50 Years of Bewitched!

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:15pm

Tonight marks fifty years since Bewitched first aired, on September 17th, 1964.

Let's all give thanks for one of the greatest TV shows ever!

Samantha Stephens was my childhood idol - even though the show originally aired years before I was even born, I never realized as a child that the show was made decades previously. The "magic" is timeless! (Or maybe I was just a dumb kid...)

Do you think it still holds up by today's standards? Is it sexist and old-fashioned?

[NYadgal]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:17pm

It can't be defined by today's 'standards'.

It was one of my favorite TV shows ever.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:18pm

Mine, too.

[Huss417]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:19pm

Now that you mentioned the show I have the theme song in my head. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1ilRgNsYoA

[NYadgal]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:20pm

But, from the standpoint of developing interesting characters, having fun and entertaining storylines, and delivering an engaged audience? It more than holds up.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:23pm

My sister and I made a 'magic movie' with our Dad when we were about 8 and 6 years old, thanks to 'Bewitched'. We wrote a little script, staged the 'magic' and turned our den into Samantha's 'living room' - while Dad filmed on the old movie camera. It was so long ago, but I remember it vividly.

And still have the little movie.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:24pm

I totally agree, by the way! I guess I was just playing devil's advocate for the sake of conversation. I do wonder, though - the whole premise of the show could be perceived as a little misogynistic.

Elizabeth Montgomery makes it work, of course.

Updated On: 9/17/14 at 12:24 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:29pm

The theme song has lyrics:

Bewitched, Bewitched,
You've got me in your spell!
Bewitched, Bewitched,
You know your craft so well!
Before I knew what I was doing,
I looked in your eyes,
And that brand of woo that you've been brewing
Took me by surprise.

You witch, you witch,
One thing is for sure:
That stuff you pitch
Just hasn't got a cure.
My heart was under lock and key,
But somehow it got unhitched.
I never thought that I could be had
But now I'm caught and I'm kinda glad
To be
Bewitched!

[NYadgal]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:31pm

Interesting.
I never got anything misogynistic from it, because I always accepted it as being a show of that time period, and those were the social norms. Old fashioned by today's standards, yes, perhaps.

But, it's interesting to hear the perspective from someone who didn't grow up watching the originals. (I was a child in the '60s - so that was the world I knew).

Elizabeth Montgomery SO made it work. Adored her.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:31pm

[NYadgal]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:32pm

Great memories, PalJoey!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:32pm

[Huss417]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:33pm

Thanks for that PJ. I never knew that.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:35pm

I was going to post some videos/photos but as usual I've forgotten how to - so thanks, PalJoey!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:36pm

This is my favorite version of the song, by R&B singer Irene Reid, who had the misfortune to always be compared to the great Dinah Washington.

But as you can hear in this version of the theme song, she was pretty great.

[GoSmileLaughCryClap]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:39pm

I love all the 60s sitcoms that started in black and white and then switched to color. Most of them embraced the huge social change taking place. Samantha went from having a soft perm and wearing a housedress to wearing bell bottoms and long straight hair parted in the middle.

1962 to 1972 was probably the most intense revolution in style and social mores. There are pictures of Johnny Carson wearing a Nehru jacket in the late 60s. Two years earlier he was wearing a conservative suit.

All of the shows that had long runs during that period reflected the change. I loved how the Brady Bunch kids got all groovy, and dad got a perm. Florence Henderson went from a bob to a shag cut.

That was a truly transformational time in popular culture.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:41pm

I love that it's so embedded in the 1960s. I don't think it would have worked in the 1950s or the 1970s, but it fits perfectly into the 1960s.

And it was so well cast. Yes, Elizabeth Montgomery was at the top, but look at the talent beside her. Agnes Moorehead, Alice Pearce, Maurice Evans, Marion Lorne, Alice Ghostley, Bernard Fox, Pandora Spocks

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 12:46pm

I didn't realize for the longest time that Pandora Spocks, Serena, was actually Elizabeth Montgomery. Like I said, I was a dumb kid. She played the two parts so convincingly differently, though, so I don't feel too bad.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 9/17/14 at 5:57pm

This show is in the lineup of shows running on Antenna TV Channel 1260 7 to 8 on TWC . No idea if it is on other cable stations