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The Partridge Family: The Original Garage Band

The Partridges were the original garage band, and they were also the Bradys’ prime-time neighbors (Friday nights on ABC from 1970-1974 – the prototype TGIF!). However, unlike the Bradys, who were insular and innocent, the Partridges were extroverted and world weary.

Billed as “the family who plays together, stays together,” and based on the 60s’ pop-music family group The Cowsills, the Partridges had seen it all in their travels: smoky nightclubs, hookers, gangsters, union strikes, morality watchdogs, a Detroit ghetto, a women’s lib rally, unscrupulous promoters, a prison, unstable hippie chicks and most importantly of all, Las Vegas.

The Bradys, cozy and content in their suburban womb, would only venture as far as the pedestrian soft spots of Hawaii, the Grand Canyon and King’s Island amusement park (when not fixing their bikes or drinking their milk).

Still, the Partridges, like the Bradys, were decidedly upper-middle class. They lived in Northern California (San Pueblo) in a more-than-comfy split-level (tasteful except for the brown shag carpeting and the avocado refrigerator; however, the Partridge crib had nothing on the famous Brady house). The kids, though supposedly mentioned in fan magazines, still attended public school, scraped their own dishes and washed their own considerable hair.

Their famous touring bus was an eyesore in the driveway (The “Careful! Nervous Mother Driving!” warning was for real: Shirley Jones really drove that bus – she was taught by teamsters!). And no neighbors ever complained as the clan diligently practiced their rockin’ craft with great discipline in their garage. On weekends, however, the Partridges squawked on the wild side.

Their story goes somewhat like this: a widow named Shirley (Shirley Jones) quits her bank-teller job in order to join her kids’ pop band (working mothers were a rarity on TV in those days; our hearts were meant to sink due to their unfortunate fate of having to toil outside the house). That most adolescents would rather die than even beseen in public with their parents – let alone have them rock out with them on stage for all the world to see and hear – is not explained or addressed.

According to Shirley’s narration, her husband died six months earlier (he was never named or mentioned again, ever) and, as a result, the Partridges were up a pear tree, desperately trying to make ends meet. With the help of a neurotic, hangdog, W.C. Fields-like manager, Reuben Kincaid (the terrific Dave Madden), they land their very first gig at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas (?!).  The effect: they become a minor sensation with a good vibration, allowing them to make both the mortgage and the Top 40.

The rest of their story is far more sketchy: the episodes fluctuate between the group being a) wildly famous and b) struggling nightclub performers earning a modest paycheck. One week, they have a hit record on the radio; the next week, they are toiling in relative obscurity. The writers areundecided as to the clan’s degree of fame and fortune, and they toggle carelessly back and forth to fit the current storyline.

In addition, they seem to play for The Kids in one episode, but in the next episode their audience seems to be sophisticated, jet-setting adults in bouffants, evening gowns and tuxedos (we’re almost always subjected to the same footage of a nightclub crowd seated at long tables, smoking and rattling their jewelry to the music).

Okay, so the Partridges do keep us guessing, but one thing we know for sure is that their only huge hit, “I Think I Love You,” brings all the people together and gives a happy ending to the turbulent sixties (in real life, this record will outsell The Beatles’ “Let It Be”). When they’re singing and playing, the lion lay down with the lamb; peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars, even though the brood does the worst job of lip synching this side of Milli Vanilli.

The kids in this household are not as interchangeable as the Bradys: there is Keith (David Cassidy), the teen idol who looks like a chick; Laurie (Susan Dey), the poncho-wearing, model-like oldest sister, who asks us to find it adorable that she is a radical activist (and we do) and who never, ever eats, even when food is placed in front of her; and Danny (Danny Bonaduce) the red-headed scamp who is supposedly ten-years old but has a freakish command of business, publicity and the stock market. It’s supposed to be funny, but it’s uncomfortable.

Bonaduce is still a rascal even today, in the hilarious commentary track. In a scene where Laurie is leaning over Danny, Bonaduce exclaims, “If she had breasts, that would have been a pivotal moment for me!” He also observes, “We’re five white kids dressed up like Superfly!”

Then, of course, we have the dilemma of the problem children, Chris and Tracy (Jeremy Gelbwaks and Suzanne Crough) who are easily the very worst child actors in the history of television (in this golden era of breeder comedies, how difficult could it have been to cast two child actors with some acting chops, a la Bobby and Cindy Brady?). Gelbwaks will eventually become the Pete Best of the group, being unceremoniously replaced by Chris Foster in the second season. Unfortunately, Suzanne Crough was not replaced, and she was the one who most needed to go. And like Tiger on The Brady Bunch, the family dog is fired after the first season.

The list of guest stars (and stars to be) is rather impressive. We see The Scarecrow himself, Ray Bolger, playing the grandfather who is experiencing a “youth kick” (we know this because he sports mutton chops and an ascot around his neck, and takes a joyous bite of a hot dog). He jams with the Partridges (knowing every word to their song even though it’s the very first time he’s ever heard it). We also get pre-Charlie’s-Angels Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett playing various pieces of ass, and a pre-Rookies Michael Ontkean as a hunky high schooler.

You’ll also witness a before-he-was-goofy Richard Mulligan (Empty Nest) as the concerned family doctor; Star Wars’ Mark Hamill as an awkward teen with a crush on Laurie; and a hootable William Schallert (Patty Duke’s TV poppo) as a Will-Rogers type folk singer on whom the Partridges bizarrely obsess and are determined to make a star, even if it kills him.

However, the standout episode of the collection is the one featuring Richard Pryor and Lou Gossett, Jr., in the 1970 obligatory Black Folks Are People Too offering. Get this: the Partridges’ touring schedule is somehow mixed up with the Temptations’, and the lily-white clan arrives smack in the middle of a Detroit ghetto (really a non-menacing Screen Gems backlot), complete with a woman in orange leather pants and an “African-American Cultural Society” (known in real life as The Black Panthers). To make a long story short, the Partridges get soul (“I have an idea for a song,” Keith suggests. “It’s kind of an Afro thing.”). The tension between the races is healed forever as The Partridges get hot pants and the neighborhood responds rhythmically.

A word about the music: it’s fan-TAS-tic. The unsung heroes of this series were the studio musicians who pretended to be The Partridge Family (only David Cassidy’s voice was used for real, and they sped it up slightly in order to make him sound younger. Shirley Jones would add her harmonies after the recordings were finished, and it’s always a trip to watch her perky/rockin’ body language when she’s performing).

The year was 1970, and the charts featured such mellow rock acts as The Carpenters, Bread, Chicago and James Taylor (you do the math). Most of their songs tended to use the word “together” one too many times (a very important word — nay, a groovy concept — at the end of the sixties), but each tune is like three minutes of sunshine.  In fact, the DVD offers terrific Partridge songs that should be beloved standards, monster hits and party favorites, but never achieved that status thanks to the rock bullies who insisted that we pay attention instead to Led Zeppelin.

The DVD also features boring commentary from Shirley Jones (“What a great song.” “I remember that very well.” “That bus!”) as well as two episodes of the inexplicable, unhackable animated cartoon series The Partridge Family, 2200 A.D. This junky filler was created by the cheap-bastard Hanna Barbera team, who stubbornly stuck to their Jetsons-like vision of the future (cosmic malt shops, record stores and tape decks. And when are we getting those flying cars?). The only positive thing to come out of this cartoon is that Tracy seems to be more animated than she is in the original series.

What works best besides the music is the writing, which is surprisingly cynical and highbrow. The Partridge Family, unlike The Brady Bunch, is more often than not downbeat and dark, but often out-loud funny, not always automatically sinking into the adorable. Some of the jokes are dated (references to Abbie Hoffman, Woodstock, Berkeley, and Myra Breckenridge), but credit must be given to the writers who were not afraid to go over The Kids’ heads.

Some examples: while headlining at the local prison, Shirley muses before her captive audience, “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a convict. But I think in some real way, we are all prisoners.” Also, just like Camus, she advises Keith, “It’s human nature. You’re unhappy then. You’re unhappy now.” Dare Carol Brady to try that advice. Or contemplate Reuben musing, “Free speech is great until somebody else starts talking.” And when an embarrassed Laurie experiences radio broadcasts being transmitted through her braces, Danny incorrectly states, “The Rolling Stones don’t make personal appearances in a person’s mouth.” And count the kids on your one hand who would understand the following criticism from Danny to Reuben: “If you’ve been Toulouse Letrec’s manager, he would have been known as the World’s Greatest Short Order Cook.”

The following three seasons would see a considerable downsizing, as their big-budget traveling and road locations would be traded in for more domestic and less radical situations. Disco and arena rock were on their way in – while filmed breeder sitcoms with laugh tracks were on their way out. By 1974, the Partridges were transported to the ghetto of Saturday night and then cancelled.

However, we’ll always have their stunning Screen Gems backlot neighborhood. The Partridge home was only a broomstick ride away from the famousBewitched residence, in which all the Partridges’ boyfriends and girlfriends seemed to dwell and confuse our television worldview by doing so. And even though it would seem like a natural progression, Shirley and Reuben never hooked up; rather, they remained strangely, infuriatingly platonic.

As the Partridges themselves might say, this DVD is “heavy.” And they would mean that in a good way.

Ronald Sklar

Copyright ©2007   PopEntertainment.com.  All rights reserved.  Posted: March 14, 2007.

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Speed Racer: Adventure’s Waiting Just Ahead

 

It always seems ironic and convenient when your name matches your occupation, as in the case of Speed Racer.  Yes, that’s his formal name (even though he wears a “G” on his never-changed shirt and an “M” on his crash helmet). He’s as competent, loyal and true as a Boy Scout, and is so obsessed with car racing that you never see him doing anything else, not even eating or bowling or watching TV.

In most cases, he doesn’t even sleep, despite the endless protests of his friends and family, who beg him to rest before a big race. But there’s good ol’ unflappable Speed, burning the midnight oil, turning a socket wrench underneath the car, his anime eyes wide with concentration. Either Speed is just simply supercharged and super pumped about tomorrow’s big race, or Speed’s on speed.

Living in a quasi-dream of a netherworld that is not quite Japan and not quite America, Speed is, quite literally, driven. It doesn’t seem to be the thrill of the race that motivates him, even though there are still thrills a plenty on this DVD that holds up surprisingly well (you’ll be amazed at how powerfully these compelling stories still grip your heart and get your blood racing, even though you are no longer seven years old).

Simply, Speed seems to be intensely focused, deeply stoic and fiercely determined, which is how we like our cartoon heroes. It’s his weighty one-dimensionalness that keeps us glued to his adventures. We learn from him that winning isn’t everything, or even the only thing – it’s how you get there and how many opportunities you are awarded to help others. Of course, Speed has an exciting (though deadly) career, and perhaps if he were employed in the auto department of a Caldor store or working Bay #3 of a Pep Boys, he wouldn’t be as enthused and more apt to snooze.

Even though his family is slightly dysfunctional, they are tremendously supportive. There’s his crusty-but-lovable pop (Pops), who arrogantly and illogically leaves his cushy job with a large engineering firm in order to perfect his marvelous wonder car, the Mach 5. Pops is a total fascist to his family, but they tolerate him because he’s got the engineering goods in his whacked-out head – the Mach 5 is their ticket to ride. Unlike the 1989 Ford Escort, which tends to stall at high speeds, the Mach 5 comes standard with rotary swords for cutting trees (great for forest driving!), grip tires, an underwater oxygen chamber, special illumination, a periscope and that all-important homing robot for when you need to send for help when you are being held at gunpoint or kidnapped.

Pops almost “blows a gasket” when he first learns his son is racing in this precious super machine. However, Speed Racer and the Mach 5 take to each other like STP to an engine; once Pops sees the income the boy could net from winning tournaments, he quickly changes his warped mind. And this is years before NASCAR.

Moms Racer is the real curio. Her real name is most likely something like Carburatoretta or Stickshift-anne. She’s a looker, a glamour-puss sashaying around in a tight pantsuit and a tiny apron with hearts sewn into them. Though the family is immersed in daily danger, she doesn’t seem to care about anything except serving oven-baked cookies. Call it her protection mechanism; most likely, this obsessive act is just her little way to suppress the horror of her own reality: her oldest son had run away from home and had never come back, her middle son (only 18) risks his life daily in a death machine, and her youngest is under age ten and under absolutely no adult supervision – he eats candy until his teeth rot and tends to stowaway on evildoer’s vehicles and his closest friend is a clothed chimp.

There’s Trixie, of course, Speed’s look-alike girlfriend, who is rather accomplished for a pre-feminist gal pal. She can fly a plane and a maneuver a helicopter; she can also give a wicked karate chop when confronted with evil. However, she remains perky and upbeat throughout — her trademark is to giggle and wink. Mysteriously, her blouse sports the letter “M,” like a scarlet letter. We’re left to wonder why.

Racer X (who is originally referred to as “The Masked Racer,” but the narrator drops that after one episode), is really Rex Racer (Speed’s older, normal-named brother). Years before, Rex left home in a hissy fit after a wicked argument with Pops. Of course, this seems to be a rather lengthy period to hold a grudge against your entire family, but consider the source. Also, it deepens and sentimentalizes the plot lines, as Rex, under the mask, keeps a watchful eye out for his younger brother.

Ironically, Rex had moved on to become the world’s best racing car driver (imagine that “most likely to” in your high school yearbook!), but he is known to have bad luck follow him in every race he enters (namely, other racers die!). However, he consistently stumps the media by wearing a mask and, even though it’s obvious to anyone with a brain, he gives no information as to who he is and where he came from (put this into context: there was no internet and no Matt Drudge at this time).

Every time Racer X enters a scene, we are clued in – the narrator will remind us, “Unknown to Speed, this is his older brother, Rex, who ran away from home years ago.” We wonder if this announcement starts to wear on Rex every time he makes his entrance, yet it doesn’t seem to bruise his ego that he is always referred to in the context of his younger brother. Nevertheless, it must be a drag at parties.

The real star of the show, of course, is the theme song. You know it — you love it, but you probably didn’t realize that it was written in one afternoon and recorded in practically one take. The original Japanese version (the show was called Mach Go Go Go!) was an un-zippy, over-long, marching-band style tune, and it didn’t make the scene. The American team westernized it, and viola: one of the greatest theme songs in the history of television. The jazzy closing credits, featuring a mind-blowing illustrative history of the automobile, with actual models driven by the show’s characters, is iPOd worthy. However, we’re still waiting for those damned flying cars.

The voiceover talent works overtime, and the overlapping of characters’ voices is both painfully obvious and pleasurably corny. Former child model and struggling actor Peter Fernandez found his niche dubbing Japanese entertainment for American audiences (Astro Boy, Marine Boy, Ultra Man, and several Godzilla flicks). Not only was he in charge of the entire U.S. translation/production of Speed Racer (trickier than it sounds), he was the voice of both Speed and Racer X. Corinne Orr was the voice of Trixie, Mom Racer and Spritel (Speed’s younger brother). You may also know her as the voice of Snuggle, the fabric softener bear. Voiceover vet Jack Grimes played Speed’s friend Sparky and Spritel’s simian friend Chim Chim.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the voiceover talent, the series will turn you as Japanese as it gets. Characters gasp in unison, or exclaim a long, drawn out expression of “ahhh’s,” “awww’s” and “oooooh’s!” Evildoers get punched, karate chopped and knocked out, but they never die. They say unlikely things such as “Unhand me!” and “now’s our chance!” and “if you don’t make this jump, you’ll fall a thousand feet into the river. Good luck.” And all evildoers have New York accents – just like in real life.

Speed isn’t exactly the “demon on wheels” that the song makes him out to be, and you wonder how the cast can wander around the Alps in the middle of a winter storm without a stitch of warm clothing, and Speed’s insistance on wearing an ascot is distracting, but there is a lot you can forgive here. The original animators were so in love with American culture – you can see how it was absorbed and handed back to us so lovingly and with such care. It’s exactly how you remember it, yet somehow better.

Go, watch this DVD. Adventure’s waiting just ahead. GO! GO! GO!

Ronald Sklar

Copyright ©2004   PopEntertainment.com.  All rights reserved.  Posted: December 12, 2004.

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Live Aid 1985: FRANKIE SAY: FEED THE WORLD!

 

It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There is no better example of this than the agonizingly sixteen-hour-long Live Aid broadcast on July 13, 1985.

The official excuse for the concert was to raise money to feed the starving people of Ethiopia, but the let’s-get-real reason was to witness Western civilization’s most celebrated rock and pop stars perform because they care. They care deeply.

The event, held simultaneously in two stadiums on two continents, was a strange hit parade – musical acts whose careers literally faded as the sun set that evening.

Here’s how the magic happened: opportunist Bob Geldof (of the begging-to-be-beloved Boomtown Rats) was emotionally moved by a BBC documentary exposing the heart-wrenching horror and tearful tragedy of the victims of the African famine. The sorrowful images of suffering children and mournful, helpless pawns of a wicked political game immediately brought to mind haircut bands.

Geldof then mobilizes the English pop stars with the highest hair to record a novelty song called “Do They Know It’s Christmas” (in which the lyrics “feed the world” sound like “feed the squirrels”). The British concern for unfed squirrels rocket sales of the single into the millions, and yet somehow the proceeds are directed not toward the furry critters but toward funding relief efforts for the Ethiopian famine victims.

Not to be outdone, America’s oldest child, Michael Jackson, and former-Leslie-Gore-producer Quincy Jones form a band called USA For Africa. Together, and with the help of some show-biz friends, they churn out a best-selling anthem called, with great arrogance and presumption, “We Are the World.”

In its famous recording session, a sign is posted at the entrance to the studio warning all contributors to “Check Your Egos At The Door” (this means YOU, Kenny Loggins!).

Both records, on both sides of the pond, are accompanied by music videos depicting the planet’s most beloved singing stars (and Dan Aykroyd) getting along in the name of charity. As well, these cats and kittens are rocking out (in priority order) without their cumbersome egos getting in the way of the urgent message.

You have your Bruce Springsteens dueting with your Stevie Wonders, and your Huey Lewises patiently waiting for your Cyndi Laupers to finish their well…well…well…wells, and your Bob Dylans awkwardly attempting to be team players. When Lionel Richie at last gave the “thumbs up” sign, the world knew that USA for Africa – as well as the world – was going to be all right.

Despite its success, USA For Africa broke up almost immediately after the release of their first single, never to be heard from again.

However, to make sure that the check for the meal was covered (including tip), Geldof organized the Live Aid concert, to be held at both Wembley Stadium in London (highbrow) and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia (lowbrow).

The extravaganza, beamed by satellite and recorded with clunky, land-lubbin’ twentieth-century cameras, was most likely the tenth-best day of Bob Geldof’s life, and the most exposure The Boomtown Rats would ever hope to receive before or since.

On this date, unofficially entitled “The Day the Music Changed the World,” each stadium is filled to capacity with the kids, tattoo-less and grunge-free and well scrubbed. Girls, desperately trying to be adorable, sit on their boyfriends’ shoulders and wave their arms. To fend off the July sun and discourage horniness, the crowds are hydrated with giant fire hoses (even though the British don’t sweat). The appearance by the Prince and Princess of Wales (Chuck and Di to you, thank you very much) officially signal to the world that the Africans really must be starving – this isn’t just jive talkin’.

The festivities are initiated by Style Council and Status Quo (that’s right: “who?”), and then Adam Ant, doing his trademarked high kicks in tight leather as if he made a wrong turn off Christopher Street. Spandau Ballet sings “True” while their moussed hair bakes in the sun, and Sting sings a duet, first with his ego and then with Phil Collins.

Collins makes musical and jet-flight record books by being the only performer in history to play London and then Philadelphia within four hours, and to be the only performer in history to even think of heading to Philly after London. If this isn’t proof enough that the 80s were an age of wonder, witness the Band Aid finale, in which Adam Ant gets more microphone time than Elton John.

Paul Young is inexplicably given the green light to sing three songs, complete with black back-up singers (usually an indication that either the white lead singer has soul or that the white lead singer has no soul). In addition, Alison Moyet blows Young away in a duet while doing the Belinda Carlisle Go-Go’s dance.

Meanwhile, the American crowds are delighted by semi-host Jack Nicholson, who shows his cool detachment by chewing gum and wearing sunglasses. There’s a jeff cap for the Beach Boys’ Al Jardine and a headband for Mark Knopfler. The entire stadium heads to the restroom during REO Speedwagon’s set. And who invited Chevy Chase?

There are cringe-inducing moments aplenty. Most unbearable of these is when Joan Baez announces “THIS IS YOUR WOODSTOCK.” Madonna sings history’s Top Two All-Time Worst songs (“Holiday” and “Into the Groove”). And what cringe-inducing moment would be complete without yet another tiresome rendition of John Lennon’s unhackable “Imagine,” this time oversung by Patti Labelle. To take cringe inducement into the homestretch, feel your toes curl when you witness the entire crowd sing along with every word to Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga,” complete with the 80s Arm Wave.

The concert’s high points are arguable. Some say the highlight is that Huey Lewis and the News were not invited. Others insist that it’s the appearance of U2, in the intense mullet phase of their fledgling career. Bono wears boots that are made for walkin’, and he symbolically brings his own Courtney Cox out of the crowd and dances with her (where is that girl today, besides seventy pounds heavier?). He also sings “Ruby Tuesday,” most likely in honor of the restaurant chain (food, get it?).

Of course, the most memorable moment of Live Aid is when Mick Jagger asks, “Where’s Tina?” and he ain’t talking about Tina Louise. He and Tina Turner do a proto-type wardrobe-malfunction jig as Jagger not only rips off black culture in general but rips off Tina’s leather mini skirt.

Nicholson introduces “the transcendent Bob Dylan,” and the inevitable finale involves a mega-version of “We Are The World,” which includes a formerly uninvited Cher.

It’s fifteen minutes of fame stretched over four disks and ten hours. A lot is missing, due to legal hassles and destroyed tapes (this explains Rick Springfield’s absent performance – or does it ?).

Warning: 80s Overload can kill. Small doses are prescribed. However, sales of this DVD continue to fund the fight against world hunger, so:

FRANKIE SAY: FEED THE WORLD!

Ronald Sklar

Copyright ©2005   PopEntertainment.com.  All rights reserved.  Posted: June 1, 2005.

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Bewitched Never Gets Old

Bewitched: The Complete First Season (1964-1965)

Is Samantha Stevens a satanic disciple of The Great Deceiver? Could be: she consistently breaks her promise of “no witchcraft” to Darrin.

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When Bewitched premiered in the fall of 1964, it was so high-concept that during its first few episodes, a narrator explained to us that Samantha was… a witch. This introduction was delivered ironically, informing us that she was supernatural and yet just like us, using favorite Sixties comfort-food buzzwords as “typical suburban housewife” and “All-American girl.”

However, it was the powerful charisma of Elizabeth Montgomery that allowed her to stride the two worlds, and she expertly rode that broom into permanent pop-culture bewitching belovability.

The magic struck an immediate chord: the show was a hit from its very first episode, and was the second-most-watched program on television (after Bonanza). Viewers, increasingly tired of the same old living-room comedies, now had a fresh coat of paint to watch dry. The series’ writers – still bound by pre-All In the Family convention – managed to take it up at least one notch.

That fall, the TV suburbs were dominated by a Martian, a living doll, identical twin cousins, oil-rich hillbillies, two sets of monster families (and a year later, a genie and a talking car). However, it was Samantha Stevens who set the tone for what a supernatural sitcom should be, and the friendly formula would follow for decades (think Charmed and Sabrina The Teenage Witch). That recipe is heavy on the normal and the likable, light on the satanic darkness.

Still, the show is both a shining example and a hapless victim of its genre – every episode ends in a passionate kiss and the swell of a full orchestra, but it also delivers on much deeper levels. Ultimately, though, it’s weighed down by no-no’s.

The plot, as we all know, is infuriating: man marries witch; same man insists that wife refrains from using her natural-born powers so that the couple could live a “normal” life. Ha ha. As a result, we are robbed of some intensely intriguing storylines and amazing possibilities for the sake of sitcom shenanigans. Entire theses have been written on Darrin’s fear of Samantha’s power, and his desire to control it and contain it. This may be, but had Darrin been more curious and more open to play, we would have been left with a far more interesting interesting premise.

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The writing is determined to be moralistic and honorable and given to easy, repeatable conflict: witch gives up her magical life in order to live humbly with the mortal she loves.  The writers delight in the fact that Samantha uses her brains – not her nose – to get herself out of sticky situations, some even caused by magic gone awry. We as a nation, however, are affectionate but not always amused. We want to see her conjure herself into a tizzy. Instead, though, what we get is mild trickery: a man gets turned into a dog. George Washington is sitting on the barcolounger. Been there, etc.

Subversion, however, comes in strange forms. Although its never really officially noted, Samantha is rather lax in her promise to refrain from witchcraft. We see her during the day, zapping up a pool in the backyard so she could take a quick dip; we see her snap clean her dirty dishes, magically fold her laundry, and have a quickie lunch with her mother in Paris. This is not the same young wife who takes a vow of non-witchcraft in front of her husband. “Maybe I can taper off,” she resolves to herself in the very first episode, but she never truly does, and we realize that she is ultimately what witches have been accused of for centuries: a deceiver.

In fact, she breaks rules quite recklessly, with little or no remorse. When Darrin pays too much attention to a televised baseball game, Sam creates an impromptu rainstorm, which causes a postponement of the game.  Even in the opening credits, an animated Samantha transforms herself into a cat, and then back into herself (a trick that would bring intense disapproval from the “real” Darrin).

She says to her mother, “I promised Darrin no witchcraft, and no witchcraft is what he’s going to get.” This is wholly untrue. Her promise is conditional at best.

Meanwhile, we see Darrin slowly realize that he married into more than he bargained for. He wonders – more often than not – if he can truly trust his new bride. If anything good or bad happens to him, he contemplates uneasily if his good or bad fortune is as a result of witchcraft. He also wonders about his wife’s true age, and ultimately, his own mortality.

We can’t help but feel Darrin’s pain, yet at the same time, we wonder about his ability to deal with his own trust issues. He drowns them in alcohol, which in the Sixties, was seen as cute and funny. In the beginning, witchcraft is a scary and incomprehensible thing. He says to his wife nervously, “You’re telling me you took a live person and turned him into a dog?” However, like anything else, her powers become ordinary and less shocking as the series goes on.  By the end of the run, we’ve seen it all before (but we never tire of watching actors get “frozen” in place!).

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Still, Darrin can’t help but wonder if he was under a spell when he fell in love with Samantha – bewitched, to use the correct term. It’s not entirely unlikely – while Darrin naps, Samantha and Endora literally change his facial features to see if they can improve upon them. This could be the ultimate in ego bruising from which an insecure man may never recover.

We know next to nothing about Darrin (he’s from Missouri and he served in the Army), and we know even less than that about Samantha (we can only guess about her past life, which was long and presumably privileged and colorful). Darrin covers his blurting out that he’s in a mixed marriage by saying, “I’m English and she’s Norwegian.”); similarly, Samantha faces bigotry when contemplating telling the world what she truly is (her aunt advises her: “You’d better take out lots of fire insurance,” referring to witches being burned at the stake). In the spirit of this civil-rights era, the witches contemplate a non-violent march to protest witch-discrimination at Halloween. Sounds a bit cutesy, but this was powerful stuff in its day.

It’s meant to be adorable that Darrin is so in love with his wife that he will put up with a mountain slide of crap, including a literal mother-in-law from Hell. Endora (played with relish by Agnes Moorehead) looks down her nose at “mortals” (called in this first season “humans” and “animals” and eventually toned down to “mortals”).

She barely shows him a smidgeon of respect by constantly effing up his name: Daniel, Durwood, Dumbo, Dobbin, Derek, Darwin.  This being the golden age of mother-in-law jokes, the humor was probably more potent during its first run. “Mortals are their own worst enemies,” mother observes about her son-in-law’s creed, but that doesn’t stop her from playing with him like a cat cornering a mouse.

Endora – worldly, bigoted, cranky and potentially dangerous – accuses her daughter of slumming, marrying beneath her (and in a mixed marriage, no less), and giving up a life without boundaries, “trading it all for a quarter-acre of crab grass.” We actually can’t help but see her point, and wonder how much more interesting the show may have been had the writers not worked so hard to take the high road.

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“Mortals don’t seem to know how to do anything too well,” Endora later observes, though she never admits that the playing field is not level.

One of this first season’s many highlights is a visit from Samantha’s drama-queen father, played by the Shakespearian actor Maurice Evans. He and Endora were television’s first separated couple, yet when they get together you’re watching heavy acting at its finest. ”Maurice, control yourself,” Endora purrs like the first lady of the American theater, as her estranged (and strange) husband telepathically shatters glass when he learns that his daughter married a mortal.

The original desperate housewife, Gladys Kravitz (played in the first two seasons by the Don-Knotts-like Alice Pearce), is another tragic figure. We laugh at her mistakenly witnessing Samantha’s witchcraft and miserably failing to prove it to her hapless husband and to the world, but she knows, she sees.

“Abner,” Mrs. Kravitz screams after spying a cat transform into a sexy lady, “there’s a woman in a fur coat lapping up the milk!”

Her husband, Abner (underplayed brilliantly by George Tobias), is at the ready with her “medicine,” which must be a form of liquid heroin, and is supposed to keep her tranquilized. Gladys knows what she sees, but the devil never gets his due.

Abner longs to spend his retirement reading the newspaper and practicing the flute (and why does he sit around the house in a shirt and tie?). We wait for Abner to actually see what he needs to see so that all of us can get some closure, but instead, like on all sitcoms, we are trained to expect the expected.

“Your kitchen is so uncluttered and its after six,” Mrs. Kravitz notices nervously of Samantha’s housewifery, sniffing for clues about this mysterious new neighbor, and in every single case – with no exception — getting an eyeful of evil.

The series takes place in the heart of Sixties suburbia, which, in and of itself was a new, magical and strange place for many Americans at the time (the series’ original title was The Witch of Westport). Sam is adjusting to Morning Glory Circle almost the same way millions of housewives were adjusting to their split-levels. In a supermarket, a demonstrator of an electric garage-door opener says to Sam, “How’s that for magic?” “Not bad!” Sam replies, truly impressed.

In an age in which being a hausfrau was status quo, Sam wears the label like a blue ribbon. Her mother complains, “Samantha, you’re acting like a typical suburban housewife!” “Thank you,” Sam replies proudly, actually taking it as a compliment.

Another magical, often-misunderstood aspect of modern life is advertising, and although we are told that Darrin is an account executive for McMann and Tate, we also see him writing copy, creating illustrations and generating quaint ideas that wouldn’t rate as a passable ad for Penny Saver. It’s the real Mad Men: TV characters are drinking hard liquor in the office in the middle of the afternoon.

Is Darrin the creative genius we are constantly being told he is? Take the Pepsi Challenge: a poster for a dress company goes like this: “He’d Like To Hold Your Hand When You’re Wearing A Dress From…” (based on the biggest hit of that year, The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” but how would we really know that now?). This is a world filled with old white men, but with no CEOs or marketing directors: all clients are from family-run businesses.  For instance, Castor Soup Company is actually run by Mr. Castor, and so on.

Says boss Larry Tate about one client: “He goes through ad agencies like women go through new dresses.” On a second look at Larry, we find that he is deliciously amoral (anything for the sake of winning a client – “I’ll buy that,” he says of Darrin’s latest idea, “until you think of something better.”). At the beginning of the series only, Larry is painted as an adulterer, making unwholesome moves on women while faithful wife Louise waits at home. We also get a glimpse into his psyche when he confides in Darrin about his seven years in analysis: “When the doctor told me not to come back because I was cured, I felt rejected.”

Before the show was an instant hit and brought in millions of dollars for its struggling network, execs were at first nervous that the series would suggest that Samantha and her family were Satanists (at least one reference to Lucifer and Beelzebub are mentioned in this first season, but never again). Sam, however, is careful to celebrate Christmas and to perform mitzvahs (she helps orphans and misunderstood children); everything Jesus would do. We should probably not pay too much attention when she tells us that her birthday is 6/6.

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The series’ first season deals brilliantly with sensitive subjects: mortality, bigotry, and infidelity. Not bad, considering that the show was essentially working with network constraints and limited to the most vanilla of situations. Still, it’s TV Land: men feel free to punch each other in the face when the spirit moves them, and couples drink like fish (even Louise Tate, who is pregnant, yearns for and gets a stiff drink).

The situations can get surprisingly sexual, although its Morse-coded to us. For a short stay, the house next door is occupied by the stunning Pleasure O’ Riley, who puts Darrin to the fidelity test. Only a few episodes later, her even-more-stunning sister, Danger O’ Riley, moves in as well, and plays with Darrin’s resolve, to Endora’s delight. These babes cannot hold a candle up to Samantha, who says, “Hello, Danger,” to the neighbor as if it means more than just a mere greeting. Sam is unflappable.

In addition to sex, we get politics (but only as far as stumping for a city councilman, which is safe enough, and tiresome too. Also, she exercises her civic duty by campaigning for a traffic light on Morning Glory Circle, thereby letting us know she’s a good witch).

Elizabeth Montgomery owns the role and the series from Scene One. With her cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, she effortlessly commands, steers and navigates, totally in charge. She is not afraid of what is unknown to us, the way everybody else is, so she puts us at ease.

We also get Paul Lynde in a pre-Uncle-Arthur role (he plays a loser driving instructor), but the seeds are already planted (Sam: “Would you like to join me in a cup of coffee?” His response: “Do you think we could both fit?”). Sam’s relatives keep coming – mostly uninvited, and the only one Darrin seems to have tolerance for is the ancient, bumbling Aunt Clara (played by Marion Lorne, and you either love her or hate her, but try loving her.).

This DVD is colorized for your protection and/or your outrage. You are being pandered to because you are not sophisticated enough to appreciate the art in its original, black-and-white form. About two decades previous, colorization was a major sore spot for true video affectionados and other hopeless nerds. However, the computerized color here is so vibrant and the lighting so subtle and amazing that you can screw the original black and white. You do get a choice, but watch it this way, for more magic.