Well, I doubt you'd be reading this unless you are a Sonny and Cher fan, so I'll concentrate on the highlights of these sweet holiday-themed shows. And, I hope you like "Jingle Bells", because that's the song that opens all three shows!
Both of the first two shows feature William Conrad (television's 'Cannon', which was also the inspiration for the skits they used to do with everyone in huge 'fat suits' in case you remember those) and Chastity as their only guests, with their crew of regulars joining in more than usual in the comedy and song bits. Conrad seems to be having a ball, particularly while doing some pantomime bits as a vagabond bumming some Christmas cheer. For a guy who was mainly known as being a great 'voice' (he was Matt Dillon on radio's version of Gunsmoke and the announcer on Rocky and Bullwinkle), he is very effective in these silent skits. He also appears to do some singing, even trying a solo during the Victorian Village Caroling part of the second show.
Perhaps they meant to continue this tradition (Christmas shows with only Bill Conrad as their guest), but Sonny and Cher's divorce meant that a few years passed before their next Xmas outing (or, in their case, Ex-Mrs outing?). Chastity, Bernadette Peters and Bob (Captain Kangaroo) Keeshan are the guests on the final show, from the 'divorce show' years, with Elijah Blue Allman making a small appearance as well.
A nice package, the only extra being a 'video jukebox' of some of the musical highlights. No commentary, but considering how spare Cher's remarks were on the three-disc package of the shows, I don't think we're missing much.
One cavaet-the first two shows only run about 35 minutes each, so it looks like there must have been some music or other copyrighted material that had to be omitted. Anyone know what was cut out of these shows? The last show runs almost 45 minutes, which is what you would expect of an hour-long show without the commercials.
