher Show. It was basically the same as their first variety series but with different writers to create new sketches and songs. Many considered the "magic" that had made the show initially successful was gone now that the couple was no longer married and that the barbs they aimed at one another were no longer cute after such a bitter divorce. (Some jokes would get awkward. In one opening segment Cher gave Sonny a compliment and Sonny jokingly replied "That's not what you said in the courtroom.") Despite this, and even with Cher married to Gregg Allman and pregnant with his child, the revived series garnered enough ratings to be renewed for a second season, finally ending its run in 1977. (By this time, the variety show genre was already in steep decline, and Sonny and Cher was one of the few successful programs of the genre remaining on the air at the time.)
At least for part of its run, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour only taped its opening and closing segments in front of a live studio audience, along with some musical guests—which were actually taped after the closing segment was taped. All other segments were taped without an audience, with a laugh track added later. [1]
Edited half-hour reruns of the series were seen on TV Land at the time of its launch in April 1996, with both the 1971-74 series (from which, the network only showed episodes from 1973 to 1974) and the 1976-77 series being treated as one.