an interesting video that popped up on my YouTube feed

[samhexum]

I just watched an interview with Erin Murphy, who played Tabitha on bewitched. She gave some interesting background info on an episode that I watched a few years ago, which made me think "that was a little unusual for such a lightweight show."

After watching the video, I checked with Wikipedia and found out the episode aired on Christmas Eve and before it started, Elizabeth Montgomery welcomed the television audience to the bewitched Christmas episode.

In it, Samantha and Darren are friends with a black couple who have a daughter Tabitha's age and they are going out of town and the daughter is going to sleep over.  Tabitha is delighted that she will have a "new sister" to play with. I don't remember the specifics, but somehow they get the message that they can't be sisters because they are not the same color.

So Tabitha does her nose twitch thing, and first turns the girl white then she turns both of them brown then she makes them both their regular color, but the girl has pink polkadots all over her and Tabitha has brown polkadots all over her. The black couple comes back to get their daughter during Samantha and Darren's Christmas party and they wind up staying and Darren's uncool client thinks Darren is in an interracial marriage and doesn't want to work with him because he thinks Darren is unstable.

In the end, of course it all works out, and Samantha gives the girls a simple and age appropriate speech about sisterhood and brotherhood.

Erin said they were all a bit worried about what the reception would be because if you think about it, Tabitha was in black face part of the time but no one at all objected because they saw the intent of the episode and in fact it won a special Emmy award. 

But here is the really cool thing… The episode came about because a very creative 10th grade teacher at a nearby high school wanted to inspire her class so she said to them why don't you write an episode of bewitched.  They did and then submitted it and Elizabeth Montgomery and her husband loved it. Even better… The teacher and all the students were on the set all week from the initial table read to time in the writers room updating the script after the initial table read to the actual filming and before the episode was shot all the female students had their hair done. Pretty cool, huh?

Erin said this was Elizabeth Montgomery's favorite episode and she said for her it was definitely the most memorable shooting experience.

And I know Darren is misspelled throughout this fascinating story but I dictated it and Siri is an idiot!