Laugh and the World Laughs With You

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In the episode of Bewitched that aired 45 years ago tonight, "Laugh, Clown, Laugh," Darrin (Dick Sargent) was under the gun, as it were, to appease a client of his advertising agency who, it was believed, was on the verge of taking his account somewhere else.

As so often happened, his mother–in–law, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), showed up while he was working at home, and she was offended by what she regarded as his brusque behavior. She felt he had no sense of humor — so later at his office she popped (unseen, as the witches in Bewitched were wont to be) in and cast a spell on him that made him tell jokes at inappropriate times.

With a truly humorless client — and his wife — coming in, it is safe to say it was neither the time nor the place for jokes — even good ones but especially not bad ones. And Darrin's jokes were bad.

Some reinforced the old saying that many a truth is said in jest. For example, on the subject of mothers–in–law, Darrin said, "My mother–in–law has one terrible habit. ... Breathing."

Paging Rodney Dangerfield.

The client, as I say, was a humorless sort. He already thought Darrin wasn't serious enough to handle his account. That impression hardened when Darrin came into a meeting with the client and his boss (David White) telling bad jokes.

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His boss sent him home on the pretense that he wasn't feeling well. He then tried to pitch Darrin's ideas to the client himself, but Darrin left with the sketches for his advertising ideas.

While he was at home, Darrin and Endora interacted again, and Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) implored Endora to take the spell off Darrin. Reluctantly, she did so, but after Darrin was summoned back to the office and he was out of Samantha's sight, Endora put a new spell on him: He would no longer tell jokes, but now he would laugh whenever he heard something sad or terrible. In fact, according to Endora's spell, the worse it was, the more he would laugh.

So Darrin decided not to return to the office. After all, the client ran an insurance company, and it was introducing a new line of policies to protect people from the scourge of pollution.

It was a recipe for disaster, but, of course, the mere mention of the word disaster was enough to have Darrin in stitches.

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His boss, meanwhile, had decided to bring the client and his wife to Darrin. The client had decided to take an early flight home, apparently having decided (but not confirmed) that he would be changing advertising agencies — and Darrin's boss volunteered to take them to the airport.

Since Darrin's house was kind of on the way to the airport, they would swing by to meet with him. It would give him one last opportunity to save the account.

"I thought you said he was sick," the client said.

"He is," Darrin's boss said, "but he's not unconscious."

So they went to Darrin's house — and Darrin and Samantha, with some fast thinking, persuaded the client to use a humorous approach to advertisements for a serious product.

Endora was foiled again.

Silliness for Adults

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When I was a boy and I watched episodes of Bewitched, one of my favorite characters was Uncle Arthur. He was played by Paul Lynde, who was kind of like his generation's version of Robin Williams, I guess — kind of manic.

They were different personalities, of course, Robin Williams and Paul Lynde, and I can't say that I know much about Paul Lynde outside of his work on Bewitched and, later, Hollywood Squares — although I do know that he made guest appearances on many TV shows in the '60s and '70s. He made 10 appearances in all on Bewitched, the first time as Samantha's rather jittery driving instructor. He was so well received that the character of Uncle Arthur was written especially for him.

Forty–five years ago tonight, Paul Lynde made his final appearance on Bewitched.

I don't know if he did much standup, or how spontaneous his wisecracks were. He had some salty one–liners on Hollywood Squares, always delivered in Lynde's signature snarky style.

Uncle Arthur was a practical joker, but in the episode that debuted on this night in 1971, "The House That Uncle Arthur Built," Uncle Arthur was in love with a witch who didn't like practical jokes — so Uncle Arthur gave Samantha's house custody of all his practical jokes. He was going on the wagon.

In the process a torrent of practical jokes was unleashed on Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Darrin (Dick Sargent) — and anyone who happened to be in the house. That could be kind of difficult to explain.

The house, it seemed, simply could not stop. For Uncle Arthur, it was a funhouse (complete with a barrel full of monkeys). For Samantha and Darrin, it was a house of horrors — especially when one of Darrin's clients came over with his wife.

And Samantha was incapable of doing anything about it. As devotees of Bewitched knew, there was a weird kind of Wiccan logic to the rules for witches. One rule was that a witch could not interfere in the spells cast by another witch. Uncle Arthur was the one who cast the spell, and he was the only one who could remove it.

With some witches, like doddery old Aunt Clara, it was merely a nuisance. Like as not, she had forgotten the spell and, therefore, could not reverse it.

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But, as I say, that was merely annoying.

Uncle Arthur and certain other witches, like Samantha's mother and cousin, would refuse to reverse spells. That went beyond annoying.

As was often the case with Bewitched, the story was silly, slapstick, strictly for laughs. That alone should tell you what things were like when Darrin's client and his wife came over.

As a child, I found it entertaining. And sometimes I think that adults still need some of that silliness in their lives. Lord knows, there's plenty of another kind of silliness in adults' lives. We need something to balance it out.

Yes, Paul Lynde reminds me a lot of Robin Williams. They both would do or say just about anything — to get a laugh. If all else failed, Lynde would lapse into his rather nervous laugh, and you couldn't help laughing with him. Darned if you knew what you were laughing about, though ...

I guess that wasn't really an issue with Robin Williams. I always knew what I was laughing at with him. Lynde was far more ambiguous in that sense. His humor was less topical, more physical. Slapstick.

But he served the purpose. He brought that silliness into the lives of the viewers.

Good thing, too.

Dining on Integrated Turkey

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We all get busy with other things at this time of the year, don't we? Sometimes to the exclusion of things we really want to do as opposed to those things that we feel we must do or that we feel obligated to do. Funny thing about obligations. People don't always put a priority on the right one.

Well, yesterday (Christmas Eve) was such a day for me. I got busy with other things and entirely neglected to write about something that I have been intending to write about — a special Christmas episode of the Bewitched television series that premiered 45 years ago yesterday.

Better late than never, I suppose.

It was called "Sisters at Heart," and the story was written by some two dozen black high school students in South Los Angeles after they paid a visit to the Bewitched set at the invitation of series star Elizabeth Montgomery and her director and husband William Asher. It dealt with racism and prejudice at a time when that was rarely addressed on television.

It was about a black co–worker of Darrin's (who was played by this time by Dick Sargent) and his family. The co–worker was about to leave on a business trip, and his wife was going with him. They were going to leave their daughter with the Stephenses while they were away, and they brought her over to the Stephens home prior to their departure.

That was terrific as far as Tabitha (Erin Murphy), the Stephenses' daughter, was concerned. The two girls were friends, and Tabitha liked the idea of having a sister, albeit temporarily. Tabitha, as children do, latched on to the idea and started telling people that she and her house guest were sisters. Her friend played along with the game.

Anyway, while the other girl and her parents were in the house, another visitor dropped by. He was the owner of a toy company, and Darrin had been trying to win his advertising account. The visitor's unannounced arrival was deliberate; the goal was to find out if Darrin had any secrets he wanted to conceal.

Samantha was busy with her youngest child when he arrived so he only met the wife of Darrin's colleague, her daughter and Tabitha. Tabitha's friend told the visitor (Parley Baer) that she and Tabitha were sisters. Based on their brief conversation, his assumption was that it was a biracial marriage. It turned out he was a racist, and he wanted Darrin removed from the account.

Tabitha also told a child in the park that she and her friend were sisters, but the child told her they couldn't be sisters because their skin colors were different. Tabitha decided to resolve that and cast a spell on the two, giving them polka dots. When Samantha discovered what Tabitha had done, she insisted that Tabitha reverse the spell, which she tried to do but could not. The reason why was unclear until Samantha deduced that Tabitha didn't really want to reverse the spell because she wanted the two girls to remain sisters.

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When Samantha explained to the girls that they didn't have to look alike to be sisters, Tabitha was able to reverse the spell.

The spell, of course, blew the cover on the Stephens family secret about Samantha and Tabitha being witches — but only to Tabitha's friend, not her parents or the owner of the toy company.

At a Christmas party at the Stephens house, Darrin's boss told him that the owner of the toy company wanted him removed from the account. During the party, the owner of the toy company realized his mistake, that it was not a biracial marriage, and he told Darrin's boss (David White) that it was OK for Darrin to work on the account after all.

When Samantha learned why Darrin had been rejected initially, she decided to teach the toy company owner a lesson and cast a spell on him. He saw everyone in the house as black — himself included when he looked in the mirror.

On Christmas Day, he returned to the Stephens home. The black family was visiting, and the toy company owner apologized to them all for his bigotry and expressed remorse for his racism.

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His apology was accepted, and he was invited to share Christmas dinner with them. "We're having integrated turkey," Samantha told him, "white and dark meat."

Montgomery said it was her favorite Bewitched episode, and it isn't hard to understand why. Bewitched was about dealing with prejudice — the prejudice of the mortal world against the wiccan one — and Montgomery opened and closed the episode by telling the audience the episode "was created in the true spirit of Christmas ... conceived in the image of innocence and filled with truth."

In Bewitched, witches were a put–down minority. But all minorities are not — pardon the pun — created equally.

I suppose racism and wiccaphobia (if such a word exists) aren't entirely comparable. I mean, one can't easily conceal one's race — the way, for example, one can conceal (although not always easily) one's sexual orientation. Consequently, I guess wiccaphobia has more in common with homophobia than racism — Bewitched often proved as much in the characters' efforts to hide Samantha's wiccan abilities.

But the argument can be made that prejudice is prejudice, whether it is on the basis of things that are seen or things that are unseen (or, perhaps, assumed).

Precisely because prejudice and bigotry were hardly ever addressed on TV before 1971, when All in the Family made its debut and made social relevance a key component of TV, "Sisters at Heart" was almost unique in its approach to its topic. Ironically, in these politically correct times, it would probably be viewed as insensitive if it premiered today because some of the characters appear in blackface.

As it so often is with political correctness, that is a classic case of failing to see the forest for the trees.

In the Twinkling of an Eye -- or the Twitching of a Nose

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Jack (Will Ferrell): So were your parents in the witch business?

Isabel (Nicole Kidman): Both of them. My mother fixed the 1986 World Series.

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I had pretty high hopes when I heard that a movie based on the Bewitched TV series was being made. I was a fan of that show when I was a child, and I have admired Nicole Kidman (who was tapped to play Elizabeth Montgomery's role) for many years.

Now, I'm not really a fan of movies based on TV shows. Occasionally, they turn out OK, but mostly I have found them to be huge disappointments. It's fair to say that my enthusiasm for the Bewitched movie was tempered.

But I like Nicole Kidman in much the same way that I liked the original Samantha. I thought she was a good fit for the role.

You know what? I still do. I had other issues with the movie. So did film critic Roger Ebert, who conceded that he didn't watch much prime–time TV and had never seen an episode of Bewitched. "When you see 500 movies a year," he wrote, "you don't have a lot of left–over yearning for watching television. In the evenings, you involve yourself in more human pursuits."

Ebert found the movie "tolerably entertaining," and so did I. Since much of it incorporated scenes from episodes of the original series — sometimes word for word, as I recall — I gather he would have found the series entertaining as well. But he had the same problem with the movie that I had — it threw together too many scenes from episodes of the series that had no unifying theme or context — other than whatever flimsy pretense was used to loosely link things together.

"Many of its parts work," he observed, "although not together. Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman are funny and likable, but they're in a plot that doesn't allow them to aim for the same ending with the same reason. It's one of those movies where you smile and laugh and are reasonably entertained, but you get no sense of a mighty enterprise sweeping you along with its comedic force. There is not a movie here. Just scenes in search of one."

That seems like fair criticism to me.

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As I say, I like Kidman, and I think she was a good choice for Samantha. But there was some real chemistry between Elizabeth Montgomery and the first Darrin (Dick York) that transcended the transition to the second Darrin (Dick Sargent), who clearly was never as comfortable with Samantha as his predecessor, midway through the series' run.

That was material for one of those inside baseball kind of jokes in the movie. Ferrell observed that, on the TV show, Darrin had been so insignificant that the producers changed actors playing the role midway through the series' run — "and no one noticed!" But the series wouldn't have survived for four more years if not for the reservoir of good will the show's fans had for Montgomery. If she was even remotely convincing in her relationship with the second Darrin, the viewers would accept him without question. She was, and they did.

And the movie needed to be mindful of that. The movie wouldn't work if there wasn't the same kind of chemistry between Samantha and Darrin as there had been on the TV show — and there wasn't. Kidman and Ferrell could read the same lines that Montgomery and York did 40 years earlier, even re–create entire scenes, but they wouldn't work without the chemistry.

Kidman needed a different Darrin. I like Ferrell, too, but he needed a different Samantha. As Ebert observed, they were never really on the same page.

And I wasn't particularly wild about the supporting cast, either. For me, Michael Caine never really worked as Samantha's father (played by Maurice Evans in the TV show). And I had some trouble accepting Steve Carell as Uncle Arthur. I suppose that really was a tough one to cast, though. I mean, who could improve on Paul Lynde?

But my real problem was with Shirley MacLaine as Endora, the role played by Agnes Moorehead on TV. Now, I admire much of the work MacLaine has done over the years, but, frankly, I have found her recent work to be a little too flamboyant, and she really let her freak flag fly in "Bewitched." Not that Moorehead wasn't a little over the top at times; the role certainly called for some of that. But MacLaine was a little too over the top for me.

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So, what we were left with was, as Ebert observed, an entertaining big–screen homage to a beloved TV series — but nothing that seemed likely to spawn a "Bewitched 2." I doubt that very many people in the audience left the theaters in 2005 hoping that a sequel would be coming along in 2006 that would let them know how things were working out between the new Samantha and Darrin.

Sadly, it is what I had been conditioned to expect — from previous attempts to make successful TV series into movies. Perhaps a little better than most, and, to be fair, "Bewitched" the movie did have some elements of creativity that the others did not. So it showed flashes of what might have been. I hoped for better.

I didn't get it.

Fighting the Battle of Burning Oak

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Elizabeth Montgomery was always an activist.

She was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War when her TV series, Bewitched, was popular. Long after the series went off the air, she was an advocate of women's rights and gay rights (the latter influenced to a certain extent by her friendship with Bewitched co–star Dick Sargent, the second Darrin, who was gay).

Surely, it was due at least in part to Montgomery's influence that Bewitched was more than another slapstick '60s sitcom. It had the requisite bizarre circumstances the primary characters were striving to overcome with goofy supporting characters. But it was also clever, contemporary and cosmopolitan — and socially aware.

Consequently, it probably wasn't much of a stretch for her to do episodes of Bewitched like the one that first aired 45 years ago tonight, "The Battle of Burning Oak."

The premise was that Darrin (Dick York) was invited to join a country club, Burning Oak, that was very exclusive — and very bigoted. Viewers knew it wasn't the kind of thing that would appeal to Darrin; but it was the kind of invitation that was of enormous value to a social ladder–climbing, up–and–comer like Darrin's mother–in–law, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), imagined him to be. She said as much to Samantha, who thought nothing of it.

(Samantha, like many viewers, probably dismissed it as the rantings of a mother who believed her daughter had married beneath her — a theme that was well established on the show by this time and paved the way nicely for an episode about prejudice and stereotyping.)

To prove her point, Endora turned Darrin into the snob to end all snobs — a snob's snob and a sure bet to be asked by the screening committee to become a member.

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And he was — in spite of the fact that the ladies of the screening committee had been unimpressed when they learned that Samantha did all her own housework.

Samantha deduced that her mother had cast a spell on Darrin and, with the help of her Aunt Hagatha, dug up some dirt on the committee members to level the playing field.

It all led to an amusing confrontation with the members of the club in which Samantha, with a little assistance from witchcraft, exposed the snooty members of the committee, some of whom claimed to have had ancestors on board the Mayflower.

From a group that advertised itself to be "pure–bred Americans," it turned out that some had ancestors on the wrong side of the law; for example, one was descended from a horse thief. Others did not have the noble ancestry they claimed; one was descended from a servant, another from a stowaway. And so on.

They all came to America to escape prejudice, Samantha declared. Actually, she continued, no one could rightfully claim to be a pure–bred American except an Indian. "And an American Indian could never get in here," she said with a sweet smile.

My memory is that some of the proper ladies of the club's board fainted when she said that.

At that point, Samantha rose when Darrin announced that it was getting late and it was time to go home.

In hindsight, it was courageous of writers Leo and Pauline Townsend to tackle the topic of bigotry.

At the time, Americans' social consciousness and sensitivity was emerging. The debut of All in the Family, which regularly challenged prejudice, was still a couple of years away. TV sitcoms were mostly silly in those days, seldom trying to make a serious point.

I suppose Bewitched had its share of silliness, too, 45 years ago tonight.

At one point, Endora, in her indignant way, observed that she had been protesting a new movie that portrayed witches as evil. I don't recall a specific title being mentioned, but I have often wondered, whenever I have seen that episode, if perhaps Endora was referring to "Rosemary's Baby," which was quite popular at the time.

The theme of witches being a persecuted minority was a recurring one — which, I suppose, gave Bewitched legitimacy to poke fun at bigotry.

It's hardly the same thing, of course. Witches are fictional characters. Prejudice against them can't be taken seriously, but prejudice against real people, whatever the reason for it, should be taken seriously.

That seems obvious today, doesn't it? But you have to keep it in the context of the times. It was a big deal at that time for a TV series to have a black leading lady who wasn't carrying trays.

(It's been quite awhile since I have seen the episode, and I don't remember now if there were any stereotyped servants at Burning Oak — but it wouldn't surprise me if there were. It's the kind of touch that would have appealed to Montgomery.)

Bewitched was uniquely positioned to challenge the prejudice and double standards of its time. The marriage of Darrin and Samantha, after all, was a "mixed marriage" — not in the way that phrase was interpreted by most people at the time, but mixed, nonetheless — and it was likely to produce offspring who carried the genetic material of both parents, as indeed it did.

It was also about a marriage in which the wife had more power than the husband, something that is much more common today than it was in 1969. Her actual power advantage (witchcraft) was a metaphorical edge as well. That made it easier, I suppose, for viewers to accept it when stories could be seen on more than one level.

The story lines, like the one in "The Battle of Burning Oak," played with questions about stereotypes and group depictions that were only starting to be asked — and it did so in a way that was virtually invisible if you weren't looking for it. The best episodes of Bewitched worked both as metaphor and as a serious story.

It seems our culture is taking prejudice seriously today, and you can attribute that to many factors — but don't underestimate the contribution Bewitched made on this night 45 years ago. In my experience, laughing about something is the first and most positive step to take in dealing with it.

What Might Have Been

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Endora (Agnes Moorehead): I was just being a good mother–in–law. I gave him what he wanted.

Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery): What?

Endora: He said he'd be happier if he had never met you.

Samantha: He didn't say it. I said it.

Endora: Well, who cares who said it? I arranged it.

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I always had the feeling that the episode of Bewitched that first aired on this night 45 years ago was inspired by "It's a Wonderful Life," the classic Christmas movie.

It isn't my intention to discuss the plot of "It's a Wonderful Life" here — except to note the similarity of the themes.

In "It's a Wonderful Life," Jimmy Stewart was shown that, contrary to what he believed, the people in his life would not have been better off if he had never been born.

On Bewitched 45 years ago tonight, Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) showed her mother, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), that her mortal husband, Darrin (Dick York), would not have been happier if he had never met her.

The whole thing began with a fight between Darrin and Samantha.

As she so often did — and, frequently, for no other reason than to amuse herself — Endora had cast a spell on Darrin. Several spells, it seemed to me. She caused him to encounter all kinds of problems preparing for and leaving for work, then she put a cobra in his briefcase that cost Darrin's agency an important account — and Darrin his job.

It was all too much for Darrin, who claimed that Endora and Samantha were always ganging up on him. Samantha wondered if perhaps he would have been happier if they'd never met — and Endora decided to give them all the opportunity to find out.

She zapped Darrin into an alternate reality in which he and Samantha had never met.

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Samantha insisted on seeing for herself what Darrin's life would have been like without her.

And, initially, it didn't look as if Darrin had suffered from not having met Samantha.

When Samantha and Endora traveled to that alternate time to observe Darrin's Samantha–less life, he seemed to be thriving. His office was filled with trophies he had won in golf tournaments. His career was going so well that it appeared he was about to be made a partner.

And his romance with his pre–Samantha girlfriend seemed to be sizzling. In fact, after a lengthy courtship, they were finally about to be married.

As Huey Lewis put it, the future was so bright he had to wear shades.

Endora thought the point had been made and was in favor of returning to their own time and Samantha making a "clean break" with Darrin — who she believed clearly was happier without Samantha.

But Samantha wasn't ready to concede. She believed this alternate Darrin had been dragging his feet on marriage because deep down he felt that he was meant to be with someone else, and she arranged to "meet" Darrin at a party that was being given for the happy couple.

Samantha concluded that Darrin was not happier without her.

She reached that conclusion after a chance meeting and conversation between the two in which Darrin told Samantha he was about to be married. Samantha replied that he must be thrilled.

"I should be, shouldn't I?" he said.

Samantha knew she was right and returned to her original reality and demanded that her mother bring Darrin back, which she did.

OK, it was a corny story in its way, but it had a lot of sweetness to it. It wasn't a carbon copy of "It's a Wonderful Life," but it didn't need to be. The story worked with the characters.

And, really, anything between Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York was believable. There was a genuine chemistry between the two, a chemistry that audiences really couldn't help seeing.

I always felt that Bewitched began its decline when Dick Sargent took over the role about midway through the series. That may have been because that spark just wasn't there anymore.

Dick York was very natural and believable as Darrin — and perhaps never moreso than when his character was allowed to resume his dialogue with Samantha from the point when Endora sent him to his alternate reality.

York had just told Samantha that sometimes he wished he had never met her, "but there are other times when I realize I couldn't live without you — and that't most of the time."

It had the ring of authenticity to it when it came from York's lips.