Bewitching Hour
Another one of the sitcoms DVDs we got was Bewitched. Bewitched was on the air from 1964 to 1972 on ABC. (I think I’ve mentioned before that we had the same stove in our house growing up that they had. We actually just got a new stove after more than 40 years with the old one. It was a neat looking stove, built right into the wall.) I watched one ep that was pretty funny, about an automatic garage door. Samantha sees someone selling automatic garage door openers at the grocery store. When she goes home, she uses her magic to open her own garage door and is unfortunately caught doing so by her nosy neighbor, Gladys Kravitz.
Samantha and Darrin are then forced to take the money he was saving to buy himself new fishing equipment and get an automatic garage door opener instead. Of course, it gets even crazier when planes flying overhead start making the door go up and down by itself and Darrin thinks Samantha is still using magic, after she said she wouldn’t. She keeps insisting that she’s not doing anything and then that she will never use magic again (although, I think that was more to get the one-up on Darrin for being so high-handed). Then, naturally, they get trapped inside the garage and Samantha refuses to open the door.
One thing I noticed was how Darrin treated Samantha. The whole ep seemed to center on the fact that Samantha did something she wasn’t supposed to do and had caused this big problem for Darrin. Although Samantha did somewhat stand her ground, there was a feeling like she wasn’t supposed to be doing magic and that Darrin was in charge of her. Why not? Why couldn’t she do magic? I kept thinking about whether or not it would be different if it was on the air now. Do witches on TV now have to hide their magical abilities? Maybe, but there was a whole different vibe here of Samantha doing something shameful. Or maybe it was just that if Samantha were caught she’d be burned at the stake or something like that. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it and it’s just a typical stereotype of a marital relationship of the time.
I did watch a second ep, but I fell asleep halfway through.
Bewitched, Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
I am so happy about the writers strike. I just love going down memory lane with my favorite sitcoms. Bewitched was one of the best. And you can’t mention it without asking “Which Darren did you like the best?”. I liked the first one because he didn’t look like a serial killer but I guess that’s just me.
And yes, Samantha was a little “controlled” by her husband in that show, but I guess that was par for the course in that era. I think it was balanced out well with Endora who was always sticking up for her daughter by turning Darren into an animal or something. Endora rocked. Not to mention Samantha’s alter ego/cousin Serina. Now she was not a chick to be messed with. :0
November 26th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Wow, you really remember this show way better than I do. I mean I remember watching it and everything. I was pretty young.