Posted by Dr. Bombay on September 17, 2014, 12:48 am
...tonight at 9:00 PM EST ABC aired Episode 1: “I, Darrin, Take This Witch, Samantha” brought to us by the Quaker Oats company, forever changing our lives.
Just like a fairy-tale Bewitched opened with the line, “Once upon a time…” accompanied by the scene of a beautiful young blonde woman walking confidently down a city street. She begins to enter a turnstile door to a building but her efforts are hampered by that of a “red-blooded American boy” who, for whatever reason, whether he didn’t see her, or he did see her, enters the same section of the turnstile door causing them a bit of awkwardness. The door happens to be to a department store and they seem to bump into each other at every corner of the store. And so, like the narrator tells us, “…they decide they’d better talk this over before they get into an accident.” In a matter of seconds for us viewers, this girl and boy go on many dates, all of which were mainly just smooching, and before you know it they are engaged, married, and on their “…typical honeymoon, in a typical bridal suite except…that this girl is a WITCH!” ‘Witch’ is where we see the beautiful girl motion towards a hairbrush across the room that immediately flies to her hand! AWESOME!
It’s here we meet the girl’s mother, a formidable looking, but beautiful,woman who in a flash of light appears in the honeymoon suite wondering where her witch-daughter has been. The girl tells her she’s now married,but that doesn’t seem to faze the mother who insists that her daughter fly away with her. Of course, that’s ridiculous, and the girl says so and even goes so far to tell her mother that she’s married a human man, not a male witch! Thinking that he’s just a mere annoyance, Mother suggests that they just have him trip on a rug and break an arm or something, but the girl is insistent that she loves him and is not going to do him any harm. Mother has other ideas and tells Samantha, her daughter, that she’ll take care of him as he’s about to enter the bedroom. With a wave of her hand Samantha’s husband suddenly finds himself in the lobby of the hotel! Thinking it must be the champagne he asks the desk clerk for the key to his room. Samantha is very annoyed with her mother and with the wiggle of her nose, something truly magical in and of itself, she incants some strange words which seemingly infer that she is trying to get her mother to disappear. But it doesn’t work and by this time the boy has returned to the suite. With another pitch of magic, Mother sends him back down to the lobby. She also finds that Samantha hasn’t told him about her witchly ways, but the girl assures her mother that she is going to tell him as soon as Mother leaves, which she does. Samantha’s bewildered husband makes his way back to the room where she greets him at the door of the bedroom. Forgetting all the confusion of the night, he goes to commence his honeymoon but surprisingly she stops him and closes the bedroom door telling him she wants to talk! He becomes even more flabbergasted when she tells him that what she wants to talk about is the fact that she’s a witch! He doesn’t take her seriously thinking that the events of the day may have messed with her mind but soon finds that maybe his mind is being messed with when the table lighter suddenly sparks by itself, the ash tray moves to catch his ashes, and when he goes to get some fresh air, the _s by itself! Thinking that a strong drink may cure his confusion, one suddenly pops into his hand and changes at his request. It suddenly dawns on him that his wife IS a witch! When he about faints, a chair zooms to catch him and Samantha runs to his side to comfort him. Darrin (the boy’s name according to Samantha) tells her he hadn’t figured on all this but she negates his fears (for the moment) by offering up her womanly charms.
The next day Darrin takes his troubles to the bar and tells his friend Dave that Samantha is a witch, but Dave is too interested in offering inane advice. Seeing as he didn’t get help from his friend, Darrin takes his worries to the doctor who thinks that maybe the honeymoon was so stressful that Darrin is in need of a vacation. Not even the bartender will believe him. And so, after having had some time to think of how he wants to handle this different situation, Darrin tells a nervous Samantha that even though she’s a witch, he loves her and can’t give her up. She is overjoyed and tells him she’ll give up her powers and live like he does, which pleases him very much as for some reason he thinks that being normal is the way to go.
Later on, Darrin finds out that his troubles aren’t all taken care of when he gets back to the office, McMann and Tate, an advertising agency where apparently he’s Vice President, to find that his girlfriend, who had gone on a long trip to Nassau when he met and married Samantha, has returned. Sheila (the girlfriend who obviously idolizes Jackie Kennedy)knows about the marriage and acts like she doesn’t care. In fact, she invites him and Samantha to her house for a relaxed “…sitting on the floor…” kind of potluck. Darrin is impressed at the way she’s taken the news and accepts the invitation.
The night of the potluck arrives and Samantha is nervous walking up to Sheila’s door as she lives in a rather affluent house and Samantha is dressed so casually. Darrin assures her that Sheila had said it was casual but finds he is wrong when the door opens to show that all the guests, and Sheila, are dressed in fine dinner wear! Sheila is as cool as a viper and does everything in her power to make Samantha look dumb, especially when she has Samantha sit on the opposite end of the table than she and Darrin. Samantha also does everything in her power not to resort to using her magical powers to make Sheila look dumb, but finally can’t take it anymore when Sheila insinuates that Samantha has had plastic surgery. With a swipe of her hand across her own hair, Samantha causes a lock of Sheila’s to come flipping up in her face a couple times, then she makes Sheila’s soup bowl move underneath her elbow and finally causes Sheila to sneeze, spraying the soup in another guest’s face. In all the commotion, Samantha makes a maid’s empty tray suddenly appear with food which spills all over Sheila, who tries to make a getaway from the table, when suddenly the zipper on her dress breaks. Darrin, trying to be a gentleman, tries to help Sheila but he gets an invisible kick in the rear thanks to Samantha’s wiggling nose. For the final act in her revenge, Samantha blows a candle out causing a huge windstorm to burst through the door sweeping up Sheila’s wig in its wake. Sheila, utterly embarrassed, runs up stairs leaving a group of confused guests but a serene Samantha who continues on with dinner.
Later, back at their apartment, Darrin confronts Samantha who tries to play around with him. She tells him that it was much harder to give up witchcraft than she thought it would be and again uses her womanly charms to persuade him to forget all about it. As he decides it’s time to move their “discussion” to the bedroom, Samantha notices that the kitchen is a total disaster and tells him she’ll be in after she cleans up. Realizing that she just promised to try harder at using no witchcraft, she also realizes that cleaning the mortal way will totally kill the mood that Darrin and she are in, and so with a wave of her arms, the kitchen suddenly becomes sparkling clean and Samantha leaves, saying out loud, “Maybe I can taper off.”
********************************** This episode is FANTASTIC! AWESOME! If we were to use a scale to rate the episodes, with four stars being the best and no stars being the worst, this one would DEFINITELY get TEN stars! Just like Mary Poppins it is “practically perfect in every way.” Elizabeth Montgomery is so beautiful and innocent throughout, Agnes Moorehead, in her brief scenes as Mother, is wonderfully dramatic and Dick York is perfect as the “red-blooded American boy.” What’s even greater about the episode is how it runs about twenty-five minutes but seems longer, and NOT in a bad way! Nancy Kovak as Sheila is a perfect foil for Samantha and it’s totally awesome seeing her get her come-uppance.
I must make note of the fact that the director of this episode, William Asher, was best known for his work on I Love Lucy for some of the most favorite episodes like “The Chocolate Factory.” He had also directed many other series but was also a movie director and in fact had directed the 1963 movie Johnny Cool which co-starred none other than Elizabeth Montgomery. Even greater, it was on that set that they met and fell in love and were married. Another notable tidbit about this episode is the fact that it went into production the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Liz and Bill Asher were friends with the Kennedys but felt it would be better to go on with work even on that sad terrible day. Liz said that she wished her father, debonair actor Robert Montgomery, would’ve been the narrator for the first episode. However around this time he wasn’t in the greatest of health.
Also debuting for the Fall 1964 season were Gilligan’s Island, The Addams Family and The Munsters.
Here is one of my favorite lines: Samantha: “Even witchcraft can’t keep him out there all night. It’s our honeymoon!"
"I never did dig what Sammy dug about that dodo." ~ Serena
Posted by Dr. Bombay on September 17, 2014, 12:50 am, in reply to "50 Years Ago..." Resident Bewitched Historian
Can you all believe it's been TEN years since I first started doing the "40 Years Ago..." posts which later became the basis of THE BEWITCHED HISTORY BOOK???! It hardly seems possible!!
Thank you Harpies for helping my dreams come true!!
Also, I'm not going to be posting "50 Years Ago..." posts but I felt this occasion warranted it
If you want to read my 50 years ago posts, get my book "I never did dig what Sammy dug about that dodo." ~ Serena
Re: 50 Years Ago...
Posted by Tracey on September 17, 2014, 3:33 pm, in reply to "50 Years Ago..."
Awesome post Dr. Bombay! 50 years...1964 was a great year if I do say so myself!
Re: 50 Years Ago...
Posted by Bewitched @ Harpies Bizarre on September 23, 2014, 10:13 am, in reply to "50 Years Ago..." Queen of the Harpies
We agree. The pilot is "practically perfect in every way.” Sow's ears are not made into silk purses by the addition of a few dandelions, Samantha!
Re: 50 Years Ago...
Posted by J.P> on September 28, 2014, 9:08 pm, in reply to "Re: 50 Years Ago..."
I always wanted to see the pilot episode in its entirety before edited down to fit a 30 minute timeslot (with the dishwasher scene and the automatic vacuum scene with Endora sitting up in the rafters). We know the scenes existed because they're in promos, just not the finished product.