In the US, it seemed, it had vanished long ago, or had it? I had a childhood memory of seeing something on the old Sonny & Cher show, which I'd recalled as a sort of "Monster Jamboree" with the hosts and cast in monster makeup, but looking over the surviving show synopses, scripts, and YouTube videos, I could never seem to track it down -- until now. The skit starts in at roughly the ten minute mark in this video.
The opening song is a loose adaptation of "Alexander's Ragtime Band," after which Cher throws a line to the tall fellow in the middle (not Sonny), the first of many bad jokes, beginning with "Tell me, Mr. Interlocutor" -- this was always the title of the man in the middle of a Minstrel lineup. That same person then asks for a joke from "Mr. Moan" (Sonny), which is no less bad -- he's one of the "endmen," originally known as Mr. Tambo and Mr. Bones (in this skit, Cher is "Madame Bones"). This segues into a separate skit, "Stabbit and Ghostello," a rather bad version of the "who's on first" routine. A still more sorry dance sequence, with Sonny donning a huge turban and dancing with a sort of "Igor" figure, comes next. We then go back to the main stage (where Sonny addresses the main man as "Mr. Underlocutor"!), then an "invisible man" gag, after which Cher sings, descending a skeletal staircase, as "Vampira." A finale -- "When you're dead" -- closes out the show.
