Happy Birthday, "Bewitched"! Part Two - The Magic Ends

Transcripts are computer generated and are not edited.

Tony Maietta:
Hello. I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood. Previously, on Going Hollywood. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Bewitched. Happy birthday to you. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Happy birthday, Bewitched. 60 years. One of the few things around that's older than me. 60 years to yesterday, September 17, 1964, Bewitched debuted on ABC. How about that? What we're gonna do today, dear listener, is we're going to kind of take the template of our Mary Tyler Moore episode and expand it because we've decided to do 2 separate episodes. On this episode today, we're going to discuss the first five seasons of Bewitched, AKA the Dick York years. And then in part 2, next week stay tuned for next week's episode. We will talk about the Dick Sargent episodes.

Tony Maietta:
So basically, the 3 seasons that Dick Sargent played Darren.

Brad Shreve:
So, Tony, I'm trying to figure out, the screen is kinda blurred, so I can't really see you all that well. Are you the old Tony or the new Tony?

Tony Maietta:
Well, I'm the original Tony. Let's let's just put it that way. I'm the OG Tony. I'm not gonna be replaced There

Brad Shreve:
could be no other Tony.

Tony Maietta:
There could be no other Tony, and if I was being replaced although I would be replaced by someone who was a few inches taller than me. I wouldn't mind that. But, yeah, if I

Brad Shreve:
But would they be as bitter?

Tony Maietta:
They'd be more bitter if they were Dick Sargent.

Brad Shreve:
That's what I was just saying. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
I just he was yeah. I don't understand that. Hey, everybody. Well, it's part 2. It's part 2 of our, what's becoming a marathon Bewitched, series of episodes. But you know what? I don't care. I don't care because I'm having so much fun with this, Brad. It's fine.

Tony Maietta:
If nobody else likes it, I love it. So that's what I that's what I'm saying. I I'm so enjoying going to this series. I have fallen in love with Elizabeth Montgomery all over again watching episode after episode after episode of Bewitched.

Brad Shreve:
And I joked around last episode that, maybe we should do a Bewitched podcast, and you said, yeah. We should. I'm not ready to start another second podcast, but based on the feedback we're getting, I'm like,

Brad Shreve:
Somebody might wanna do that.

Tony Maietta:
It's a great idea. Right? I think we're kinda doing it, though. I mean, these are these are not only a 2 part episode. This is a supersized 2 part episode because we just did, last week, we did the Dick York years of Bewitched, which was which was the first five season.

Brad Shreve:
And I think that was our longest episode so far.

Tony Maietta:
It was pretty damn close. It was pretty damn close. It was close to Mary Tyler Moore. But now we're not having enough, not having done enough. We're coming back for more. Now we're coming back for the Dick Sargent years, which were the last three seasons of Bewitched with, Dick Sargent replacing Dick York. And I think I said in our previous episode, the reason I wanted to do 2 episodes is because this truly feels like 2 different shows to me. If you watch the last season of Bewitched and you watch the 1st season of Bewitched, besides the fact that one's in color and one's in black and white, they they're 2 different shows.

Tony Maietta:
They really, really are. Even though they're repeating episodes

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Way too much.

Tony Maietta:
Way too much. You'll see an episode from the last year, and you're like, when did I see that episode before in black and white with Dick York? You're right. You did. But, they're 2 different shows, 2 different sets of of actors. It's it's really mind boggling, but the one constant, of course, is the beautiful, wonderful, luminous Elizabeth Montgomery. I think she got more beautiful as the seasons went on. She's just gorgeous.

Brad Shreve:
I will agree with that. And I liked her in her, the the more hip

Tony Maietta:
Did you love that? I love she had great. She had a Marlo Thomas hair, and she wore the she started wearing boots, and she had the, as we said in the last episode, the s necklace replacing the pave heart that Bill Asher, her husband, gave her because, you know, there was trouble in Samantha Land by 1972.

Brad Shreve:
I knew they repeated episodes, but when I was going through the list of episodes to to see what jug because I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but I wanted to jog my brain to see if something else jumped out and some did. I could not believe one after another at the bottom of the descriptions that said, this is a remake of this is a remake ofthis...s a remake of that...

Brad Shreve:
I mean, one after another after another. It's like, how lazy can you get?

Tony Maietta:
Well, you know, that's kind of interesting. We talked about when we talked about Roadout, do you remember we talked about you know, these were talented writers. They could have come up with some kind of I think you said that. They could have come up with some kind of situations for this married couple. Yeah. And you wonder, did the writers in Bewitched just get so lazy, or was it because they thought, well, no one's watching the black and white episodes. We can redo them in color. I don't know.

Tony Maietta:
But there are so many repeats. They actually started repeating themselves in the 4th season, and then they just went crazy when they finally got to, like, season 6 and season 7. They're just repeat after repeat. But amongst those repeats, there are some very good episodes, which I think we're gonna talk about today.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. And I'm of the belief that no show should last more than 5 seasons.

Tony Maietta:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve:
That seems to be the magic number. Once they go past that, I'm gonna give MASH an example. People think about MASH so you know, with such love in their hearts. I don't because all I remember is how bad it got. And then I think back to the earliest episodes, and I didn't mind it when, McClain Stephenson and, oh my god. I can't think of his name. The who played Trapper. Anyway, I didn't mind when their characters were replaced Mhmm.

Brad Shreve:
Because it didn't go bad right away. But right up after the 5th season, it became this preachy show that wasn't really funny anymore, certainly not to the old degree. I think to me, that's the one of the prime examples, but when I look at shows after shows after shows, most don't seem to be able to keep it going after 5 years. And I think Bewitched would have been better if it ended after 5 years.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, you know you know who else thought that, by the way?

Brad Shreve:
Elizabeth Montgomery, I'm guessing.

Tony Maietta:
Elizabeth Montgomery. Yeah. She wanted to end after 5 years. After the 5th season, even all the with the all the problems with Dick York aside, which we're gonna go into, she wanted to end after 5 years. Elizabeth Montgomery here's the thing. We think of I think, I'm gonna say me. I have to make I statements here. I think of Elizabeth Montgomery as this kind of angelic Audrey Hepburn like actress, and she wasn't.

Tony Maietta:
She was a ambitious, gutsy actress, and she wanted to go on to other things. She really wanted to stretch herself. She hears a woman in her prime, you know, and she really wants to stretch herself her acting chops. So you can't blame her for wanting to end this series after 5 years and say, you know what? I have a 5 year contract. We've done 5 years. That's enough for syndication. Let's move on to other things, Bill. But ABC I mean, this this show was still it was number 11 in its 5th year.

Tony Maietta:
It was still ABC's biggest hit, and ABC did not want to let them go. So when the 5th season came about and Elizabeth Montgomery was making noises about, I kinda wanna leave, ABC came at her and Bill Asher, her husband, producer, and said, not only will we give you a huge salary increase, we're gonna give you a piece of the show, ownership of the show. I think they gave them 25% in complete creative control. Now how are you gonna pass that up? I mean, come on. You're basically you've got a show, and you're calling the shots. So they signed a contract that would actually extend Bewitched to season 10. They were going to double it

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Which is pretty astounding. So, I mean, you really can't blame Elizabeth Montgomery. She's getting a huge chunk of money. Now she's a part owner of the show. And if you notice, the beginning of the 6th season is when it begins she gets her name above the title of the b you know, because Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched, and that's why because she now am the piece of it.

Tony Maietta:
So good for her.

Brad Shreve:
Absolutely.

Tony Maietta:
And I do like some of the episode the 6th, 7th, and 8th, some episodes in those seasons, and we're gonna we're gonna talk about them now. But do you think we should go into 1st, what exactly happened, in the 5th season of Bewitched besides what we just talked about? What happened with Dick York?

Brad Shreve:
I think that's a good idea. I think a lot of people have no idea.

Tony Maietta:
Right. They just one day, they're watching an episode of Bewitched, and it's Dick York and the next week, it's Dick Sargent. It's a completely different person, which is pretty much how audiences has experienced it too. There was no there was no announcement made that, oh, we have a new Darren.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
This was all part of their plan because what happened was this, and we gotta go back in time a little bit. So I'm gonna put on my historian cap right now, so everybody bear with me.

Brad Shreve:
No. That's what we're here for.

Tony Maietta:
That's what we're here. We're gonna go back in time a little bit to 1959 when Dick York was doing a movie called They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth. So while he was making this film, he suffered an accident which severely injured his back. And and it was a it was a pretty, pretty bad accident, but he didn't stop working. What did he do? He began taking painkillers. Now we all know now in 2024 what what a slippery slope that is. He began taking painkillers in order to deal with the acute and constant pain he was having because of this accident. So he continued to work, but here's the thing.

Tony Maietta:
It was a degenerative condition. It just got worse. It wasn't gonna get better. It was such a severe injury. And as the years went on, not only did his pain increase, but his addiction to the painkillers increased. So by the time he got to, I would say, the 3rd season of Bewitched is when we really first start seeing Darren is suddenly not he's away on a business trip. He's not in the episode at all. So he started missing episodes in the 3rd season because of the pain, and then in the 4th season, it increased.

Tony Maietta:
And then finally in the 5th season, he missed 8 episodes. He was in 22 out of 30 episodes in the 5th season. And Sandra Gould, who I kind of disparaged a lot

Brad Shreve:
Yes. You did.

Tony Maietta:
To her last episode about Gladys Kravitz. I'm not disparaging the woman. I just don't appreciate her interpretation of Gladys Kravitz as opposed to the brilliant Alice Pears. Sandra Gold said that she just remembered him being in constant pain. She said there was pain in his eyes. He couldn't move because of the pain or he was whacked out on painkillers, and it was hard for him to remember his lines and remember his motivations. So they had a real problem here with him. And here's what I think is amazing, though.

Tony Maietta:
Here's a guy who is either in constant pain or whacked out on painkillers and he still gives these wonderfully funny performances. I mean, this guy's in pain, but he's so very funny, which is kind of the difference of Dick Sargent. Dick Sargent looks like he's on painkillers in my opinion. Yes. You know, Dick York, who is in apparently so much pain, is so funny and so witty and so dry. He's just wonderful. But when you think about Darren, the part of Darren, think about all the things they had Dick York go through as Darren. I mean, he was turned into a monkey.

Tony Maietta:
He was shrunk. He was turned into an a donkey. I mean, it was a very physical physical part for him.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. He just it's very physical.

Tony Maietta:
Very physical. He had to go through a lot. And you you add the physicality of the part to the long hours they were working, 12, 13 hours a day on a TV show, and you're gonna have problems. So by the 5th season, they realized they were in real trouble.

Brad Shreve:
And I wanna point something out real quick. You have to pay attention because you probably haven't noticed before. But if you've watched that season, Darren sits down a lot more than he used to.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, yeah. He does. He does. And you can kinda see it in his face. Yeah. You know? You can you can kinda see the wear and tear. I know he was almost 40 years old, but, you know, that doesn't mean anything. I mean, forties might be 40 in a minute anytime.

Tony Maietta:
But he he you can tell there's you can you can just see it in his face in some shots that he is he's not doing real well. So this all finally came to a head during the filming of the episode called daddy does his thing in February of 1969. And according to Dick York, and this is this is what Dick York said. He said, quote, and I quote I'm gonna do a quote here, Brad. I don't usually do this, but I'm gonna do one right now because this is really important.

Brad Shreve:
Oh.

Tony Maietta:
I was too sick to go on. I had a temperature of a 105. I was full of a strong antibiotics for almost 10 days. I went to work that day, but I was sick. I lay in my dressing room after being in makeup waiting to be called on the set. They knew I was feeling pretty rotten, and they tried to give me time to rest. Then I was sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans being lit. There was a flickering, flickering light that made me feel weird.

Tony Maietta:
And I'm sitting on this platform up in the air, and I turned to one of the grips, a friend of mine, and said I said, Gibby, it was his name, I have to get down. And that's the last thing he remembered. Basically, he said he woke up on the floor. So what happened was he actually had a seizure, and he was rushed to the hospital. And director William Asher came to visit him in the hospital.

Brad Shreve:
Mhmm.

Tony Maietta:
And he said point blank to Dick York, do you wanna quit? Because this was causing real problems. You know? They had to rewrite and refigure episodes that he suddenly couldn't appear in to to make it like Darren you know, Darren was always going on a business trip or he would be in the very beginning of the episode or he'd be in the very end of the episode or they would use previous seasons beginnings and kind of refigure them. And suddenly Elizabeth Montgomery's hair gets much longer when the episode starts. You can kinda notice that.

Brad Shreve:
They had a lot of episodes where Darren left for work and the real story began.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. Or

Brad Shreve:
the story happened and Darren came home for work. Yes. There's one Darren wasn't involved in the magic.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. Exact not at all. Like, there's one episode where they he's in they're in bed sleeping, and Endora comes in in that little bubble Yeah. Which was actually from a 3rd season episode, but they redid it for the 5th season. And then Elizabeth Montgomery comes down the stairs and suddenly she's, you know, she her hair is now shoulder length as opposed to up above her. Nobody paid attention to the continuity in this. So anyway, he said, do you wanna quit? And, according to Dick to Dick York, it was the most difficult decision he ever made, but he realized that he couldn't do this anymore. He was he he had he had to leave the show.

Tony Maietta:
So it was a very difficult decision for him to make, but he did quit the show to try to recover his health. But they were faced with a real dilemma, on Bewitched. How are they gonna handle this? Okay. This is a romantic comedy. Okay. This this show is about the love story between Samantha and Darren. What do you do when you don't have a Darren anymore? Do you kill him off? You you could they were divorce was it was it was 69, so divorce was on television. But you couldn't divorce Darren and Samantha.

Tony Maietta:
That's the whole premise of the show. So so what are you gonna do? They did nothing, pretty much. That's what they decided. We're just gonna do nothing. We're just gonna pretend like this never happened, and we're gonna get a different actor. And 1 week at stick York, the next week at stick sergeant. And as I said before, this is pretty much how the audience experience bewitched in this huge change.

Brad Shreve:
No one will notice. And nobody No one will know.

Tony Maietta:
No one will notice that it's a that he's 4 inches taller than Dick York and that he's got a totally different demeanor. So yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And you know what? I had just I just had an epiphany.

Tony Maietta:
What's that?

Brad Shreve:
One thing they could have done is give Samantha a job.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, they could have done a lot of things.

Brad Shreve:
It could have been from her work.

Tony Maietta:
Well, could could have. But but would that how would that so there wouldn't be a Darren anymore?

Brad Shreve:
No. It would you know, Darren would be at home.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, okay. But but they I'm

Brad Shreve:
not saying it was a good option. I'm just saying it was an option they had.

Tony Maietta:
We never see him? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I don't I don't know. That's not much of

Brad Shreve:
Maybe they could get Dick York to pop in his head to say hello, and then that was it.

Tony Maietta:
Somebody said, well, she was a witch. Why didn't she just change his appearance? I'm not I don't like this anymore. You know, there's an episode in the 1st year where they're playing where Endura and Samantha are kind of playing with his face and get changing his face and changing his hair. She just could have gone, I'm tired of the way you look. Oh, now you look like Dick Sargent. So, anyway, so when they decided they were gonna replace Darren, that was really the only option to do. And, you know, let's be realistic here. This happens all the time on soap operas.

Tony Maietta:
How many different Tad Martins were there on all well, I think it was only one Tad Martin on All My Children. But you know what I'm saying. There is I was an all my children freak. There you do that all the time on soap opera. Soap operas were always replacing actors. So this is the same thing. So they thought, okay. Who are we gonna get to be the new Darren? Well, as luck would have it, their second choice for Darren way back in 63 when they were casting the show was suddenly available, and his name was Dick Sargent.

Brad Shreve:
Now wasn't he the first option?

Tony Maietta:
Well, no. Richard Crenna was the first option, and Richard Richard Crenna said no. He had a movie career he was trying to do. So they went they went with Dick Sargent. And so they brought Dick Sargent back, and they began the show as if nothing ever happened. But here's something that's really funny. There was, the first episode that Dick Sargent actually filmed in March of 1969 was Samantha's Better Halves. And the premise of the episode is actually a remake of the 2nd season episode, Divided, He Falls.

Tony Maietta:
And in Samantha's better halves, Endura puts a spell on Darren that splits him into 2 Darons, the fun Darren and the work Darren. After they filmed it, they thought, 2 Darons, that's a little bit too on the nose for what we've just gone through. So he very wisely held that that episode back for later in the season and made it like a flashback. So the first episode to air with Dick Sargent was actually, was called Samantha and the Beanstalk. So

Brad Shreve:
That's one of the 5,000,000 appearances that Johnny Whitaker made during the sixties.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. It's a fun episode. It's it's it's a it's a cute episode. But, you know, the thing about the thing about Dick Sargent is and for people who, you know, you have your Dick York camp and your Dick Sargent camp. I think you have a Dick Sargent camp. I don't know. Because I'm clearly in the Dick York camp. I think Dick York was just perfection as Darren, But I'm not upset that they I didn't necessarily want them to end the show either.

Tony Maietta:
I think that I I kinda like the fact the show went on. Maybe, I'm not crazy about Dick Sargent. I don't think that he and Elizabeth Montgomery have a great romantic chemistry like, Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery had. But here's the funny thing is that Elizabeth Montgomery was much closer to Dick Sargent than she was to Dick York. York. She liked Dick York a lot. She appreciated their chemistry. But, you know, here's a guy who's been kinda putting her through the ringer for the past 3 years with her with his illnesses.

Tony Maietta:
So it makes sense that she's like, I can breathe again. We have somebody dependable. We can move forward.

Brad Shreve:
It's not all on me.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you get some, you give some. You know? You take some, you give some. Take gotta take the rough with the smooth. So As far

Brad Shreve:
as the Dick Sergeant camp, I used to be on it. One, obviously, this was the earliest sign that was gay I was gay as a kid because I thought he was more handsome.

Tony Maietta:
Did you really?

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I still find him more handsome than than Dick York.

Tony Maietta:
I guess he's I guess he's traditionally more handsome. I think there's something adorable about Dick York, though. I just think he's something adorable.

Brad Shreve:
I can see that, but not my cup of tea, but that's okay. I certainly wasn't ugly. I'm not implying that in any way. But I I found him more attractive, and there are aspects of him that I did like. There were I I wish I could put my finger on it. I can't say exactly what they were, but there are some negatives that we we can get into later that that especially looking back on it, I see now.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, he was a much less reactive Darren. He was a much calmer Darren. Yes. You know what I mean? Dick York would get so worked up about things, and Dick Sargent didn't. But if

Brad Shreve:
you think about it after the in their 6th year marriage, wouldn't he at that point have kinda gotten used to it? I think it was

Tony Maietta:
Actually, Elizabeth Montgomery said that. She said they've been married for 5 years now, so their marriage is a little calmer, a little more sexless making. And if we know anything about Dick Sargent, we can understand that. And she did she did feel personally closer to Dick Sargent, but who and you kind of hinted at this as the last episode. Who did not feel personally closer to Dick Sargent?

Brad Shreve:
Agnes Morehead. .

Tony Maietta:
That's right. Aggie was not happy. Now there's there could be many reasons why Agnes Morehead was not happy with this change. First of all, she she first of all, she was very close to Dick York. They were very close. She loved Dick York, which is kinda funny when you watch the shows, you know, because there's always at each other. But she she, pretty much, she adored Dick York. She felt that much of the success of the show was because and she was right in this. Much of the success of the show was because of the chemistry between Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York.

Tony Maietta:
So she was very disappointed, upset, that they just they chose to go this route. She probably would have preferred they end the show because, you know, she wasn't she never wanted to do it to begin with. You know, she was never really crazy about doing it. Even though she was with the show the entire she, you know, in her contract, we didn't talk about this last time. She only had to appear in 8 out of 10 episodes of Bewitched. So she's not in every episode because she was off doing movies. She was off doing hush-hush Sweet Charlotte and getting an Academy Award nomination or doing, you know, whatever doing The Singing Nun with Debbie Reynolds with her pal Debbie Reynolds. And she did not hide her feelings about Dick Sargent.

Tony Maietta:
She really, really gave Dick Sargent a hard time, especially during the 1st year, so much so that it kind of came to a head, when they were doing the Salem episodes, which is the 7th year. He put up with this for a year. And according to David White, they were on the plane coming back from Salem to Los Angeles, and Dick Sergeant broke down. And he said, I just can't do this. I can't work with her anymore. I can't take this attitude from her. She's so cold to me. She's so she's so mean to me.

Tony Maietta:
I can't do this anymore. So it fell upon Elizabeth Montgomery to have the talk with Agnes Moorehead. So, apparently, Elizabeth Montgomery went into Agnes Moorehead's trailer once they were back on the lot and had the talk with her and said, Aggie, cut it out. He ain't going anywhere. It's been he's been here over a year now. So you need to get over it and get on with it.

Brad Shreve:
Good for her

Tony Maietta:
. And good for her. Good for well, you know, she was a producer now. Yeah. You know, this was her show. She had to she had to lay it down for Agnes for, Agnes Moorehead. And according to Elizabeth Montgomery, Morehead later apologized to her on the set, but never to Dick Sargent. But the atmosphere definitely calmed down.

Brad Shreve:
Boy, that's better. I gotta go back to Debbie Reynolds thing here. Knowing Agnes Morehead is

Tony Maietta:
We always have a Debbie Reynolds connection on these podcasts. We do. Everything we do. Everything's Debbie.

Brad Shreve:
How gay can you get?

Tony Maietta:
Nothing's wrong with that. I love Debbie.

Brad Shreve:
The fact that Agnes Moorehead is kind of what we would call today evangelical or at least very close, and she carried her bible with her.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
It's such an oddity to me that she was friends with Debbie Reynolds,

Tony Maietta:
who was Do you know Debbie Reynolds was very spiritual too? Debbie Reynolds came in.

Brad Shreve:
Same way? Because she she kinda had a a crazy life too, though.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I don't think she was she her parents didn't want her to do they were questioning movies when she first when she was a teenager and she got the contract at Warner Brothers. Her parents were like, what is this you're gonna do? Because she would know. They were very Christian. She had a very strong spiritual background, Debbie Reynolds, up until when she died. And people often heard were totally going off on a Debbie Reynolds tangent once again. But Todd Fisher said that he feels that his mother kind of willed herself to die after Carrie died Mhmm. Because of her strong faith. She could she could do that.

Tony Maietta:
So she had a very strong faith, Debbie Reynolds. She just didn't wear it on her sleeve. She didn't come to the set with a bible in one hand and her script on the other like Angus Morehead did. Yeah. But you it kinda makes sense when you know anything about Debbie Reynolds' background. She was very, very strong in her in her spiritual beliefs. She doesn't put them in your face. That's all.

Brad Shreve:
Now we haven't gotten into Dick Sargent's sexuality, and I don't know if you wanna go there yet, but I I'm just curious. Did that have something to do with Agnes Moorehead's attitude?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I know. I thought about out. After you said that he was not. I don't I mean, people you know, open secrets. Was Paul Lynn out? Who I mean, come on. How can you be in when you're Paul Lynn? Dick Sargent was not out professionally. Let's just put it that way.

Tony Maietta:
You couldn't be, at this time in Hollywood and expect to to work. I mean, that's just the unfortunate truth.

Brad Shreve:
Well, actually, I've gotta bring up we we touched on I Dream of Jeannie the last episode. Hayden Rourke, who played doctor Bellows

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
He would have parties after shots with he would wear a smoking jack. He was a very traditional, stereotypical old gay with a smoking jacket, and his husband or his partner at the time would be there. And the whole cast would be there. Their kids, either Barbareans or,

Tony Maietta:
Larry Hagman.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Larry Hagman. Everybody knew that he was gay. He was very out. Well, the the time that time.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I'm not saying that's privately. I'm talking about publicly.

Brad Shreve:
Right. Not publicly. You were you were private. Publicly.

Tony Maietta:
You could you know, people were stupid in Hollywood. Yeah. People knew who was gay and who wasn't gay.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
You don't think people knew Paul Lynde was gay? But publicly, no. He did not come out publicly until 1991 on National Coming Out Day, which was pretty remarkable. I mean, I think even in 91, it was difficult. Even in 91, it was it was difficult. So I think he lived he lived the life and people who were close to him knew, but it wasn't out in the public. It wasn't public knowledge.

Brad Shreve:
Tony, you and I get excited when we get messages and emails and texts from listeners that tell us how much they enjoy the show.

Tony Maietta:
We do.

Brad Shreve:
But, you know, I think we should push it a little bit and ask them to go a little bit further.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, a challenge.

Brad Shreve:
If you enjoy this show, let others know. 5 stars are great. Whatever you wanna give, except 1 star. If you have 1 star, say, you know, this show is not for me and move on. We accept that.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. You don't need to don't give us 1 star because just say, no, not for me. Just skip it. Or tell your friends. That's the best way too. Right? Tell your friends, hey, I have this great fun podcast with these 2 kooky guys who talk about movies and TV. We run the gamut. We have everything.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. We're all over the place.

Tony Maietta:
We're all over the place is a better way to put it.

Brad Shreve:
But in a good way. So do it right now before you forget.

Tony Maietta:
Before we start talking about, the episodes, I do wanna you did bring up the genie in the bottle. We need to talk a little bit about I Dream of Jeannie because, you know, it's it's kind of it's gone to legend right now because you have a series which is also Screen Gems, in which Barbara Eden is playing a magical creature with a master. I'm not gonna get into any of the, any of the political, connotations about that. I'm just talking about the premise, you know. And it was created by a friend of Bill Asher's. Okay? Sydney Sheldon created I Dream of Jeannie for NBC. Sydney Sheldon worked with Bill Asher on the Patty Duke Show, And he actually went to Bill Asher and said, do you mind if I do this? And Bill Asher said, no. Go ahead.

Tony Maietta:
And Elizabeth Montgomery couldn't kinda believe it. She couldn't believe that not only was this show a blatant rip off of her own series, but they were filming on the same lot. She would you know, they were they were right they were living in the same quote on air quotes neighborhood. You know, Jeannie's house was right down the street from the Stevens house.

Brad Shreve:
Yep.

Tony Maietta:
But Bellows living room was at times Samantha and Darren's bare bedroom living room.

Brad Shreve:
It was the same And wasn't the Kravis house the outdoors of the Bellows house? I'm almost certain of that.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Yeah. I mean, yes, of course. I mean, they they it was screen gems. They shared the same lot. They shared the same they shared the same makeup room, and Sally Field told a very funny story on Rosie O'Donnell in the I think in 2000 about this because she said because she was also she was a flying nun at that time, and she was also at on the Columbia lot. And in the morning, she said they would all get together for makeup, for their makeup call, and she said it would be Barbara Eden and then Elizabeth Montgomery and then Sally Field and then maybe Shirley Jones, Partridge family and then who else was there. And she said that Barbara Eden was working on her nightclub act and she was singing all the time.

Tony Maietta:
Now this is 6 in the morning, okay, and Barbara Eden is singing right next to you and she said that one time she was singing and she got up and left and Elizabeth Montgomery turned to Sally Field and said, I wish she would stop fucking singing. Maybe she didn't say fucking, but I in my mind, she did. Anyway, she was not pleased. So publicly, Elizabeth Montgomery was very magnanimous about I Dream of Jeannie. It was, like, no. It's a different show. Blah, you know. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
They have an evil twin with dark hair, you know, okay. Kind of like we have with Serena. But no. But but privately, she couldn't understand why her husband gave his blessing to this show. It it kind of wore at her. It kind of irritated her is a good way of saying it.

Brad Shreve:
But am I correct? Despite her comment about Barbara Eden, my understanding is she even though she resented the show, she didn't resent the actors who basically just doing their job. They were just doing their job.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. She did not blame anything on Larry Hagman or Bill Daley or Barbara Eden, even though Barbara Eden's Barbara Eden's singing annoyed her. She did not. She was irritated with Sydney Sheldon, and she was irritated with her husband for giving the go ahead. So I don't know if that's the seeds of the dissolution of that of this marriage, but, you know, you you got you got to wonder why did he why was he so okay with, yeah, go ahead. Do a show of ours. But it's important to point out too, Ginny was never a direct competition to, Bewitched.

Tony Maietta:
Jeannie was never in the I don't Jeannie was ever in the top 25. And Jeannie never reached Bewitched Bewitched Heights. There's a sentence.

Brad Shreve:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
But it was still an irritant to Elizabeth Montgomery. She was not crazy about it.

Brad Shreve:
What are your feelings about I Dream of Jeannie?

Tony Maietta:
I like I Dream of Jeannie. Like Bewitched, I find the black and white episodes of the very first season of I Dream of Jeannie is in black and white. Unless it's colorized, it's in black and white. I like those. I find them kinda cool. Like Bewitched, there's something I don't know what the word is. It's not spooky, but there's just something really fantastical about the first season. That's the word.

Tony Maietta:
There's the you lend it it lends itself more to the fantasy. When it's in color and I'm talking about Genie here, not Bewitched, it's just a silly sitcom. But in black and white, it's kinda cool. It's got kind of a really cool fantastical quality, which I like.

Brad Shreve:
And a sexiness.

Tony Maietta:
It does have a sexiness to it..

Tony Maietta:
No. I like it. And Larry Hagman's beautiful in those early seasons. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, yeah.

Tony Maietta:
So is Barbara Eden, Michael. It's a Yes. She is.

Brad Shreve:
And I gotta tell you, my like most gay men I know, I sure as hell wanted to live in that Jeannie bottle

Tony Maietta:
Oh, wow.

Brad Shreve:
With all those pillows and the, you know, it was it was extravagant.

Tony Maietta:
How many gay men have replica my my friend Steven. Hey, Steven. If you're listening, he he has rep he has replicas of that bottle. You know? You know? I mean, it's a it's a cool

Brad Shreve:
I almost designed a website for the guy that, one of the guys that sells those bottles, which are extremely expensive.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, sure.

Brad Shreve:
But we had a creative we had a creative disagreement. So, I said, no. We can't do this. And Oh, yes.

Tony Maietta:
What do you think of I Dream of Jeannie, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
I like both of them equally for different reasons. I will say, even though I think Bewitched is probably a little bit better, I do think I Dream of Jeannie did a couple things better than Bewitched. Oh. First of all, the fact that, Jeannie and Tony were single added a little bit more of the sexiness to it. Mhmm. If the show was remade today, she probably would have to call him master once or twice because, obviously, that is what he was. But I think they would just change her to call him Tony all the time because, obviously Well that would not go over well to call him master.

Tony Maietta:
In 2024, there's definite issues with premise. Yeah. Absolutely.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Exactly. But 2 things that I think were better in I Dream of Jeannie. 1 is the reason for Tony not wanting her to do magic. Darren just didn't want her I guess he just wanted to live a normal life. He didn't want Samantha to do magic. Tony had had made a lot more sense because he was an astronaut. That was his lifelong dream.

Brad Shreve:
He loved being an astronaut, and he didn't wanna risk losing that career. Mhmm. So that made a lot of sense why he didn't want Jeannie to use her magic. Because there were times that he was a lot more welcome to it than Darren was if it if it fit the need.

Tony Maietta:
Plus, she wasn't exactly a 20th century woman. I mean, she, you know, she didn't speak in you know, her English wasn't that great when he first met her. Granted, she did become when they got married, she became, you know, Jeannie. But it's just funny. She wasn't really as presentable, shall we say, as Elizabeth Montgomery was, as Samantha was, Jeannie was.

Brad Shreve:
And the other thing is, you know, you mentioned Sheila was gonna be was considered as a foil for Samantha. Doctor Bellows was a really good foil for Tony. Compared to really the only foil they had was Gladys Kravis. And if you compare the 2, there's no comparison.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I I I can see that. I can see that. I can see that. Well, Larry Tate was kind of the doctor Bellows part of it. Not really though. I don't I don't

Brad Shreve:
think so. Doctor Bellows was intelligent. He was scheming. He always failed. So there's those are 2 things I think they did better.

Tony Maietta:
I love Barbara Eden. God bless her. She's still beautiful.

Brad Shreve:
She really is.

Tony Maietta:
But I mean, I think to me there's nothing like Elizabeth Montgomery. So before we go into the episodes, now we're going to listener, as we said in the last episode, we are going to discuss 4 episodes, from the Dick Sargent era. Before we do that though, I had a question for you, Brad. In 1965, what beach party movie did Elizabeth Montgomery make a cameo in as Samantha, and who played her father? Do you know this?

Brad Shreve:
Beach party? Well, I'm gonna guess it wasn't Marice Evans that played her father.

Tony Maietta:
No. It was not Marie Evans.

Brad Shreve:
That's just wrong that it wasn't Marie Evans. Right. Oh, well, the only beach party that can come to my head, and I'm certain it's not the one is beach blanket bingo.

Tony Maietta:
It wasn't.

Brad Shreve:
It wasn't. I can't think of

Tony Maietta:
That's kind well, that's kind of

Brad Shreve:
others, I can't think of the names. Go for it.

Tony Maietta:
It's a hard one because I probably had I not done the research, hello, film TV historian, I probably wouldn't know off the top of my head either. I know she did one. It was How to Stuff a Wild Bikini from 1965, and her father was played by Buster Keaton. Oh, my word. Buster Keaton played her father. And the reason she did it was because, obviously, it was directed by Bill Asher. So it's really funny, a really cute little a really cute little scene in the movie, where she just pops in and then pops out again. But it's Elizabeth Montgomery.

Tony Maietta:
You don't know it until the camera turns around, but it's clearly her wearing her little heart necklace. So she was still very much in love with her husband when she did that.

Brad Shreve:
And I wanna ease your fears.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
I think as a film historian, people will forgive you for not knowing all the beach movies.

Tony Maietta:
Thank you. I appreciate that. Takes a little bit of load off me. Oh, wow. I don't have to know all the beach blanket bingo babylons stuff in the wild and freaking bikini. Okay. So we're gonna start with oddly, you and I, when we picked these episodes, you and I both ignored the 6th season completely. Dick Sargent's first season completely.

Tony Maietta:
And there's some good stuff in this. Adam is born. Their son is born. Elizabeth Montgomery was pregnant yet again with her third child, at the beginning of the 6th season. So Samantha became pregnant, and, Adam was born. But we're like, forget about it. We're not gonna we're not gonna, talk about that. So you're gonna I think you're up first with your first episode of the Dick Sergeant era.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. And this is an episode that I probably remembered I was gonna say I remembered most as a kid. I don't know if I remember most, but I remember really loving the the Salem period.

Tony Maietta:
So did I. I was obsessed with the Salem era with the Salem episodes.

Brad Shreve:
It's really weird because as a rule, I don't like it when a cast leaves and goes somewhere else.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
But these really worked for whatever reason.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. No. They did.

Brad Shreve:
I think because they were able to go to fun places.

Tony Maietta:
They weren't. It was unusual. It was perfect that they go to Salem because of the witches. Hello. And it was really cool that they did it. And you know why they did it? You know the real reason? Here's a little backstory for you. You know the real reason why the Salem episodes were made?

Brad Shreve:
I know it has to do with the fire, but I don't know the details.

Tony Maietta:
That's right. There was a fire at Columbia Studios and over half the sets were burned during their hiatus and they were getting ready to film a new season and they were like, oh, shit. We don't have a set. What are we gonna do? So they thought, well, we'll take them on we'll take them away. We'll take them out of Morning Glory Circle so we have time to rebuild these sets, and they decided to take them to Salem, which makes so much sense. So, thankfully, they were filming they began their production, you know, most TV shows begin production way way in the late spring for a fall premiere back in the day. So they were able to film these, Salem episodes on on location in Salem. They did go to Salem.

Tony Maietta:
Obviously, they were also in the back lot because you can see mountains in the back. I'm, like, why are there mountains in Salem?

Brad Shreve:
I noticed that myself. You know,

Tony Maietta:
like, oh, there's a mountain range in Massachusetts. Okay. It's not the Berkshires. So Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
It wasn't in the green mountain. It was a traditional California brown mountain.

Tony Maietta:
It's kinda crazy how they do that. And that allowed them enough time to rebuild the set. So then they went back and this the episodes building up to them going to Salem, they were able to film afterwards and then insert them into the Salem episodes. So that's why the Salem saga was made.

Brad Shreve:
I'm gonna go off on a tangent here. One of my favorite episodes of The X Files, and it has nothing to do with the story. They went to Lake Okeechobee, which I'm familiar with. It's in the middle of Iowa, and it is a lake surrounded by vacation homes. And in The X Files, they went to Lake Okeechobee, Iowa, which was a pristine lake filled with trees and mountains in the background because, you know, they filmed in Vancouver. So, anyway, that has nothing to do with the Bewitched, but you reminded me of that and I laugh every time I see that episode. So, anyway.

Tony Maietta:
I think one of the cool things about this then they, you know, basically, they had a redecorated house, which ones I either think, okay, Darren's either either doing really well at McMahon and Tate. Or Samantha said, honey, sweetheart, I'm a little I'm a little tired of this house. Can I just twitch us a new house? Because it's completely remodeled. They have shag carpeting. They have new furniture, very seventies, you know, early American furniture. There's new rooms upstairs. I mean, there's doorways And my thing, I think I said before during our Alice Adams podcast, I do have a thing about back stairways. I think they're so cool.

Tony Maietta:
And now they have a back stairway, it doesn't go anywhere. I mean, people go up those stairs and you're like, where are they going? Because there's a wall where the stairway would end, but it's cool. I love the fact that they have a back stairway now. And that set, as we said, the original set was used in I Dream of Jeannie. It was used in movies. I think it was in the Jerry Lewis movie called Hook, Line, and Sinker. Yep. So, I mean, the set had been used, and I really like the new set.

Tony Maietta:
I think it I it refreshes the show, the new set.

Brad Shreve:
The movie Brian's Song Yes. Would that movie was really popular in the seventies. It's kind of a tearjerker. Not only did they use the Bewitched house, the interior set, they didn't change anything.

Tony Maietta:
No. It's so funny, isn't it? It's like, do they think people aren't aware? It's like if suddenly a a show was on the Mary Tyler Moore set. And you'd be like, wait a minute. That's Mary's m. What the hell? Who's in how does that work? Yeah. Don't think people noticed? It's so crazy. It's so crazy.

Brad Shreve:
Especially since it's an iconic set.

Tony Maietta:
I know. Exactly. Exactly.

Brad Shreve:
I do want us to ask bring one more thing in before I go into this episode because you you brought up Morning Glory Circle. And one of the things that really got to me is, you know, they're kind of vague about where the Stevens live, but I guess it's it's hinted or maybe even said at some point that it's in Connecticut.

Tony Maietta:
Or New York. It's it's it yeah. It can be anywhere.

Brad Shreve:
But it's not in the city?

Tony Maietta:
No. It's a suburb.

Brad Shreve:
If they drive into the city and back out at such record speed

Tony Maietta:
Very quickly.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, we're gonna go in for lunch. And then, you know, right after lunch, within an hour, they're back home.

Tony Maietta:
Very quickly.

Brad Shreve:
They're just always darting back and forth.

Tony Maietta:
It's a very close suburb.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. It's a very close suburb.

Tony Maietta:
It ain't in Queens. I'll tell you that. It ain't in Queens. But, yeah, various times, it's like new it's like near New Rochelle, and it's Eric's in Connecticut. You you're never really sure where Morning Glory Circle is. So Brad's first episode takes place in Salem, which I love. I love that you chose this, Brad. It's episode number 3 of the 7th season, episode 203 in the series, and it's called the Salem saga part 1.

Tony Maietta:
It's directed by William Asher and written by Ed Jurist, and it's from October 8, 1970. Brad, take us into the Salem saga.

Brad Shreve:
And am I correct? This is the first of the 8 episodes in Salem. Am I correct?

Tony Maietta:
It's correct. They went back and re and filmed later in the season once the set was built. They went back and filmed the build up to why they went to Salem, why they were going to Salem. They're going to Salem for a witches convention. The queen of the witches, Hephzibah, comes and stays with Samantha and Darren because because Samantha wants to go to, sale she doesn't wanna go to Salem. She has to go to Salem to this Witches Convention. So the 2 episodes before this are basically back in Morning Glory Circle and the the build up to everybody going to Salem for the witches convention.

Brad Shreve:
And it's a perfect place to have the witches convention in Salem. That's perfect. To say about Hechsaba being the queen of the witches, you know, this is one thing that was really odd. I don't remember what season it was, but Samantha was crowned queen of the witches.

Tony Maietta:
She was. And then

Brad Shreve:
that whole storyline just vanished.

Tony Maietta:
Just went away.

Brad Shreve:
Boom. She said

Tony Maietta:
she'd only do it for a year, so I guess they just it was the 4th season, and she said she'd only do it for a year, so I guess they just that year ended. And she's not queen of the witches anymore. Perhaps if I came back.

Brad Shreve:
So the way the story begins is Sam and Darren are in the living room with Endora and Tabitha, and maybe Adam's there. And Endora is gonna watch Tabitha and Adam until Esmeralda shows up. So Sam and Darren get on the plane, and the plane I guess it's the era they were trying to show that they did fly somewhere or they're using it as filler. I don't know why, but they really stayed in the cockpit showing the runway and then showing the runway when they landed for very long times. I mean, not huge, but longer than was really necessary. And was it even necessary at all?

Tony Maietta:
Well, what an hour an hour flight from New York to Boston? And it's like this huge airliner, like they're going to Europe.

Brad Shreve:
So, of course, Sam and Darren are flying to Massachusetts. And, Endora, apparently, Esmeralda showed up because Endora shows up on the wing. Yes. So laughing, enjoying the wind in her hair. Now what they will say is better. There was Right. I think the first episode I ever saw where Endora and Sam were on a plane, there was barely any wind in their hair. So at least this time, they really had the the fan blowing on Endora.

Brad Shreve:
And it's so funny.

Tony Maietta:
1st season. Yes. In

Brad Shreve:
this episode, Sam and Darren see Andorra and freak out, but also a passenger and one of the flight attendants. And it's so funny because nobody well, I think the passenger flies out. I'm not passes out. I'm not really sure.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
Flight attendant keeps trying to tell another flight attendant that Endora's out there and the other flight attendant said she's crazy. And then when Samantha pops out there, she goes, oh my god. There's 2 women on the wing. And, of course, they vanish before the second flight attendant looks.

Tony Maietta:
And it's like that episode of Twilight Zone. Right? When

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Exactly. Except this one wasn't trying

Tony Maietta:
Is it William Shatner Yes. Who sees the guy on the

Brad Shreve:
Except Endora wasn't trying to tear the wing apart. She wasn't that evil.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. She wasn't. But I do love in that episode the fur we just talked about from the first season with your wife when the first time we see Samantha and and Dora on a airplane wing, and then Samantha goes in the cockpit. And and Dora's last line is, it's the only way to fly.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Yes. So they land in Salem, and this is obviously a studio set, but it still looks pretty good at the beginning when they first land and they get to the hotel. And, and Endora is right riding on the back of the convertible sitting, you know, with the wind blown early. It really has nothing to do with story other than it's funny, and it was driving Darren crazy that she was doing that. What I love is when they get into Salem, Dick Wilson, who has regularly been on the show, I think he was on he was on 18 episodes of Bewitched as the drunk guy. He was either It's amazing. They bump into him on the sidewalk in New York or Darren.

Brad Shreve:
He was frequently sitting next to Darren after, I guess, Dave vanished.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Darren's drinky buddy. He's always in the bar.

Brad Shreve:
He's always in the bar.

Tony Maietta:
In the bar. Jail with Darren. Well It's he's a recurring character.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Drunk. Recurring. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
As they're getting up to the hotel in Salem, guess who is walking down the street? Dick Wilson He made it to Salem. Who many people know as mister Whipple. That drunk took quite the walk from New York City.

Tony Maietta:
He he did. He did.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, in addition to those 18 episodes, he did show up at least once, and I don't know if we're gonna get in this the the bad spin off. I don't know. I don't think we want to. But Tabitha, there was a Tabitha spin off that was pretty poor. He showed up on that episode as well. Mhmm. Well, they get there, and there's a sign of an ugly witch. And Endora and Samantha are immediately disgusted by this.

Brad Shreve:
And so, Indoora turns the ugly witch on the sign to a pretty witch. Looks like Samantha.

Tony Maietta:
Looks like Samantha.

Brad Shreve:
And the and the drunk guy sees that and figures out their witches right away. Mhmm. Of course, nobody believes him. Now, as Tony said, one of the things I really enjoyed about Salem that I didn't realize is the Hollywood Hills were in the background. And that's just not just a touch. You know, like, if you watch all episodes of Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, you well, Brady Bunch makes sense. But you can see touches of the Hollywood Hills here and there. They didn't even try to cover these up.

Tony Maietta:
It was They didn't play. Yeah. They didn't try at all. They didn't try at all. Yeah. They didn't which is odd because they were in Salem. I guess it was just too difficult for them to get, you know, live shots. They do a lot of process shots of Salem, but, yeah, like the House of 7 Gables, which they go to, they actually filmed them at the House of 7 Gables, but there's no it's not a long scene.

Tony Maietta:
You know what I mean? It's just them getting in their car.

Brad Shreve:
That was my guess because this is in front of the hotel that they're staying. I figured because they knew they were gonna do a lot more shots there. That's probably why they use the studio set.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah. It's easier too. More control.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Much much much easier for

Tony Maietta:
them. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
So Darren and Samantha decided to take a tour of the House of 7 Gables.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
And they're this show just made me wanna go to Salem so bad. And I'm mad when I was up in Massachusetts. I never went there. I'm gonna have to go someday.

Tony Maietta:
It's very cool city.

Brad Shreve:
But I really love this house.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
The exterior and the interior I I'm hoping the exterior interior was the same, which just grabbed me. But, anyway, as they're touring the house, you know, they're warned by the tour guide not to touch anything because it's all antique things. Well, as she's sitting there doing a discussion or a speech about the the room they were in, this bed warmer starts batting Samantha in the ass. She's looking around like she doesn't know what's hitting her. She keeps looking around, doesn't know what it is. Well, finally, she sees it's the bed pan acting on its own.

Tony Maietta:
Warmer. That's a big distinction that Samantha makes. It's a bed warmer, not a bed pan. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
When I told you I was gonna do this episode, I kept saying bed pan. And then I realized later, no. I meant bed warmer, and I was really happy later when Darren said bed pan.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Exactly.

Brad Shreve:
Samantha corrected him. So it's not just me. Yeah. So it's a bed warmer, which you put between the sheets to warm the bed before they went to bed. Mhmm. So this bed warmer keeps batting on Samantha. She finally turns around and realizes this thing has a conscience. It's moving on its own.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And she keeps catching it as it's starting to float in front of everybody, and the tour guide is yelling at her not to touch anything. And the first time, I don't get it because Samantha said it was about to fall off the wall. And the tour guide was very nasty.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
I think she just said, well, thank you. But then it keeps happening. And at one point, the the tour guide into the next room, and Samantha is still in the room where the bed warmer was, and it blocks the door. And she tries to go under it, it slides down, and she tries to go over it, it slides up. And going up, down, up, down, up, down, and, you know, Darren turns around and gets mad at her for playing around, which you would think Darren would know that's not what she would do. But, anyway, it doesn't matter.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
It's still fun. It's very funny to watch this thing going up and down. Well, the woman gets mad again and tells him one more time and you're gonna get tossed out. So the tour ends and, of course, the woman gives them a very she's saying smiling and saying goodbye to everybody, gives them a very nasty look. Samantha and Darren get into their convertible, and the bed warmer is in the back seat. And the woman realizes that the bed warmer is missing because one of the other tour guides tells her, and she immediately knows, ah, I know who stole it. Yeah. So she contacts the police.

Brad Shreve:
Well, the the drunk guy, Dick Wilson, sees him come back to the hotel, and the bed woman's banging on Darren. It doesn't like Darren. Apparently, no witch likes Darren. No. Occasionally, uncle Archer likes him. So Darren has to wrestle with this bed warmer. Samantha picks it up easily by the handle and takes it up to the room. Eventually, the police show up and they bang on the door.

Brad Shreve:
And they Samantha and Darren say they have no idea why they they don't even know where the bedpan is. They they don't know it wasn't them that stole it. And, of course, the bedpan comes out on its own. Darren has to admit that he stole it and he is sent to jail. And that is the end of that first episode. I'm gonna do just a really quick one because I didn't wanna get too in-depth into the second one. I do Let me

Tony Maietta:
just do a recap of what happens in the second one.

Brad Shreve:
I do think it's funny that it is mentioned in that episode that Indoora says that she Samantha brings up a thing that Indoora had a fling with sir Walter Raleigh. And she warns Indoora that she will tell daddy about this fling with Swaral to Riley. And one thing I love that we haven't touched on is Indoora and Maurice seemed to me like they were the first open marriage on television.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. They were. Yeah. Yeah. They you're absolutely I think you're right about that.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. You know, they're they're married. They don't like each other, but they love each other. But they're always on dates with other people.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I think when you live what's a witch's lifespan? A 1000 years or more? I think you're probably going to have an open marriage. Well, yeah. I mean, what the hell is gonna happen when Darren, you know, gets to be I mean, there's episodes about this, when Darren gets to be an old man and Samantha still looks like she's 37. I mean, it's just yeah. So I think they've they've gone their separate ways. There's still a lot of you know, there's still emotion involved between the 2, but they've gone their separate ways, and they do. They're probably television's first open marriage.

Brad Shreve:
I think so. It's funny that they got away with it. And you know it's only because they were witches. But Yes. I don't think anybody really caught it that well.

Tony Maietta:
So Nobody did. Nobody did. There's a whole different set of rules for the witches. Now the bed point warmer in part 2 turns out to be a warlock, correct, that is trapped in the bed warmer?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. He was trapped in the bed warmer by Serena. Of course.

Tony Maietta:
And Enter Serena.

Brad Shreve:
Well, first of all, this is where you really you know, they went back to Endora being this extremely powerful witch. Mhmm. Because Samantha wants to find out who turned this bed warmer into or who turned this man into a bed warmer because, as we know, not in every episode, one witch cannot undo a spell of another witch. Right. So in Dora at the Witches Council, which is always that clouded pink sky place that you really don't know where that is.

Tony Maietta:
Much of a convention.

Brad Shreve:
Mystical land.

Tony Maietta:
It's not much of a convention either. There's, like, what, maybe a dozen witches hanging out. I'm like, it's

Brad Shreve:
That was weird to me too. There were you know, as many witches as have come and gone,

Tony Maietta:
you would have thought there was a lot more. Maybe it was just an Nothing like the the the recent DNC convention.

Brad Shreve:
Maybe they maybe they bought a higher ticket for the pre party.

Tony Maietta:
Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. This was just there was a lull. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
So Samantha goes to Endora, who is running the show there, and she begs her to find out who it is. So Endora with the clouds and the lightning bolts and the thing that we used to see in the past, does this huge incantation, very powerful incantation to find out who it is. And it takes a while, but, eventually, we find out it was Serena. Serena goes back to Old Salem, it finds out this she and this guy were having a fling. And somebody came to Serena's door who I think she was having a fling with as well. So she quickly turned the man into a bedpan and she never changed him back. And that was really, so in the end, the bedpan is gone Mhmm. Because the man has been turned the bedpan was turned back into a man.

Brad Shreve:
Mhmm. And it comes up in the trial with the judge that the officers are saying that the bedpan was alive and moving on its own. So the judge is pretty much, we're done here, and tosses everything up. So that's how it ends.

Tony Maietta:
I'm glad you brought up Serena because, I don't think I'm doing any spoiler alerts here. In case I am, here's a spoiler alert. Elizabeth Montgomery plays Serena. I don't I I

Brad Shreve:
No. It was played by Pandora Spox.

Tony Maietta:
By Pandora Spox. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Now even though Serena made her very first appearance on Bewitched in the 2nd season when Tabitha was born, She wasn't credited as Pandora Spox until the 6th season.

Brad Shreve:
Interesting.

Tony Maietta:
That's when yeah. Isn't that funny? She was never credited. And then Elizabeth Montgomery had the fun idea of calling her Pandora Spox because it's a play on Pandora's box. Ah. And someone said, why don't you just call her Pandora's box? And Elizabeth Montgomery is like, well, there's no elegance in that. I'm come on.

Brad Shreve:
Never made that connection.

Tony Maietta:
Pandora's box, Pandora's box. And I actually prefer the original Serena. Serena was actually inspired by because Elizabeth Montgomery was getting bored. She's an actress and, you know, Samantha's wonderful, but it gets boring playing a good character all the time. She wanna play someone with a little more meat. In this in the first season, she had done, there was an episode where Endora, changed herself into Samantha so she could have a a fitting, a clothing fitting, and then she meets somebody and you can imagine what happens. So, basically, who pan who, and Serena is in the very first episodes is that same character. She's she's very elegant.

Tony Maietta:
She's very haughty. She's very much like Endora, except she's Elizabeth Montgomery. And then she became kind of a hippie kook. And I I prefer the older Serena, the elegant one, the one who seems a little haughtier and who's very, you know, it just above it all as opposed to this crazy hippie kook that Serena became. But still, it's a fun character.

Brad Shreve:
I never liked Serena just like I never liked Jeanie's sister. I don't like it when they have a character play a double. It just always has bothered me. Even Greenacres went there. Really drove me nuts.

Tony Maietta:
Well, but if it's gonna be a double, Elizabeth Montgomery did a does a great job. But, yeah, the characterization is is annoying at the and she's she's just the laugh, and I don't like her as the kook. I like her as the hottie Endora like character.

Brad Shreve:
When I picture Serena, I picture her playing with Larry's hair and calling him Cottontop.

Tony Maietta:
Cottontop? Cottontop.

Brad Shreve:
But I did like her in this episode. I was really surprised. I thought she was fun and funny. She is. She is. I'm like, wow. I like her. That's really weird.

Tony Maietta:
Alright. So let's move on to my, first episode for this Dick Sargent era, and it's from season 7. It's episode 18 to 18 in the series, and it's called The House That Uncle Arthur Built. It's from February 11, 1971. It's directed by Richard Michaels and written by Bernie Kahn, and here's the reason why I chose it. It's not necessarily a funny, great episode, but it is really interesting because the premise of the episode is and hold on to your phones everybody, Uncle Arthur has a girlfriend. Yes. Let me say that one more time.

Tony Maietta:
Uncle Arthur has a girlfriend Who's he kidding? Who he's trying to impress this pretentious new girlfriend named Aretha, who's played by the fabulous actress Barbara Rhodes, and she hates practical jokes. So

Brad Shreve:
Aretha is the witch Sheila.

Tony Maietta:
Kind of. Yeah. She is kinda. She's very pretentious. She's very haughty. She's always she's dressed in this Grecian outfit, and he she hates practical jokes. So uncle Arthur basically forswears himself. Is that the right word? He basically does a spell on himself to remove the practical jokes from his being and puts them in the walls of the Stevens house.

Tony Maietta:
Now that sounds pretty convoluted. It is actually funny, but that's not the thing. I mean, let's think about this for a minute and this is why I love this episode. We talked about earlier and I was joking about Bewitched is the gayest show on TV, but it is. Because what's happening in this episode is Arthur is suppressing an essential part of himself in order to please someone else. And we're gonna forget about the fact that he's in love with a woman because nobody buys that for a minute. But the large the larger theme that this is a person who is suppressing an an integral part of their personality in order to please other people is pretty damn amazing and pretty damn forward thinking. And when he announces to Samantha, first of all, that he's in love with this girl, she's a little dubious.

Tony Maietta:
She's like, really uncle Arthur girl? Really? You're in love with this woman? So he decides to get rid of his character, an essential part of himself in order to please her. So, I mean, how existential is that? I mean, you cannot you can't ignore the metaphor here for homosexuality, especially because it's Paul Lynde. You know what I mean? If it had been some butch character actor who's wants to get rid of his, you know, his his his his practical jokes. Okay. That's funny. But this is Paul Lynde. So you basically have the gayest character on television trying to change to please somebody else. And, of course, it doesn't work because as much as he tries to suppress his practical jokes, they keep coming out because you can't get rid of it, folks.

Tony Maietta:
It's part of you. It's in you. You know what I mean? So in the end, of course and this is also I wanna point out. This is 1971. So we're post Stonewall here. And in the end, of course, he can't do it. The practical jokes explode from the house. There's a whole subplot with a client of Darren's, which is just stupid, and I'm not gonna go into it because it's not important.

Tony Maietta:
The important part about this episode is is in the end, Arthur embraces his true self. Now, you have to read into that whatever you want to, but to me, it's pretty obvious and it's pretty damn amazing that this show is doing this. And Elizabeth Montgomery said, when they were she was talking about this episode, when she was talking about the witches are out, which we talked about briefly with Matt, which is basically about the suppression of a minority, that they were not on Bewitched. They weren't ignorant of the larger messages they were sending out in the world. They they were just they weren't intentional, but they weren't unaware of what they were saying. And I just think that's a tremendous tremendous episode. So watch this episode not necessarily for the plot, but for the amazing balls they had to basically have this theme, so close to, you know, Stonewall, so close to to the event that changed gay history.

Brad Shreve:
One thing that's funny to me is uncle Arthur was wanted to put away his jokester side. It's almost like he didn't even try. He couldn't even do it for 5 minutes.

Tony Maietta:
No. And isn't that amazing? I mean, how many you know, you grew up. I grew up. We both tried to play it straight at some point. We all all gay men. I don't think so. Maybe not anymore. I don't know.

Tony Maietta:
I'm not a kid, but at least from my generation. We all did in order to survive. We all had to we all had to pretend. We all had to be something that we were not. We all had to deny an integral part of ourselves, and it doesn't work. It does not work. Eventually, that closet door flies open and the jokes come flying out, at least for most people. I'm speaking of myself.

Tony Maietta:
Some people live in the closet, I'm sure. But, not Uncle Arthur and not this boy. I'll tell you right now.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. That was awesome. I never made that connection.

Tony Maietta:
Isn't it great? It's a great episode. I highly recommend watching it just for that. So what's your next episode, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
My next episode is one that I thought was a lot of fun. It has daddy, and I love Maurice Evans.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, Maurice Evans.

Brad Shreve:
So when we were looking for episodes, I'm like, I have got to find a Maurice Evans episode. And this one I really like is called a plague on Maurice and Samantha. Mhmm. It's from season 9 episode 9 from November of 1971. So this is towards the end of the series. Mhmm. And Samantha contracts one of the many illnesses that over the period of this show that makes her lose her her magic. And this show is really interesting to me, and I did look at the episode before this, but this episode starts right in the middle of the story.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. It does.

Brad Shreve:
And Doris shows up, and Samantha is trying to do a spell right there. And Doris shows up, and Samantha's like, I lost my magic. Doctor Bombay was here. Esmeralda showed up and did some spells to get me to get doctor Bombay here, and I've lost my magic. I mean, just there was no build up to it, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah. At this point, everybody gets it.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Exactly. So

Brad Shreve:
and Endora immediately is upset because what doctor Bombay told Samantha is that she lost her powers from living in the mortal world and stifling her magic. Mhmm. Now they already did a episode earlier this season or maybe the preview earlier this season with Maurice, and they talked about Adam's stifling Adam's magic. So this is kind of a we came back to it again.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
And so and Endora is furious. Samantha calms her down, and she says because Samantha says, you know, I may live with it. Doctor Bombay pointed out many hap happiest couples live without magic. And Endora goes, well, you might get used to it. Maybe even I could get used to it, but your father will never get used to it. Samantha's like, oh, my stars. Oh, my stars. So needless to say, that just happens to be one of the few times that Maurice actually shows up in the episode.

Brad Shreve:
Mhmm. And one of the great lines I absolutely love from this episode is he is quoting from Hamlet.

Tony Maietta:
As always. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
As always, he's very

Tony Maietta:
King Lear. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Brad Shreve:
He's quoting from Hamlet. He gets out of his car and and tells the driver, Yorik, that he can leave. And before the before Yorik drives away, he coughs. Marie says, alas poor Yorik, he is not well.

Tony Maietta:
That's cute. That's very cute.

Brad Shreve:
I love bad puns, and that one that one worked for me. Made me laugh a lot.

Tony Maietta:
That was bad. That's very fun. That's very fun.

Brad Shreve:
So anyway, he shows up, and Endora is gonna play a she Endora does a spell on Samantha to make it look like she got her magic back. So daddy doesn't get upset.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And, unfortunately, Darren walks in and says, oh, Samantha got her magic back? And Maurice goes, what? Maurice is so angry, he decides to turn Darren into a leaping lizard. And he raises his hands and points his fingers, and guess what happens, Tony?

Tony Maietta:
Doing. Doing. Yes. That Nothing happens.

Brad Shreve:
That famous my magic didn't work spring.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
And so daddy lost his powers as well. Doctor Bombay shows up and says he realizes now that Samantha did not lose her powers because she lives with a mortal. That she has the rare disease, perimary dictovitis. And I love doctor Bombay's diseases that he always comes up with.

Tony Maietta:
That is a great that's a great disease.

Brad Shreve:
Perimary dictovitis. And I don't even know if he he's he said he'll have to find a cure for it and that nobody should touch her or kiss her.

Tony Maietta:
Tada.

Brad Shreve:
And Maurice kissed his daughter when he showed up. So that's why he got it back. Doctor Bombay said, you know, it could be days, it could be years before we find out what happens. Well, it cuts to the next morning, and you think that Maurice is gonna be distraught or furious, and Dora is beside herself. She feels so bad for Maurice.

Tony Maietta:
I thought that's so funny. She's so distraught over this.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
She's so distraught over Maurice's illness, if you will.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. She just is just awful, awful. She has so much pity on him. Samantha is concerned as well. Maurice just kinda marches into the kitchen and says, I did the most remarkable thing. I shaved with a razor. It made my face tingle. He's like, this is kinda cool.

Tony Maietta:
That's yes. That's what I love about this episode is he's having a he's having a good time. He's having a little adventure.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. He's like, I wanna see how the other half works.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. Yes. Yes. It's wonderful.

Brad Shreve:
He says, I wanna see how the other half lives.

Tony Maietta:
It's wonderful. It's wonderful. He's he's having a real adventure with this.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. And so he says to Darren, I'm going to go with you to work, my young man. And Darren says no. And when Maurice says, this wasn't the question. It was a demand. Darren says, you have no powers. You can't force anything on me. Mhmm.

Brad Shreve:
Well, Maurice says, we'll see. And he walks out into the living room. And earlier, he had given Endora a sword as part of a joke. And he walks back in with the short sword, puts it to Darren's neck, and says, I'm going with you. And Darren says, okay.

Tony Maietta:
Well, that's it. It doesn't Dick Sarge just seem to be argumentative for no reason. I don't I don't understand that. Dick York was oh, yes. Dick York can get frustrated, but there's always a reason. Dick Sargeant is just irritated. He reminds me of Valerie Harper in the last two seasons of Rowa. He's just annoyed by everything.

Tony Maietta:
You you take your father-in-law to work. What's the big deal? Why are you so annoyed by this? And I you just don't get any any there's no joy in this man. And he why is he still in this marriage? There's no joy in this man's performance.

Brad Shreve:
No. And he's he's not just frustrated. He's bitter as we said earlier.

Tony Maietta:
He is.

Brad Shreve:
He's just bitter man.

Tony Maietta:
He's a bitter old queen.

Brad Shreve:
Where I think it worked better with him because, you know, uncle Arthur and Darren kinda had this love hate relationship. They kinda got along as buddies.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
Just like, aunt Clara got along with Darren. Of course, aunt Clara wasn't around at this point. But Darren and aunt Clara, he had a love for aunt aunt Clara even though she drove him crazy. Mhmm. And even in this episode, once Maurice kinda settled down, they cut along a little bit. I liked that part of him. I think he was good at that. But he was really bitter.

Brad Shreve:
Just yeah. He wasn't a very happy man.

Tony Maietta:
No. He's just not happy at all. That's what I don't understand about him.

Brad Shreve:
So they get to Darren's office at McMahon and Tate, and Darren's secretary number 2,010 shows up. And Maurice is flirting with her, of course. Yeah. And Larry comes in, and they're talking about Benjie's chili concardi.

Tony Maietta:
Chili concarne.

Brad Shreve:
Chili concarne. Yes. And Maurice has never had chili concarne. Mhmm. Conarne. And Darren's saying they're having a problem coming up with a campaign for it. And so Reese says, maybe I can come up with something. And Darren says, well, I'll give you a pad and paper, and you can come up with something.

Brad Shreve:
And Maurice was says, I have I haven't tasted it.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And Darren says, you don't have to taste the chili to sell it. And Reese says, that doesn't seem logical. And, of course, Larry T says, logic has nothing to do with advertising. God.

Tony Maietta:
Such a madman. It reminds me I mean, in hindsight, it's just madman for sitcomes. You know?

Brad Shreve:
So while this is going on, Samantha at home, doctor Bombay shows up. He's wearing a, space outfit. I don't remember what he said he was doing, but something crazy again with another one of his actually, this time, he said it was an assistant.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Not his nurse.

Brad Shreve:
He's he's happy it was an assistant who's a woman. Mhmm. So he tells Samantha that she needs to go to the apothecary. And Samantha says, well, why don't you or or Andorra goes? And he says the apothecary says that you need to go. Yeah. And so she goes, it's Kurt Bernie Coppell. He was in 9 episodes as the apothecary. Is it? He's the one that showed up as a doctor on Love Boat.

Brad Shreve:
I liked him much better in Bewitched than I did in Love Boat.

Tony Maietta:
The horny he was horny in both of them.

Brad Shreve:
Oh, my lord. Yes. And he is a really horny old man Yeah. Or a horny old warlock, I should say. So inappropriate. Always chasing Samantha around the table. Yeah. So she gets the cure and she goes back home.

Brad Shreve:
Now Maurice tries this chili and loves it. And the client, who's another disgruntled client, isn't happy with Darren's campaign, which I don't remember what it was. It was awful. Just as always. Just as always. Well, Maurice's isn't much better. Maurice does one of his great monologues quoting from Robert Browning when he's talking about how much he loves this chili. And the guy says, oh, I love Browning.

Brad Shreve:
And Maurice says, exactly as I dictated it to him.

Tony Maietta:
That's funny. That's very funny.

Brad Shreve:
But they but they quickly move on from that. And Maurice says the campaign is that the man should be in a big home, sitting with his butler coming up and something like, take away the caviar and bring me Benjie's chili con carne.

Tony Maietta:
Chili con carne.

Brad Shreve:
And, of course, the client loves it.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Of course.

Brad Shreve:
And Maurice saves the day again. And in the end, Reese gets his magic back and every all is good.

Tony Maietta:
There's a very tender moment at the end between he and Endora, though. Do you remember that episode of that,

Brad Shreve:
I don't remember the words. Well, what happened? That that's what made me think about it because it is one of those times when they are cozy.

Tony Maietta:
They're cozy, and he kisses her. And she loses her powers because he hasn't taken the antidote yet. But That's right. And so she comes and he kissed me. He hasn't taken the antidote yet. But in the end, he takes the antidote and he has saved just enough for Endora to take it. And so she has she drinks her part of the antidote, and everybody's back to normal again. And they go off together somewhere, which is really kinda sweet.

Tony Maietta:
I love that. And I like this episode a lot. You know, I

Brad Shreve:
Yep. I like it. I think it was a real good display of Maurice.

Tony Maietta:
It was.

Brad Shreve:
I think it was fun. I think it showed the love hate relationship between between everyone, including Darren.

Tony Maietta:
This was one of those later season episodes, that we talked about last time, which I actually really liked. There's a couple episodes in the final season, which actually are pretty good. They're they're not remakes. They are original episodes. And, yes, this Samantha's always losing her powers because she's around morals too much and blah blah blah and all this stuff. But it was actually this one was nice. I really enjoyed this. I liked the fact that Maurice Evans went to work with Darren, and I thought it was a really I thought it was a good episode.

Tony Maietta:
It was definitely one of the better ones of the final year. As I feel about my next episode, which is also from season 8, episode 10, number 238 in the series, and it's called Hansel and Gretel in Samantha Land. And And it's from November 11, 1971, and it really is a lot of fun. It's written by Michael Morris and directed by Richard Michaels. And what happens is is that, Samantha is reading Tabitha and Adam a story from a storybook, and it's Hansel and Gretel. And they're having the Tate's over for dinner. So Samantha leaves Tabitha and Adam to finish the story to by themselves, and Tabitha pops Hansel and Gretel out of the storybook into reality. And, of course, they don't know what the hell is going on.

Tony Maietta:
All they know is they're hungry. So Tabitha brings them you know, she twitches up, the leg of lamb that the Stevens were making for them to eat, but they're still hungry, they're ravenous. So Tabitha pops herself into the story book and Samantha finds out and Samantha has to pop herself into the story book, which is so much fun, because now we're in a totally different universe. We're in this story book and we have to deal with these story book characters, and what I love about this episode is these story book characters are hysterical. First of all, you have the Hansel and Gretel witch who was played by Billy Hayes. Now, I don't know if you know who Billy Hayes was, but did you ever watch as a kid, did you ever watch a TV show called HR Puff and Stuff?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. I was gonna try and cut you off so I could steal your thunder.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Billy Hayes was witchy poo.

Tony Maietta:
She was witchy poo.

Brad Shreve:
I did remember it. And when I saw her, I'm like, oh my god. That's witchy poo.

Tony Maietta:
She was also in Lidsville. She played in that TV show Lidsville. She's so funny. She's such an ornery witch in this, and she does not like Samantha because Samantha's a real witch.

Brad Shreve:
Wait a minute. Wasn't Charles Nelson Reilly in

Tony Maietta:
He was in Lidsville as well. Yeah. He was in Lidsville. Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
He was something else.

Tony Maietta:
Billy Hayes actually guest starred an episode of Tabitha too, which is kinda Ah. Kinda weird. Anyway, so Samantha goes looking for Tabitha. Of course, Tabitha is trapped inside the witch's house. She's gonna cook her because Hansel and Gretel have disappeared. She doesn't realize that she's in there, so she's sent on her way and she comes up against Hansel and Gretel's stepmother. So here's another thing that's so funny about it. The actress who plays Hansel and Gretel's stepmother is Bobo Lewis.

Tony Maietta:
And, basically, she's Hansel and Gretel's Jewish stepmother. These these these actors are like they're doing a borscht belt skit. It is so funny. It's so it's just it's out there. It's outrageous and it's a real fun change of pace episode. You know, at the end of the Samantha realizes she's been tricked by the witch. She goes back to the witch and she's, like, you know what? You may be you're a storybook witch. I'm a real witch, so you better watch it.

Tony Maietta:
And she turns her into a good fairy, which, of course, the witch hates. So Tabitha gets out. Everybody, you know, everybody pops back into the real world, but now they gotta find Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel have escaped. And one of my favorite scenes is Darren is out looking for Hansel and Gretel, and he comes upon his gay neighbor. Now I'm just saying he's his gay neighbor because he's in these tight white jeans washing his car, and he's got this handlebar mustache. And he give boy, does he give Dick Sargent the once over when Dick Sargent walks away. And I'm like, the Stevens have a gay neighbor.

Tony Maietta:
It's just it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of it's a very fun episode. I love the fact that once again we're in the logic of Bewitched, and you learn that storybook witches have limited powers compared with real witches. But they're still to be feared because storybook witches are real bitches. And that's what happens in this episode. It's a fun episode. It's a really fun episode.

Brad Shreve:
Well, one interesting thing is the witch does tell Tabitha that she's more powerful than she is. Because Tabitha does a little thing where she

Tony Maietta:
because Tabitha's a little witch.

Brad Shreve:
And Yeah. Because she's a young witch. That's what just that's why Tabitha couldn't get away.

Tony Maietta:
That's why Tabitha couldn't get away. Because she's yes. Because the storybook which is more powerful than little Tabitha. But, you know, we didn't talk about Tabitha and Adam. I think this is a good point to talk about them because Tabitha was played by by twins when she was a very little baby. And then once the 3rd season, the actresses who played Tabitha were Erin and Diane Murphy, which I think a lot of people know who the the adorable blonde, chill beautiful, beautiful little girls. And then after season 4, it was exclusively played by Erin Murphy.

Brad Shreve:
They weren't weren't looking as alike anymore.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. They don't yeah. Because they were fraternal. They weren't identical. But there was one episode in season 5 where, Aaron Murphy had the mumps. So Diane had to play Tabitha, and you can immediately tell because they don't look alike at all. That's it's really funny. So watch that.

Tony Maietta:
It's called Samantha fights city hall, and Tabitha doesn't look much like Tabitha. And Adam was played by twins David Lawrence and Greg Lawrence. Their real last name was Mandel, and they claimed here's something for you. They claimed in the nineties, they were on Vicki Lawrence's talk show, And they claimed in the nineties that their biological father was Tony Curtis. Oh. And if you look at these twins, they look like Tony Curtis. It it real it's very funny. I don't know if it's true or not.

Tony Maietta:
He never claimed them, but they look like Tony Kermit. So they they could be Jamie Lee Curtis' stepbrothers playing the Stevens set playing Adam.

Brad Shreve:
Interesting. I didn't know that. I'll have to go back. I've watched some episodes with them, but I don't remember that at all.

Tony Maietta:
They yes. Adam looks a lot like a little Tony Curtis. So I I I kinda believe them. I kinda believe them. But, anyway, it's a very fun episode.

Brad Shreve:
If you watch interviews with Erin Murphy, she looks back really fondly on this show.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
She has nothing but great stories to tell and just she just beams when she talks about it.

Tony Maietta:
Well, she yes. She adored Elizabeth Montgomery, you know. I think that that's that was pretty that's pretty clear. And, yeah. And what a beautiful what a beautiful girl. What a beautiful woman. Oh, yeah. It's a shame that she grew up into Lisa Hartman.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, we're not gonna talk about Tabitha, the the sequel, you know, but she was adore she was an adorable little girl, and just a wonderful little actress. A wonderful little actress.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, she was.

Tony Maietta:
And she looked like a mini Elizabeth Montgomery. It's crazy how much she looked like Elizabeth Montgomery.

Brad Shreve:
She really did. She looks she definitely looked like her daughter.

Tony Maietta:
So that's my that's my second episode, but I do we do have a special mention, ladies and gentlemen. It's important. There's a very special episode, a very special episode about Bewitched that we're gonna wrap up with because it's probably one of the most famous. It's from season 7 episode 13, episode 213 in the series, and it's called Sisters at Heart. And it's from December 24, 1970.

Brad Shreve:
Groundbreaking.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. It was written by William Asher and Barbara Avedon and directed by William Asher. But what you just said groundbreaking. Why is it groundbreaking, Brad?

Brad Shreve:
Because it had to do with racism, and it was actually written by a school of black children.

Tony Maietta:
That's right. That's right. The story goes that, a teacher at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles had a 10th grade English class. Her name was Marcela Saunders. And her students were struggling with reading and writing, but they were passionate, bewitched fans. I love that they were passionate, bewitched fans. And so she decided to incorporate some of the bewitched scripts into her lessons. And then she wrote the studio and told them the story of what was happening, and Elizabeth Montgomery and Bill Asher invited the students to the set.

Tony Maietta:
They covered their transportation, and they they watched the filming. And then the students went back to school and developed this story for the series, which addressed racism. In the story, Tabitha is excited about having a new, quote, air quotes, sister to play with, and it's, the the daughter of one of Darren's coworkers, Lisa Wilson, and she's black. And she comes to stay with the Stevens over Christmas while her father and mother are off traveling for work. They have to go meet a client on Christmas Eve. Thank you, Larry Tate. And, of course, Darren's client, through some misunderstanding, comes to the door and Lisa answers the door, and she and Tabitha are pretending to be sisters. They're calling each other sisters.

Tony Maietta:
And, of course, Lisa says to Darren's client, his name is mister Brockway, that Tabitha is my sister. So the client immediately thinks, oh, Darren is married to a black woman. He hasn't met Samantha. Samantha's not there. So it's this kind of misunderstanding. And what happens is is that Brockway drops Darren from his account at McMahon and Tate, and they're not sure why. And Tabitha wants to be a real sister with Lisa, and she's told by some little bitch at the park that they can't be real sisters because they're not the same color. So, of course, Tabitha Hey.

Tony Maietta:
So they have matching polka dots. So they they are sisters at heart. And that's what Samantha says to them. She says, you don't have to look alike to be sisters. Sisters share more than a mother and a father. They share love. They share good feelings. And it's just a really warm it's a really wonderful little episode and it's really warm.

Tony Maietta:
And it I think it it is historic because it it dresses racism in a very interesting way. I mean, this was 1970, so All in the Family had not premiered yet. All in the Family was gonna premiere the following January, the next month. So it's really brave of Bewitched to tackle this. Plus, what a heartwarming story Mhmm. Of how it all came about. Don't you think so?

Brad Shreve:
I do think so. Reminds me of the Sneetches.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's a it's a lovely episode. I highly recommend watching it, you know, for the historic aspects of it. It won a special Emmy award, the governor's award at the 23rd Primetime Emmy Awards in 1970. So it's a wonderful episode. It was actually Elizabeth Montgomery's favorite episode ever.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. It's it's an awesome episode. Definitely watch it. Yeah. I wanna say a couple things before we go. 1st, I wanna talk about Dick Sargent coming out of the closet. As we as you said, he came out in 1991 on National Coming Out Day. The first time I don't know how soon after that this was.

Brad Shreve:
The first time I saw Dick Sargent and realized he was gay is he showed up on an episode of Donahue. Yeah. And he not only showed up on the episode, he was dressed up in all leather like a Tom of Finland model. An older Tom of Finland model, but he's wearing the whole leather garment. He was in the leather scene. And I think Elizabeth Montgomery was with him. I can't remember for sure. Mhmm.

Brad Shreve:
And typical of Donahue, you know, Donahue was very gay friendly and very compassionate to the LGBTQ community. Mhmm. But sometimes they were a little on display too much. Mhmm. So there were people that were kind of bitter at him. There were people that supported him. But that what I remember watching that and thinking, oh. Mhmm.

Brad Shreve:
Because I wasn't out yet. Mhmm. And I I was so excited to see that. Just so excited.

Tony Maietta:
It was an incredibly brave thing to do. Incredibly brave.

Brad Shreve:
An incredibly brave thing to do. And then the next year, the West Hollywood Pride parade

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Dick Sargent and Elizabeth Montgomery were the grand marshals.

Tony Maietta:
No wonder.

Brad Shreve:
That's just awesome.

Tony Maietta:
No wonder we love Elizabeth Montgomery so much. I mean, think about that. This 1992, she Yes. Is sitting proudly with her friend, Dick Sargent. Now I'm yeah. Like I said, I I may not be a big fan of Dick Sargent, the actor, but I'm a big fan of Dick Sargent, the person, and the bravery he showed at this very, very difficult time. Don't forget AIDS was at its height in the early nineties, and there was a lot of hate out there.

Brad Shreve:
So Yeah. 1994 was the highest rate of AIDS cases in the nation.

Tony Maietta:
Right. So, I mean, what bravery this man showed? And what bravery and integrity did Elizabeth Montgomery show standing next to her friend and riding in this parade with him. So, yes, beautiful a beautiful kind of ending to that relationship. Unfortunately, Dick Sargent died not long afterwards. He but he died of pantser. He did not die of AIDS. Many people said, incorrectly he died of AIDS. Not that it matters, but he died in 94 from from prostate cancer.

Tony Maietta:
I didn't say that. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And it's interesting why they would think that because it was 1994 that I just found when there were so many AIDS deaths.

Tony Maietta:
Cancer visited

Brad Shreve:
But, yeah, it was prostate cancer.

Tony Maietta:
Cancer visited the cast of Bewitched quite a bit. Agnes Moorehead died in 1974 of cancer, not long after Bewitched ended. Bewitched ended in 1972. And she died in 1974. She was one of the many people who worked on the John Wayne film The Conqueror in 1956. And John Wayne also died of cancer, and they also believe that many of the people who died who were on this film were exposed to radioactive fallout. So, there's a big question about that, about did this cause these people to die. But, you know, when Bewitched ended and it was time for Bewitched to end, the the Montgomery Asher marriage was was ending.

Tony Maietta:
And so they do have a contract to go to the 10th year, and they stopped at their 8th. They had the power in their contract to say yes or no. First, Elizabeth Montgomery said she would do a 9th season, and then she said, no. I'm not gonna do a 9th season. So their production company provided shows to replace Bewitched, which was in their contract, one of which being the Paul Lynde Show, which unfortunately didn't make it. But the marriage had been showing the strains really since the 6th year. So not long after Bewitched ended, they divorced again in 1974. And Elizabeth Montgomery, you know, we always think of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, as a sweet, wonderful person, but I think Elizabeth Montgomery had a lot more of Serena in her than Samantha.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, when you think about it, this was a woman who had who had, obviously, had very deep and strong passions. All you have to do is look at her post Bewitched career. I talked a little bit about this in the first episode. The legend of Lizzie Borden. She gives a chilling performance as Lizzie Borden. In fact, this is kinda weird. After she made the legend of Lizzie Borden, she insisted everybody call her Lizzie. Oh.

Tony Maietta:
She was not Elizabeth anymore. She was Lizzie. And she was, allegedly distantly related to Lizzie Borden. She did the legend of Lizzie Borden, A Case of Rape. These are all Emmy nominations. A Case of Rape, which was a very bold film, a TV film. She kind of became the queen of the TV movie. The Awakening Land, she did a a version of Dark Victory.

Tony Maietta:
So she was very busy. She was a very busy, movie actress and she made sure that all of her post Bewitched roles were varied like this. And she married Robert Foxworth in 1993 and unfortunately, she also died of cancer. She she died of colon cancer on May 8, 1995. And we lost a true angel. God called her back, as I believe he does with people who he loves. He's like, it's time for you to be with me because you've been enchanting these people for far too long.

Brad Shreve:
I think that's a good thing to end on.

Tony Maietta:
I think that is too. I think that is too. This was so much fun. So much fun to do this, and thank you everybody for indulging us in our Bewitched marathons. Thank you, Brad, for indulging me in this. I didn't I don't know that you quite knew what you were taking on when I said, let's celebrate Bewitched, the 60th birthday.

Brad Shreve:
I was excited, but as I said, I didn't know how I was gonna pick 4 episodes out of that series that I like. And I'm not gonna say I picked the my favorite ones. I picked those that I liked really well that I felt fit the show.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. I agree with you, Ike.

Brad Shreve:
And had characters like well, some of them are my most favorite. So we have some great episodes coming up, and soon we have October. And what's what's October known for, Tony?

Tony Maietta:
Well, kind of in our bewitched mode here. We're gonna be talking we're gonna be discussing our favorite Halloween or, quote, unquote, scary movies. Now I wanted to do I wanted to do Valley of the Dolls, but Brad went, that's not a scary movie. I'm like, well, it is a scary movie, but I get what you're saying.

Brad Shreve:
It's scary in a different way. I'd like to do it sometime, but no. No. We already have a list

Tony Maietta:
We do.

Brad Shreve:
Including one that a a listener asked us to do.

Tony Maietta:
Yes.

Brad Shreve:
So we'll we'll we'll get to that.

Tony Maietta:
I'm very excited about that.

Brad Shreve:
And,

Tony Maietta:
so, yeah. So stay tuned for those episodes coming up. Yeah. That's all. I

Brad Shreve:
And it goes to say these are classics, not Freddy or Jason.

Tony Maietta:
No. No. Classic classic scary, quote, unquote movies. So, Brad, I guess there's nothing left to say, but you know what? I don't really wanna say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's just say.

Brad Shreve:
No. Let's say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Well?

Brad Shreve:
Oh, my stars.