This blogger is on a bit of a “Bewitched” kick, and he’s writing a lot about how the first season was much more sophisticated than the rest of the series. (Also an analysis of one episode from that season. The producer for that season, Danny Arnold, went on to create “Barney Miller,” and he’s quoted as saying he wanted to play down the magic and play up the social-commentary aspects of a show about a mixed marriage:
The episode he’s referring to is the seventh episode on the first-season DVD, “The Witches Are Out,” where Samantha is upset that Darrin is creating an advertising campaign featuring an ugly, wart-ridden old witch. She complains that he’s perpetuating negative stereotypes of witches and that it hurts her and her relatives to see themselves stereotyped like that in the media. When I was a kid, I am ashamed to say, I had no idea what that scene was actually about.
The blog says that Arnold was sort of overruled in his desire to have the show be more about relationships and less about magic, and so by the time it went to color (and Arnold was long gone) it was more the show we know where Endora casts a spell on Darrin every week. But it’s fascinating to see the first season again and see how elegant and sophisticated it was trying to be, and how they treated the whole situation as something that might realistically happen.
For many gay men growing up in the sixties and seventies (like me), *Bewitched *offered an eery metaphorical parallel to what life was like for us: having a secret about a fundamental aspect of who you are, a secret you could only every share with the ones you love; a secret the rest of the world was disgusted and horrified by, but which felt natural–and even special, when you’re in love–to you. It’s a show about a marriage that must live partially in a closet. Plus of course Endora and Serena were dragqueens in everything but chromosomes.
Also, in retrospect, it has a lot in common with the greatest TV show of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Just think of how Paul Lynde must have felt, being both queer and on Bewi… oh, sorry, I think I lost the thread of the statement.
Especially Oz the werewolf (played by an actor who majorly sets off my gaydar, incidentally).
I actually used to think of the Bewitched/homo analogy when I was a kid alone in the house able to dance around and sing showtunes at the top of my lungs (well, my 90 something aunt was there but she either just made snide remarks about it to her dead twin or figured she was hallucinating again) or turning on several music boxes at once and doing an impersonation of Blanche Dubois having a nervous breakdown. I would think “If this were Bewitched, Mrs. Kravitz would be in the window now”.
As I’ve mentioned in other threads, my sympathies were always with Maurice and Endora. I’d have zapped Darrin into a suppository and put him in a jar being taken to the cash register by Orson Welles in a Salem minute. Why Samantha took that when he wasn’t spectacularly successful, particularly sweet or charming or even good looking was beyond me. That said, it was my hands-down-favorite show all through childhood (particularly episodes with Maurice, Bernie Kopell or Doctor Bombay).
Just think of how Paul Lynde must have felt, being both queer and on Bewi… oh, sorry, I think I lost the thread of the statement.
Especially Oz the werewolf (played by an actor who majorly sets off my gaydar, incidentally).
I actually used to think of the Bewitched/homo analogy when I was a kid alone in the house able to dance around and sing showtunes at the top of my lungs (well, my 90 something aunt was there but she either just made snide remarks about it to her dead twin or figured she was hallucinating again) or turning on several music boxes at once and doing an impersonation of Blanche Dubois having a nervous breakdown. I would think “If this were Bewitched, Mrs. Kravitz would be in the window now”.
As I’ve mentioned in other threads, my sympathies were always with Maurice and Endora. I’d have zapped Darrin into a suppository and put him in a jar being taken to the cash register by Orson Welles in a Salem minute. Why Samantha took that when he wasn’t spectacularly successful, particularly sweet or charming or even good looking was beyond me. That said, it was my hands-down-favorite show all through childhood (particularly episodes with Maurice, Bernie Kopell or Doctor Bombay).
Again, it was different in the early black-and-white episodes. Darrin was much less of a blustering jerk and wasn’t yelling at his wife every second. And the early episodes made it easier to understand why he was the way he was, and what Samantha saw in him. There were a lot more episodes where Sam and Darrin would kind of team up and have fun together. By the time the show went to color, it was all about him getting zapped by Endora and taking it out by screaming at Samantha.
Speaking of subtext, here’s the dialogue exchange from when Darrin meets Endora for the first time:
I loved “Bewitched” and wanted to Be Samantha when I grew up. Never could get my nose to twitch that way, though.
I liked the first Darrin, very much. It was the second one, who always looked like he had just had a high colonic topped off by straight lemon juice, that I didn’t care for.
I don’t know who I liked more–Dr Bombay or Aunt Clara (or that ditsy cousin who always got the spells wrong and said non sequitir after non sequiter).
Sorry, have forgotten the purpose of this thread.