Bewitched

For the past two centuries or so, the supernatural has played a significant role in the American experience. Over the course of the 20th century, the cultural voice of the supernatural got louder and louder, reflecting its growing popularity and market appeal. While it had been a consistent theme in American pop culture (the Topper series of films and Noel Coward’s Broadway hit Blithe Spirit, most memorably), the supernatural found its biggest audience in the mid-1960s with the TV show Bewitched.

Unapologetically silly, Bewitched was instrumental in making many Americans intimately familiar with the concept of parapsychology. The show debuted on ABC on September 17, 1964, featuring, as Jack Gould of the New York Times called the protagonist, “a fetching suburban housewitch.” Although it traveled along a path already laid by television shows like Topper and My Favorite Martian, Bewitched projected the supernatural into a new orbit of popularity, truly bewitching viewers with its humorous take on psychic powers.

Right from the start, it was clear that the show would turn the occult on its head by making it fun and even romantic, a world apart from its dark and mysterious image. In the first episode, Samantha, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, has to somehow explain to her new husband Darren, played by Dick York, that she is not exactly the girl next door that he thought she was. Moving ashtrays across tables without touching them went a long way in achieving that, and Samantha’s naughty treatment of one of Darren’s ex-girlfriends sealed the deal.

Agnes Moorehead, playing Samantha’s mother, added to the show’s charm: The opportunity to present a mother-in-law in a sitcom as a literal witch was just too good to pass up. “Bewitched promises to be a bright niche of popular TV,” Gould wrote, thinking that, “if [Samantha] exercises her powers with discretion, she should be a winning spirit for the American Broadcasting Company.”

Gould would be proved right. Despite the never-explained enigma of the two Darrens, Bewitched ran for eight seasons (254 episodes) on ABC and continues to run in syndication around the world to this day, making it one of the most popular supernaturally themed TV shows in history. More important, Bewitched helped to usher in a new era for the supernatural, as the cultural climate of the late 60s and 70s accepted if not encouraged ideas and things that went beyond the straight and narrow. With the countercultural winds behind its back, the supernatural was about to take off in some very interesting directions.

Indeed, even Bewitched turned out to be small potatoes compared to what lurked just around the bend as the supernatural found a happy home within the outside-the-box values of the counterculture. With faith in both science and religion on the rocks, there was a window of opportunity for the supernatural to go to another level in popularity, which is exactly what happened. Movies like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, and The Amityville Horror poured out of Hollywood and equally horrific books out of Stephen King, comprising a new (and very profitable) genre of entertainment grounded in scaring the heck out of viewers and readers.