49 Fun Facts About Bewitched

On Bewitched, absent-minded Aunt Clara has a passion for collecting what?

Doorknobs: the quirk was borrowed from the actress who played her, who collected them in real life.

What is Samantha and Darrin's street address on Bewitched?

1164 Morning Glory Circle sits in Westport, Connecticut in some episodes and Patterson, New York in others; Patterson is where Elizabeth Montgomery's family had its farm.

What is the name of the Madison Avenue advertising agency where Darrin works?

McMann and Tate chases a bigoted toy tycoon's account in 'Sisters at Heart', a 1970 Christmas episode whose story was written by a tenth-grade English class in Los Angeles.

How does Samantha most often cast a spell?

Twitching her nose was the very thing Samantha had promised to give up: Darrin wanted a normal suburban marriage, with no witchcraft at all.

Who played Endora, Samantha's disapproving mother?

Agnes Moorehead came from Orson Welles's Mercury Players and played the mother in Citizen Kane; Endora brought her six Emmy nominations, but she never won for the part.

Which actor took over as Darrin for Bewitched's final three seasons?

Dick Sargent had been close to signing as Darrin before the pilot was shot, but another job got in the way, so Dick York played the part first.

Dick York's back problems, which forced him off Bewitched, stemmed from an injury on which 1959 film?

On They Came to Cordura, a scene with a railroad handcar on the second-to-last day of shooting tore the muscles in York's back, and he worked on through the pain for years.

What did Bewitched do after Dick York collapsed in 1969?

It filmed without Darrin: York had collapsed while shooting 'Daddy Does His Thing' and never came back, so the season was finished without him and a new actor took over for season six.

Which animation studio made the cartoon opening credits of Bewitched?

Hanna-Barbera drew the cartoon Samantha and Darrin of the titles, and in 1972 made teenage versions of their children Tabitha and Adam the stars of an animated circus special.

What set the first two seasons of Bewitched apart from the six that followed?

Black and white: all 74 episodes of the first two seasons were shot that way before colour arrived in 1966, and every one was later colourised.

How much of Bewitched did Sol Saks, its credited creator, actually write?

Only the pilot: Sol Saks never wrote another episode, and a friend who worked on the show said he just sat back and took in the royalties.

Rehearsals for the Bewitched pilot were due to begin on the very day of which 1963 event?

The Kennedy assassination hit director William Asher personally: he knew the president and had staged the 1962 birthday gala at which Marilyn Monroe sang to him.

In its first season, Bewitched was second in the ratings only to which show?

Bonanza alone outdrew it: in 1964-65 the new sitcom about a suburban witch beat every other comedy on television, with Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. a close third.

Which two actresses won posthumous Emmys for their Bewitched roles?

Alice Pearce and Marion Lorne both died shortly before their wins; Lorne's heart failed ten days before the 1968 ceremony, where Elizabeth Montgomery accepted the award for her.

Who took over the role of nosy neighbour Gladys Kravitz in 1966?

Sandra Gould took over Gladys after the part's first actress died of cancer; Alice Ghostley was asked first but refused out of loyalty to her late friend.

Why do Aunt Clara's spells keep going wrong on Bewitched?

She was losing her powers with age, and being absent-minded as well she tended to forget the spell that would undo each blunder, leaving Samantha and Darrin to clear up.

Before he became Uncle Arthur, Paul Lynde first appeared on Bewitched in 1965 as what mortal character?

A nervous driving instructor called Harold Harold, so rattled by Endora in the back seat that he is fired until Samantha wins him his job back; that autumn Lynde returned as Uncle Arthur.

Bewitched's Paul Lynde was a regular on which game show?

Hollywood Squares gave him its centre square from 1968 to 1981; on Bewitched, for all his fame as Uncle Arthur, he played the part in just ten episodes.

Under what fake name was Elizabeth Montgomery sometimes credited when playing Samantha's cousin Serena?

Pandora Spocks, a pun on Pandora's box, was Montgomery's own idea for the credits when she played Samantha's miniskirted lookalike cousin.

Erin Murphy played young Tabitha on Bewitched, but at first she shared the role with whom?

Her fraternal twin sister Diane: producers auditioned only twins because child labour laws limited a toddler's hours on set, and Erin took over once the two stopped looking alike.

A 1970 Bewitched story arc was shot on location in which town?

Salem got its visit by accident: a fire had wrecked part of the Stephens house set that summer, so the next season opened with an eight-episode trip there while it was rebuilt.

Which cable channel put up a bronze statue of Samantha in a Massachusetts park in 2005?

TV Land paid for the bronze and unveiled it that June, with director William Asher and three of the show's surviving actors there to watch.

Which car company was a main sponsor of Bewitched when it launched in 1964?

Chevrolet got its money's worth: its cars turned up on screen again and again.

Which rival NBC show, produced by the same studio, did Bewitched inspire?

I Dream of Jeannie arrived a year after Bewitched: Sidney Sheldon created it in answer to the witch's ratings, swapping her for a genie in a bottle.

In 1965, Samantha and Darrin turned up as new neighbours on which animated series?

The Flintstones called the episode simply 'Samantha', and Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York voiced their own characters as Bedrock's new arrivals.

In the 1977 spin-off Tabitha, where did the grown-up Tabitha Stephens work?

A television station, KXLA in Los Angeles; the spin-off also rewrote the family, turning her warlock little brother Adam into an older, disapproving mortal.

Who played the real witch cast as Samantha opposite Will Ferrell in Bewitched (2005)?

Nicole Kidman's Isabel is the unknown a fading film star picks as his Samantha for a comeback remake, never guessing she can do the magic for real; Nora Ephron directed.

Samantha's actress was the daughter of which Hollywood star and director?

Robert Montgomery gave her a first screen role on his own anthology series, Robert Montgomery Presents; two years later her Broadway debut in Late Love won a Theatre World Award.

Elizabeth Montgomery's first Emmy nomination was for which gangster-era crime series?

The Untouchables cast the future Samantha as Rusty Heller, a nightclub siren, before Bewitched began; five more nominations followed for the witch.

Genealogists found Elizabeth Montgomery was a distant cousin of which notorious figure she played in a 1975 TV film?

Lizzie Borden and Montgomery were sixth cousins once removed, through a 17th-century Massachusetts settler; the link was traced only after the actress died, so she never knew she had played a relative.

William Asher, the director behind Bewitched, had earlier directed more than 100 episodes of which sitcom?

I Love Lucy was his proving ground in the 1950s, yet the one Emmy of his career came in 1966 for directing Bewitched.

Endora's actress later developed cancer, like many who filmed which John Wayne epic downwind of atomic tests?

The Conqueror was shot around St George, Utah, downwind of Nevada's test site; by 1980, 91 of its 220 cast and crew had developed cancer, though no link has ever been proven.

Endora's actress won her only Emmy guesting on which series?

The Wild Wild West won her the 1967 Emmy for a single guest appearance; her years of nominations as Endora and her four Oscar nominations all came to nothing.

What did the actor who played Bewitched's second Darrin do in October 1991?

He publicly came out as gay on National Coming Out Day, saying the high suicide rate among young gay people was his main reason, and joked that he was a 'retroactive role model'.

David White's son Jonathan, after whom Larry Tate's baby was named, died in which 1988 tragedy?

The Lockerbie bombing killed Jonathan, 33, aboard Pan Am Flight 103; White, who had lost the boy's mother thirty years earlier, died two years later, and father and son's ashes now share a niche in a Los Angeles cemetery.

In which 1960 film did Dick York play the teacher on trial for teaching evolution?

Inherit the Wind cast York as the Scopes-like teacher beside Spencer Tracy and Fredric March; in his last years, housebound on oxygen, he ran a one-man phone campaign for the homeless.

In a 1992 interview, Elizabeth Montgomery agreed Bewitched could be read as an allegory about what?

Closeted homosexuality was a reading the cast talked over on set, she said: the show was about people not being allowed to be what they really are.

Which 1972 sitcom, produced by William Asher, took over the Wednesday slot Bewitched had held a year earlier?

The Paul Lynde Show gave Bewitched's Uncle Arthur a sitcom of his own, as a lawyer exasperated by his son-in-law; ABC took it in place of a ninth season of Bewitched, and it lasted one year.

In the Bewitched episode among TV Guide's 100 greatest, what does Endora do to Darrin?

She splits him in two: an all-work Darrin stays behind on an account while his fun-loving half holidays in Florida with Samantha, in 'Divided He Falls', which made the magazine's 1997 list.

Bewitched's Japanese dub inspired a 1966 Toei series regarded as the first anime of which genre?

Magical girl anime began with Sally the Witch, a manga and cartoon whose creator took his inspiration from Bewitched, shown in Japan under the title 'My Wife Is a Witch'.

Which star played the witch in I Married a Witch, the 1942 comedy that helped inspire Bewitched?

Veronica Lake's witch brews a love potion for the man she means to torment, then drinks it herself and falls for him, the same witch-loves-mortal idea Bewitched ran with.

Which actor played the witch doctor Dr. Bombay?

Bernard Fox played the eccentric physician from 1967 to 1972 and later reprised the role on the soap opera Passions.

Alice Ghostley played which shy, inept witch who babysat Tabitha and Adam?

Esmeralda's magic misfired from nerves: a sneeze would conjure something unexpected, and when Darrin flustered her she simply faded from sight.

The backlot facade that played Samantha's house on Bewitched was damaged in a fiery stunt for which 1990s sitcom?

Home Improvement damaged the facade with a pyrotechnic stunt for an episode, but it was restored and stood until the backlot street was cleared in 2023.

In January 1972 Bewitched was moved to Saturdays opposite which number-one program?

All in the Family was the most-watched show in America; against it Bewitched fell to 72nd for the season, having been the country's number two in its first year.

On WandaVision, the exterior of the Stephens house served as the home of which character?

Agatha Harkness plays the nosy neighbour but is secretly a witch herself, and Marvel filmed her home at the very facade that had been Samantha's.

What was the name of Elizabeth Montgomery and William Asher's production company?

Ashmont Productions joined the first syllables of Asher and Montgomery; the couple's company took its credit on the eighth and final season, just as the marriage was coming apart.

Why did Bewitched end in 1972 when ABC wanted more?

Its star quit: the show had sunk to 72nd in the ratings, yet ABC was ready to renew it for a ninth season, and Elizabeth Montgomery chose to stop.

Danny Arnold, Bewitched's first producer, went on to co-create which police comedy?

Barney Miller followed a decade later; on Bewitched Danny Arnold had used the magic sparingly, as a metaphor for a young couple's everyday troubles.