The Sonny & Cher Nitty Gritty Hour DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Married singing duo Sonny and Cher starred in one of the highest rated variety shows of the 1970s, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. The inspiration for this series came from their successful 1971 special The Sonny & Cher Nitty Gritty Hour in which the stars sing a few songs, trade insults, and participate in dance numbers, sort of like an ill-advised musical comedy version of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
Nitty Gritty begins with Sonny and Cher covering "We've Only Just Begun," the theme song from the film Lovers and Other Strangers that was made famous by the brother and sister team The Carpenters. Afterwards, Sonny announces that the theme of the show will be "Battle of the Sexes." This, of course, leads to a series of put-down exchanges for which the couple was famous. It is hard to believe now that these routines were so wildly popular. Not much of the dialogue here is funny, and the audience barely titters at the "snappy" one liners
The two then reminisce about how they met while they show us old snapshots from various stages of their relationship. The tone is very much like watching home movies with your self-amused parents. To their credit, however, the duo shows an easy charm as they segue into "I Got You Babe."
The show takes a truly bizarre turn after Cher sings a few bars of "Alfie." This quickly degenerates into an interpretive dance sequence in which a Meredith Baxter-Birney lookalike dances to an instrumental version of the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" and a brunette dancer thrusts along to "Funky Broadway." Sonny helpfully explains that they represent the older puritan ethic and the younger sexual liberation respectively. Cher then performs a horrifying dance to "All You Need is Love," exhibiting all the grace of a giraffe with an acute ear infection.
Next up, Sonny moderates a session of improvisational comedy featuring Cher and the special's rep company of comics. With names like "Mexican Tour Guide/Shy School Teacher," "Traveling Salesman/Lady of the House," "Millionaire/Hippie Blushing Bride/Possessive Secretary," and "Lifeguard/Girl Sleeping in Sun," these bits are semi-amusing, but more often than not they play like Whose Line is it Anyway? with even less funny comics than the ones that appeared on that show.
The show returns to bizarro land with Cher's languid interpretation of "O Danny Boy," a traditional Irish tune here sung by perhaps the least Irish person in the world. Inexplicably, the number also features an extended clip of Cher running down the beach and later standing contemplatively in a church. Weird!
Sonny and Cher sing "The Beat Goes On" . and then the show is over. At only thirty seven minutes, this "hour" is obviously truncated. The credits list at least one additional skit that does not appear on the DVD. This special is housed on a single disc. Viewers can choose to play the entire show or jump to a specific song or skit via the "Song Selection" menu.
