Bewitched

Did You Know?

• The Stephenses' home address is 1164 Morning Glory Circle, in an upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood identified as either Westport, Connecticut, or Patterson, New York.
• Witches and warlocks in the series are very long-lived; Samantha is implied to be hundreds of years old despite appearing young.
• Creator Sol Saks was inspired by the film I Married a Witch (1942) and the play and film Bell, Book and Candle (1958).

Production and broadcasting

Sol Saks created the show and wrote the pilot but had no further involvement. Rehearsals for the pilot began on November 22, 1963, the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination; director William Asher, who had produced Kennedy's 1962 televised birthday party, was personally affected. The pilot dealt with the occult destabilizing the conformist life of an advertising man. Academy Award-winning actor José Ferrer narrated the first episode, "I Darrin, Take This Witch, Samantha." First-season producer and head writer Danny Arnold set the series' initial style, treating it as a romantic comedy about a mixed marriage and minimizing magical elements. Many first-season episodes used supernatural situations as metaphors for real marital problems. ABC wanted more magic and farce, leading to conflicts between Arnold and the network.

Cancellation and aftermath

Despite low ratings, Bewitched had a contract for two more seasons, and ABC was willing to renew it for a ninth. Elizabeth Montgomery, however, had grown tired of the series and wanted other roles; she and her husband William Asher had separated and would divorce in 1974. Asher pitched a sitcom to ABC based on the play Howie, starring Paul Lynde, as a replacement for Bewitched. The Paul Lynde Show was designed as ABC's counterpart to CBS's All in the Family, but ABC's restrictions on social realism prevented it from addressing controversial issues. When it debuted in fall 1972, it inherited Bewitched's Wednesday night time slot, competing against The Carol Burnett Show and Adam-12. The premiere did well, but negative reactions to Lynde's character and the premise led to bad word of mouth and cancellation. The Paul Lynde Show shared similarities with Bewitched: some sets were reused, the law firm name McNish and Simms echoed McMann and Tate, and many Bewitched actors appeared on the series.

Spin-offs, crossovers, and remakes

A 1965 episode of The Flintstones titled "Samantha" featured Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery as Darrin and Samantha Stephens, facilitated by both series airing on ABC. In 1972, Hanna-Barbera produced an animated TV special for The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie with teenaged versions of Tabitha and Adam visiting their aunt's circus family. A short-lived 1977 spin-off, Tabitha, aired on ABC with Lisa Hartman as an adult Tabitha working at a TV station; it featured several continuity differences from the original series. Bernard Fox, Sandra Gould, George Tobias, and Dick Wilson reprised their roles. The NBC soap opera Passions (1999–2008) included Bernard Fox as Dr. Bombay, and the witch Tabitha Lenox named her daughter Endora. A 2005 film starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, written and directed by Nora Ephron, took a metafictional approach rather than being a direct remake; it was poorly received and a financial failure.

Episodes

After its original run, ABC Daytime and ABC Saturday Morning aired the series until 1973. Syndication began locally in 1973 and continued through various packages, including the Screen Gems Network in 1999–2001. From 1973 to 1982, Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures syndicated the entire series; many stations omitted black-and-white episodes or aired them only in summer. From 1981 to about 1991, only color episodes were syndicated by DFS Program Exchange, as Columbia retained rights to the first two black-and-white seasons. Nick at Nite aired only the black-and-white episodes from 1989, then added the color seasons in 1998. The first two seasons were later colorized for syndication and DVD. The show aired on Hallmark Channel from 2001 to 2003, on TV Land from 2003 to 2006 and again in 2008–2011, on WGN America from 2008, and on Logo from 2012 to 2024. Antenna TV and FETV have aired it alongside I Dream of Jeannie.