CHER SHOW
I was the first person ever to show my belly button on TV. The censors didn't like that at all, but I had already been doing it when they decided they didn't like it. I was already wearing those clothes and people loved those clothes.
Following a TV special, featuring Elton John, Bette Midler and Flip Wilson, The Cher Show premiered at 7.30pm on Sunday, February 16, 1975 and was an instant ratings smash. The series was produced by "Laugh-In" veteran George Schlatter who said at the time, "We're going to let people discover the nameless, vulnerable kind of quality beneath the somewhat brassy exterior".
The show ran opposite "The Wonderful World of Disney", and Cher, with the help of A-list celebrity guests, became the first performer to win the ratings slot against Disney.
There were initial problems though. Sonny owned the rights to all the characters from The Sonny & Cher Show. There could be no Vamp sketches, so they were replaced by a new segment called "Trashy Ladies". Only the tiger skin clad Laverne was carried over into the new show. The former couple also argued over Chastisty's appearances on the show.
After starting in the national top 10, the ratings began to slump. It was a tough timeslot, with "Wonderful World of Disney" and "The Six Million Dollar Man" reclaiming ratings initially lost to Cher's new show. Cher constantly battled network censors who were concerned that her costumes and material were too suggestive for the Sunday night family hour. Cher later recalled, "There were so many things that were censored - ideas and words. All I know is I got in trouble for showing my belly button, and every time I turned around after I went off the air, all you saw were Cheryl Ladd's boobs."
In her personal life Cher was plastered all over the tabloids, given her break up with Sonny, her affair with David Geffen, and her surprise romance and quick marriage to rocker Gregg Allman.
Cher was living in a "goldfish bowl", and professionally she began to feel the drain of fronting a weekly show on her own and trying to make it work in a tough time slot.
David Geffen, who had produced the first season, had left by the second season, and there was more pressure on Cher to take responsibility for the show - and she was struggling. She dreaded doing the monologues, feeling she was bad at them, and fighting the producers and censors on every point. She even admitted in her autobiography that she "was in way over my head. I wasn't able to have fun with it anymore, which is death for comedy."
After filming the fourth episode of the second season, Cher was informed that Sonny had agreed to be a guest star on a couple episodes of her show, with the hope that his appearances would bring huge ratings. Instead, Cher decided to ask Sonny if he would agree to come back EVERY week, for a brand new "Sonny & Cher" show.
Cher said at the time, "I made the decision after I'd done four Cher shows last Fall. Nothing to do with the ratings. Doing a show alone was more than I could handle. I had to be into everything, from helping on scripts to picking the music. And they had me doing a monologue. That's not like me, to be out there alone making with the jokes."
In December of 1975, CBS held a press conference and announced that Sonny & Cher would be returning to television, and "The Sonny & Cher Show" would replace "Cher" starting in February of 1976. By this time "The Cher Show" was 34 in the national ratings. In January, 1976 "The Cher Show" screened it's last episode, and the new "Sonny & Cher Show" debuted the following month.
The Cher Show remains a firm favourite of Cher fans around the world, despite Cher's own claim that she "sucked". Thankfully The Cher Show lives on in the wonderful world of repeats.
Featured Clip
![]() Georgia On My Mind - with Ray Charles.
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SEASON ONE | SEASON TWO
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