Retro Cartoons and TV Shows: Bewitched

Bewitched is a US sitcom originally broadcast on ABC from 1964 to 1972, for eight seasons. The series featured stars such as Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, Dick Sargent, and Agnes Moorehead. The series continues to be seen today throughout the world and is the longest series with a supernatural theme from the years 1960-1970. In 2002, TV Guide named Bewitched the 50th best television series of all time.

Darrin Stephens is a young publicist who falls in love with Samantha, a beautiful and sweet young woman. Samantha and Darrin get married, but during their honeymoon she confesses that she is a witch, and from that moment strange and funny situations happen because of her powers. To make matters worse, Samantha's mother Endora flatly disapproves of the fact that her daughter is married to a mortal, and to express her displeasure she makes life impossible for Darrin, who in turn is prohibited from using Samantha of witchcraft in your daily life. Added to this is her neighbor, Gladys Kravitz, who often notices the spells Samantha and Endora perform, but whose husband, Abner, after hearing about such situations, simply attributes to Gladys's imagination.

Elizabeth Montgomery wanted to end the series in the fifth season, as both she and her husband, show producer William Asher, were tired and wanted to move on to other projects, but ABC didn't want to leave one of their best shows. Given that the series was one of the few successes that the station had, they offered both significant salary increases, in addition to part of the ownership of the series, for three other seasons. By season eight, ideas had begun to run low, with some reruns from previous episodes that were copied almost verbatim. During the last season (1971-1972) Gladys and Abner Kravitz were only mentioned, Uncle Arthur and Darrin's parents did not appear either. The series moved on Saturday nights in January 1972, and faced off against the hit show All in the Family. The season ended at number 46 on the ratings. ABC had a ninth season planned, according to Montgomery and Asher's contract, but the poor results caused the series to be definitively canceled.