Well, I hadn't thought of it, pre- Buffista(like so many things) But it makes sense. Also, the one I got to first, about women hiding who they are/ our power. And now I totally want to write Bewitched/ Mad Men again...it totally doesn't help that Roger's hair makes me all "Oh. Larry Tate." despite the fact that I find him far more attractive.

Bewitched can easily be read as the tensions of being gay and passing as straight in a repressive American culture.

And also as a commentary of the changing of the power-holder in a given household as women were becoming less and less satisfied with the choices being given to them.

was it consciously making those statements or are those put on it in hindsight?

So what can you read I Dream of Jeannie as? Or I Love Lucy?

I like Aims's take, but I think it was mostly something you could interpret after the fact. No way to be sure, but I doubt they were going for anything more than cute and funny.

I have, in all seriousness, read essays about both of them as proto-feminist(ish) statements...This woman named Susan Douglas wrote this whole book called(iirc) "Where the Boys Are" that's just full of stuff like that. I'm not sure I always agree, but she's passionate and has a fun style.

In the tv series Bewitched, I was always fascinated by the witches' culture, how Samantha would occasionally get disgusted with the normal world, transform herself into that black dress, and go hang out with Endora in that smoky, misty area. I was a clueless, mentally amorphous lump back then, and I'd like to see those bits again--but without the suburban-hell sections. I need a Good Parts Version.

A lot of it was probably unconscious--but it did have a character who had a special quality but was going to be shunned by society for showing it and that tension is what drove the comedy. It's not just what the intent of the makers was, but the underlying reasons why THIS show out of all the shows on the networks that year, became a huge hit? What did people respond to? The writing is mediocre to good (clearly not up to the standards of say, I Love Lucy, in terms of comedy) and the plots are very predictable, so what was it? Why do people still find it interesting?

Not to mention Paul Lynde was a regular.

Honestly, Scrappy, I think Elizabeth Montgomery's charm was a huge part of it, but I would guess also the fantasy of it -- she was truly having it all, a husband and kids and a home, but she still had this magic that allowed her to do so many things other women couldn't do.

Yeah, LOVES me some Elizabeth Montgomery.