Watching Sitcoms

Here’s one more Hulu Award category poll.  This one is for the Best Classic TV Show.  There were a lot of really good shows in this category, and they got wittled down to three really, really classic shows. 

The nominees are Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bewitched and The Dick Van Dyke Show.  I’ve always had a soft spot for Bewitched, especially since they had the same stove I did, for many years.  A 1960’s Frigidaire Flair.  We only just got a new stove about a year ago.  Or maybe it was two years, but it was just recently.  But, in all honesty, I can’t call Bewitched “the best” show.  It was more campy than it was great television. But I still laugh when I see an ep.

Of course, everything Alfred Hitchcock did was amazing, but I don’t really remember watching Alfred Hitchcock presents, so I can’t say for certain if it was any good. I probably did watch it, I just don’t remember. And I’m pretty sure it must have been good.

That leaves us with The Dick Van Dyke Show. Talk about classic television, this one really fits the bill. I remember watching it, I remember loving it, and I think that it’s one of those shows that stands the test of time, even though its dated. I guess I mean that even though the clothes, the hair styles and the furniture date the sets, the show itself, the jokes and the lines, remain true.

So that’s the show that gets my vote. What do you think?

Here’s the poll:

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