The popular sitcom Bewitched took over television sets during the 60s and 70s, capturing the hearts of many viewers with Elizabeth Montgomery’s sweet and adorable witch character Samantha, her human husband Darrin, and their fun but peculiar life at home. Audiences everywhere fell in love with Montgomery’s nose wiggles, the lively cast members, and the allure of wizardry that encapsulated the series. The show’s popularity granted it eight long seasons and was thus recognized for being the longest-running supernatural-themed television series during its time. Despite its fame, which guaranteed its cast and crew some pretty great credit, there are still so many things that you don’t know about the show. Here are some trivia you may not yet know about this beloved sitcom:
Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery played other characters on the show, too!
Fans of the show typically associate Elizabeth Montgomery with the starring role of Samantha in Bewitched, but the star herself performed some supporting roles as well. Besides the charming witch, Montgomery also played the role of Samantha’s hippie cousin Serena who never fails to annoy Samantha to some extent.
The liberal-thinking witch, who could pass for a free-thinking lawyer, easily sports a noticeable birthmark on her cheek that often morphs into different shapes per episode. Despite the uncanny likeness of the two witches, Montgomery managed to deceive some of the show’s crew members the moment she donned Serena’s wig for the first time. If you pay close attention to the cast of characters at the end credits, you may notice Serena’s character is being played by someone named “Pandora Spocks” which sounds just like Pandora’s Box when read aloud.
Samantha’s nose wiggles weren’t entirely Montgomery’s acting trick.
Samantha’s nose wiggles served as a trademark habit of the show’s main witch, but Erin Murphy–the actress behind the protagonist’s daughter–claimed that the “wiggle was actually a camera trick”. Well, isn’t that something?
The character does wiggle her nose a bit, but pay close attention and you’ll see that only her upper lip is moving. The behavior came as a result of Montgomery’s own twitching habit in real life when her nerves got the best of her to some degree. To make the wiggle more obvious to viewers, the camera crew would somewhat speed up the film and pair it with the famous xylophone sound effect. Many fans thought that the Bewitched star’s twitch won her the part, but the producers had already cast her in her prominent role when they invented the nose wiggling trait for her character.
Bewitched cast member Marion Lorne had a somewhat weird collection.
Marion Lorne–the actress behind the peculiar Aunt Clara–was particularly obsessed with doorknobs, so this strange addiction somehow made its way into the show’s script to further add character to the already nutty but delightful old witch’s personality, on top of her age contributing to her constant forgetfulness and fading powers.
Lorne reportedly collected over a thousand antique doorknobs and even included some of them in the show’s whole run as props. You can only wonder if all those doorknobs were a good investment on her part. The actress only lasted 27 episodes before suddenly passing away in 1968 due to a heart attack. The series’ producers never cast someone else in her place.
The series’ finale was pretty unremarkable.
The final episode of every television or movie series is often meant to be remembered, but with Bewitched, no one even seems to recall it. The finale entitled “The Truth, Nothing but the Truth, So Help Me Sam,” felt like a remake of an earlier episode entitled “Speak the Truth,” which premiered back in 1965.
In the final episode, a suspicious Endorra who’s cautious of Darrin enchants Samantha’s pin to make anyone near it tell no lies. Conflicts arise at Darrin’s workplace and home when he invites a few clients over for drinks. The episode ends with the clients coming to a compromise as well as Darrin and Samantha’s taking credit for their honest feelings and for finally confessing their love for one another.
Bewitched’s nosy neighbor kept something hidden away from her co-stars.
Alice Pearce played the sitcom’s nosy neighbor Gladys between the years 1964 and 1966, and yet despite her run on the show, she managed to hide her terminal cancer diagnosis from the rest of her fellow cast members.
Despite her ovarian cancer diagnosis four months before being cast into Bewitched, she never displayed any symptoms of her sickness, nor did any of her co-stars nor producers seem to find any that would cause worry. Not enough assistance from insurance companies would guarantee her the life span of her co-stars’ witch characters. Still, after her death, her role on the show as Alice won her a posthumous Outstanding Support Actress Emmy Award.
The first actor behind Bewitched’s Darrin suffered a serious back injury.
Dick York, the first actor, credited with the role of Darrin on the sitcom, suffered a serious back injury in 1959 while filming the movie They Came To Cordura. His health issues would slow down the series’ production by the time Bewitched’s third season premiered since many scenes needed to be written and rewritten to depict him either sitting or lying down.
This constant rewriting caused York’s character to disappear several times throughout his run on the show, excusing it as being “away on business.” In January 1969, he collapsed while filming the episode “Daddy Does His Thing,” ending his time on the show’s set. The producers quickly cast Dick Sargent within the same month of York’s accident and departure from the show, but the sitcom’s ratings suffered drastically since the replacement simply did not please most viewers.
Many episodes were being rehashed, and ‘borrowed’ as the show went on.
The show’s writing did not improve as its ratings continued to go down after Dick York’s sudden departure from the show, costing the sitcom the interest of its once large fanbase. Future episodes would then be either recycled from Bewitched’s old episodes or slightly modified imitations of the episodes of other television series at the time.
Bewitched producer, William Asher, also served as I Love Lucy’s director. So his work on some of the former’s episodes would be credited to his work on the latter, such episodes like “Samantha’s Power Failure,” which starred Serena and Uncle Arthur’s time working at a candy factory with dipping and packaging chocolate-and-nut-covered bananas.
Samantha’s daughter Tabitha was played by three sets of twins.
The Olsen twins Mary-Kate and Ashley weren’t the only adorable pair to feature prominently in a sitcom. While Bewitched also cast twins throughout its whole run, the show’s producers instead took to casting several pairs of twins for the role of Tabitha, the daughter of Samantha and Darrin.
The season 2 episode “And Then There Were Three” introduced Cynthia Black to viewers as Samantha and Darrin’s baby daughter Tabitha. Soon the pair Heidi and Laura Gentry took over the role of Tabitha, only to be replaced sometime after by Tamar and Julie Young! Eventually, the show’s producers made an investment on of twins Diane and Erin Murphy, who stayed with the role starting with their debut on the show during its third season until the end of their stint on the sitcom.
“Long Live the Queen!”
Samantha later took over the witches as their Queen regardless of her unusual lifestyle after the previous Queen gave up the throne, proving her sense of strong will and standing by her beliefs. Unbeknownst to her subjects, she did not initially want to be Queen.
Her husband Darrin was against her assuming the throne while she doubted her capability of simultaneously handling the weight of both the throne and her family. Eventually, it all turned out well with some great investment planning and money management, so all hail your Queen!
Endora was really, really old.
It is common knowledge at this point that the witches on the popular sitcom have far longer life spans than mortals, and it’s this fact that is the basis of many of Endora’s sarcastic remarks. She may not always be joking around, but have you managed to note her oldest reference yet?
Endora must have made some good investments with a great doctor with the help of insurance companies because she, at one point claims that she went out with “Otzie, the Ice Man” who walked this earth around 3500 BC, calculating her age at over 5,500 years old! Her daughter Samantha was reportedly born during the Renaissance period between 1570 and 1600, making her roughly over 400 years old.
Bewitched was not without a curse.
Sometime after the end of her stint as Samantha on the once popular sitcom, Elizabeth Montgomery was diagnosed with colon cancer and had a hard time living with the illness years after. Thanks to insurance companies, her doctors would initially declare her cancer-free after treatment, only for the disease to come back and ravage her liver as well. She then chose to spend her last days at her home with her spouse Robert Foxworth.
She later died on June 18, 1995, at the age of 62, but she wasn’t the only member of the cast to die of cancer. In fact, one researcher found a staggering 85% of the cast would also lose their lives to cancer, mystifying the public who would soon call it the “Bewitched curse.”
The show would cast not one but two Darrins.
The role of Samantha’s husband Darrin would be credited to not one but two actors–first by Dick York and then by Dick Sargent. The replacement went on without much fuss from the other characters on the show, which kept the show going like nothing happened.
The producers thought that viewers would hardly notice the change and accept Sargent’s new place as Darrin. Still, the swap colloquially nicknamed as “the Darrin Syndrome” was simply too hard to ignore by fans who did not hold back on harshly criticizing the replacement.
The theme song has lyrics!
Bewitched’s infectious theme song will always strike a chord with fans and is just impossible to forget, but you probably could not sing it because it did not seem to have any words. Or so you thought!
Though the lyrics do not show up at the start of the song, they are there. Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller were to be given credit for the catchy theme song, which would include the lyric line, “Bewitched, bewitched, you’ve got me in your spell,” only for the producers to opt-out of it in favor of an instrumental version!
Darrin was not the only character to have changed actors during the show’s run.
The notorious change of Darrin from Dick York to Dick Sargent may have been a bad investment by the producers, as evidenced by a sudden and drastic plummet in both ratings and its number of fans. Still, there have been other less noticeable swaps during the sitcom’s run on the airwaves. Bewitched’s nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz, best known for her extremely exaggerated meltdowns and ear-piercing shrieks, was also portrayed by two actresses throughout the series’ run.
Alice Pearce would be the first to take credit for the role of Gladys and would then be later replaced by Sandra Gould. Pearce made the role her own so well that it got her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy.
The set of Bewitched was nothing new.
While most locations on both television series and movies tend to look far different from each other, it is a common industry practice to recycle merely recycle sets for more than one show or film. If you pay close attention, you can even accurately guess where some sets have appeared outside of the series and movie that you are watching.
Bewitched’s set was actually borrowed from the 1959 film Gidget and its 1963 sequel Gidget Goes to Rome, which was then produced by Columbia Pictures. Both projects used a real house in Santa Monica for their locations, but the sitcom’s production would later reverse and recreate the set for their own! Even its competitor I Dream of Jeannie made use of the location, giving the house its own sense of magic and maybe also raising the home mortgage refinance rates!
Samantha was meant to be named Cassandra!
The name Cassandra simply does not suit a youthful golden-haired witch who would serve as the apple of a mortal’s eye, but in the early days of this ABC show’s production, producer Sol Saks was planning to cast actress Tammy Grimes in the lead role which was then named Cassandra.
Grimes would refuse the offer to take credit for the lead role in Bewitched upon reading the show’s script, choosing instead to continue her own self-titled show The Tammy Grimes Show. Her show would not even last past four episodes after poor audience reception, so we can only guess if she regrets turning down the hit sitcom, especially after how far it took off!
Dick York suffered a seizure while on set.
Dick York would never work another day on the set of Bewitched again as Darrin after he suffered a seizure in the middle of filming, causing him to rush to the hospital soon after. He would later suffer another accident on the set of They Came to Cordura that tore the muscles down the right side of his back, only sending the poor actor further down on his luck.
York would later develop an addiction to painkillers while he recovered from his injuries. He would later overcome his addiction, but his body never did physically heal from the pains of his on-set accidents in spite of great help from doctors provided by several insurance companies. York would later pass away in 1992 at 63 years old from emphysemic complications, opening his role up to actor Dick Sargent who had been offered the part at first.
Dick Sargent made a statement.
Dick Sargent, the second actor to take credit for the role of Darrin on Bewitched, would make the front page and top stories of newspapers and news outlets everywhere in 1991 when he revealed his homosexual nature on National Coming Out Day. He was a major proponent for gay rights issues and would often mention the urge for gay teens to commit suicide as the vital reason behind such issues.
Sargent, eventually, was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but many thought the decline in his health was instead due to HIV or AIDS. He passed away in 1994 at 64 years old. His Bewitched co-star Elizabeth Montgomery later said, after learning of his death, “He was a great friend, and I will miss his love, sense of humor, and his remarkable courage.”
The Kravitz family wasn’t the only family to live in that house!
It has already been revealed earlier that Samantha and Darrin’s home had been reused and recycled by other television shows and movies. Still, the nosy Kravitz family’s home situation was no different. When in filming, the two families did not really live near each other like on the show.
The Kravitz family’s home was further down the street from the Stephen family’s ‘home’ and would also be used for other shows besides Bewitched. The house had appeared on The Donna Reed Show from 1964 to 1966 and then soon after at The Partridge Family. You can only wonder about the home mortgage refinance rates of this place since it has been a studio favorite for shooting for more than half a century!
Bewitched had some competition.
In the 1960s, the sitcom Bewitched set itself apart from other sitcoms in its time with its unique premise of a young woman born with magical skills. I Dream of Jeannie creator Sidney Sheldon adopted this same premise and was driven to ride along with the former’s success to some degree when he put up his show on NBC.
Sheldon’s show premiered in 1965, a year after Bewitched made the airwaves. While I Dream of Jeannie never caught on to audiences the way the former did, Elizabeth Montgomery expressed disdain over her rival show’s lead character Jeannie, crying creative theft. Who could blame her? Both shows did portray blonde magic-wielding women who fell for a mortal.
The show’s recurring characters got some love as well.
The main cast did not hog all the attention from fans; the recurring characters, played by fantastic actors, got tons of attention as well!
Already having taken credit for his work on Bye Bye Birdie as Harry MacAfee, Paul Lynde also appeared as Samantha’s maternal Uncle Arthur on his 10-episode run on Bewitched! He often drove everyone nuts with his insane antics. Besides Lynde, other recurring fan favorites was Dr. Bombaby played by Bernard Fox, Esmeralda by Alice Ghostley, and Phyllis Stephens by Mabel Albertson!
Richard Dreyfuss got his start on Bewitched.
Richard Dreyfuss, better known for his roles in Hollywood blockbuster films like Jaws, Stand By Me, The Goodbye Girl, and several others, but just like most other A-list celebrities and great investments, he too had his own humble beginnings.
Before he became a household name, he went from audition to audition like many aspiring talents before landing one of his first major television roles on Bewitched! He made his debut on the show in the episode “Man’s Best Friend” as the young warlock Rodney whom Samantha would babysit in the past. Anywhere is better than nowhere at all!
The role of Samantha later became a chore for Elizabeth Montgomery.
Playing the lead role in a hit sitcom may be all glitz and glamor, but wear it out for too long, and the magic may just wear off. Bewitched was one of the longest-running sitcoms of its time, ruling the airwaves from the ‘60s until the ’70s for eight long seasons that consisted of a whopping 254 episodes.
Elizabeth Montgomery starred in every episode since its pilot throughout the series’ entire run, so her wish to leave the show after the fifth season made a lot of sense. She had three children of her own to take care of, and five seasons feels like a long enough show. The show’s producers, however, could not bear to part with her, so they merely offered her a bigger paycheck, that needed no payday loans, to which she could not refuse!
Little Tabitha had her own spin-off show.
A hit sitcom can only be a hit because of its characters, but some of those characters are such great investments that they need a spin-off show of their own. In Bewitched, that character was none other than Samantha’s own daughter Tabitha!
Tabitha premiered five years on ABC after Bewitched’s finale in 1972 and revolved around the grown-up life of the now-adult Tabitha Stephens. This spin-off, however, cast Lisa Hartman instead of Erin Murphy, the original actress behind Tabitha from the latter show. Unfortunately, this show had a much shorter life span than its predecessor due to several continuity differences.
More than one actress played the role of Darrin’s secretary.
Are your eyes playing mind games with you, or does Darrin’s secretary at his office in McMann and Tate seem to be a different woman several times throughout the show?
Your eyes are not messing with you; several actresses received credit for the role of Darrin’s secretary, Betty, but the producers never thought anyone would notice since she is a minor character after all. One of the many actresses who took on the role was Marcia Wallace, who others would recognize for voicing Bart’s teacher Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons! Jill Foster also portrayed Betty but for 10 episodes.
Samantha was brave enough to take a stand.
Elizabeth Montgomery was noted for being a proponent of feminism in the world of television, and her character Samantha adopted the same stance. The latter never showed fear nor humiliation for sharing nothing in common with other witches, even though that would mean hurdles and obstacles like bankruptcy as a result of her principles.
Samantha joining Darrin in holy matrimony meant a lot of problems with both magic-users and with mortals. Just like in the show I Love Lucy, Samantha’s mother, Endora, often intentionally mispronounces Darrin’s name to express her disapproval of their union, calling him a variation of names like Dobbin, Durwood, Delmore, and Darryl, as long as it started with the letter D but was not Darrin. She calls him by his name a precise eight times throughout the whole show’s run.
Richard Crenna nearly played the role of Darrin.
Richard Sargent was the Bewitched producers’ first choice for the role of Darrin Stephens while the show was still in the works.
Unfortunately, at that time, Sargent had signed on to another project, so the producers turned to Crenna, who, to some degree, was not their first choice. Whether or not he may have started the Darrin Syndrome, we may never know since Crenna turned down the offer.
Richard York would get the role instead.
As stated above, Richard Crenna turned down the offer of playing the role of Darrin since he had made an investment of his time on The Real McCoys, so Dick York would, in turn, get the part as he was the producers’ only other option.
Dick Sargent would soon take over as Darrin, but fans can only wonder how the show would have fared if York had stayed for all eight seasons of the show.
Elizabeth Montgomery’s pregnancies made its way into the show.
Throughout the show’s entire run, Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery went through three pregnancies starting with the show’s first year on the air in 1964. Amazingly, the writers and the producers incorporated her pregnancy into the script and made it work like clockwork and good money management.
This smoothly paved the way for Adam and Tabitha’s introduction to the Stephens family. Montgomery even chose the name Tabitha for her on-set daughter since it sounded “old-fashioned” to her, but the credit roll displays the name as Tabatha instead. “It’s like a squeaky piece of chalk scratching on my nerves,” Montgomery remarked in an interview when asked about the misspelling, adding that she “shudders” every time she is even reminded of the error.
Dick York played a pretty big role outside of Bewitched.
Bewitched fans have adored Dick York in the role of Samantha’s husband, Darrin, and it is this stint on the beloved sitcom that made him a household name back in the ‘60s.
York’s work though, was not limited to the small screen; he shone on the silver screen as well with his starring work on the ‘60s hit film Inherit the Wind. Well, it was only a matter of time until this handsome mortal from Bewitched got a better credit score and got discovere.
The cast’s costumes had an interesting origin.
Actress Kasey Rogers, who portrayed the role of Samantha’s closest mortal friend Louise Tate on the show, confessed that supporting cast members like her would have to make a personal loan of their wardrobes to the studio at least a week before shooting.
Funnily enough, the show’s wardrobe crew would take their costumes out for cleaning and pressing so that the latter would look presentable for the cameras. At least the costume department helped out.
Agnes Moorehead owned a priceless brooch.
Actress Agnes Moorehead would often incorporate a rather glamorous piece of jewelry into her outfits on the show—a sparkling starburst diamond brooch made of 8.5-carat old-school diamonds which made it appear big and vintage and would have gotten her a ton of investment money.
Elizabeth Montgomery fell in love with the brooch, so Moorehead left it with the Bewitched star shortly before she succumbed to uterine cancer in 1974, falling victim to cancer like much of the show’s cast. Renowned for the roughly sixty years that she had spent in the world of show business, Moorehead was awarded two Golden Globes and a Primetime Emmy.
The cast members were great friends off the set.
Once shooting had wrapped up for the day, the cast got along pretty well just like any other set of colleagues hanging out after work to some degree. Darrin and Endora particularly despised each other on the show, but the time their respective actors would spend working together in front of the camera helped develop their friendship.
“Dick York absolutely loved Agnes Moorehead,” Bewitched chronicler Herbie J. Pilato mentioned in his book, adding that, “quite simply the relationship between Dick York and Agnes Moorehead was the exact opposite of the relationship between Darrin and Endora.” The two stars shared a particular affection for spirituality. Dick Sargent would later claim that Moorehead would come to work with, “the Bible in one hand and the script in the other.”
Agnes Moorehead did not approve of Dick Sargent.
Agnes Moorehead admired the acting skills of her co-star and on-screen adversary Dick York, so she became understandably upset when Dick Sargent took her friend’s place on the show. This mutual hatred for each other triggered some glaring hostility in front of the camera, working wonderfully for the already hostile relationship between their characters Endora and Darrin.
Like warring lawyers in court, Moorehead and Sargent had been known for breaking out into huge arguments on the set, with the former causing the latter sometimes to break down. Despite their incessant quarreling, the two managed only to build up their friendship and would stay friends long after the show ended.
The show’s creator confessed to what gave him the idea for Bewitched.
Bewitched creator Sol Saks admitted that he took cues from the films I Married a Witch and Bell, Book and Candle for his show, molding the show’s script and the pilot episode with some influence from the aforementioned movies.
He added in some interviews that he did not really care about dealing with lawyers or legal threats since Screen Gems, the company that produced Bewitched, was owned by Columbia as were the two films he cited earlier.
Auntie Clara was a particularly sweet character.
Aunt Clara was especially sweet to Darrin, even though he was known to harbor a particular hatred for much of Samantha’s family. In spite of this animosity, the frail aunt helped him be his better self, possibly because of her own feeble eccentricity.
You can only hope that people could deal with their in-law’s family to a certain degree as well as she can.
Jonathan’s name had quite the origin story.
David White portrayed the son of Louise and Larry Tate on the show, but White insisted that his credit character be given the name Jonathan.
He asked for this because he had and raised his own real-life son Jonathan all alone.
High school students penned the “Sisters at Heart” episode.
The plot for the “Sisters at Heart” episode that tackled the issues of racism and acceptance was penned by 22 African-American students in the tenth grade who all went to South Central Los Angeles High School.
Like good money management, critics praised the episode for being “thoughtful” and for carefully but expertly discussed the already controversial subjects. Though Darrin, Samantha, and Tabitha sported blackface in one particular instance in the episode, which would not go unnoticed in today’s politically correct culture, the story helped end any more prejudices and racial divide and was warmly welcomed by critics.
Bewitched is not over.
Despite the series finale in 1972, Bewitched still manages to make its presence known in today’s pop culture phenomenon. It has since been regarded as a hugely popular ‘60s and ‘70s television series and is even included in “TV Guide’s 50 Greatest Shows of All Time”. The sitcom even has a monument built to commemorate it!
The town of Salem, Massachusetts put up a sculpture depicting Samantha flying on a broomstick in 2005 to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary. Besides fans mimicking the young witch’s nose wiggles long after the end of the show, Bewitched would also take credit for being a pioneer feminist sitcom.
Elizabeth Montgomery defended other people.
Elizabeth Montgomery may be recognized for her good looks and her career in the limelight, but she lived differently from her on-screen personas. She was a very private person and was good at keeping her personal life away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. She was so good at it that several obituaries published on her day of death in 1995 failed to acknowledge her marriage to Robert Foxworth.
Like a faithful defense attorney, Montgomery was a staunch proponent of LGBT rights even before her career in show business took off. She was one of the first celebrities to stand by the issue, defending the victims of the AIDS crisis and coming forward to help during its peak.
The 2005 film adaptation for Bewitched was…. something.
The 2005 film Bewitched tried to ride on the popularity of the beloved sitcom series with the likes of celebrities Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. Still, it proved instead to be a critical and commercial flop on the verge of bankruptcy. Critics commented that the movie was “haunted by scattered laughs and a lack of direction.”
Kidman and Ferrell’s work on the film won them each a painful Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple. The former won her award for “capturing the character,” but Ferrell was mostly to blame for his work as Darrin. He also earned nominations for the worst director, worst actor, and worst remake or sequel. Nothing seems to get any better than that.
Erin did a better job.
Not to hurt anyone, but you don’t think that both of the toddlers that portrayed Tabitha would know what they’re doing on TV, right?
Fraternal twins Diane and Erin Murphy both initially shared credit for playing the part of Tabitha starting in the show’s third season. Still, it seems Erin was a bona fide natural on set and was a fan favorite by viewers everywhere who simply could not get enough of Samantha’s cherubic witch! Erin then was chosen more often for talking scenes and close-ups, so producers, later on, leave Diane out of the show since they started to appear less like twins. Now that’s a recipe for sibling rivalry!
Elizabeth Montgomery hardly seems to age at all.
The general public often wonders how Elizabeth Montgomery seemed never to age at all. She does appear to have worked her own little anti-aging magic onto herself, and it seems that magic has never failed her.
Like good investment planning with great investments, you can hope that you can stay looking so young at her age with her tricks up her sleeves. She has always appeared young and beautiful up until her sudden death in 1995.
The crew got rather crafty with Samantha’s magic.
CGI was still absent in the 1960s, so the show’s production crew had to come up with various approaches to make the “magic” happen. They made investments in the likes of stagehands to help devise Samantha’s magical powers. The director would shout, “Cut!” while Elizabeth Montgomery would stand with her arms stretched upwards.
Since there was no CGI then, the stagehands would come and clean up the clutter. Montgomery must have had some assistance with keeping her hands up like that because keeping them up for so long can be pretty exhausting.
Bewitched did not hide its intent to tolerate.
In the episode “Sisters at Heart,” Samantha cast a magical spell on one of her husband Darrin’s clients, who was a racist.
Like a reflective credit score, the trick made him see everyone around him, including himself, with black skin instead of white Caucasian skin. The scene caused the actors to perform in blackface, which clearly would not pass in today’s politically correct climate.