‘Bewitched’s’ First Halloween Episode Is Still Relevant 50 Years Later

When a sitcom stars a witch, every episode is way more Halloween-y than the normal primetime hijinks. If a spell gets cast on Full House or The Golden Girls, you know it’s gonna be revealed to be a midnight-pizza-induced dream or a total misunderstanding. But on a show like Bewitched, spooky shenanigans are the baseline every week. So just imagine the pressure when Halloween creeps onto the calendar. Mortal sitcoms can settle for a costume party and be done with it, but supernatural shows have to really work hard to make their seasonal episode stand out.

Bewitched, a breakout hit about a witch (Elizabeth Montgomery) married to an average Joe ad man (Dick York), conjured the first of its many Halloween episodes just months after its debut. Instead of doing an over-the-top Halloween party episode (that would be Season 3’s “Twitch or Treat”) or a truly bizarre and madcap trick-or-treat romp (Season 4’s must-watch “The Safe and Sane Halloween!), Bewitched decided to use Halloween for a political message.

You heard me right: this family-friendly, more sweet than sour sitcom decided to deliver a message about prejudice in its first Halloween episode, 1964’s “The Witches Are Out”! Turns out witches hate Halloween because of all those crude, wart-covered caricatures that are part of the holiday. Samantha’s mother Endora even flies south of France every October 31 so she doesn’t have to deal with it.

Things get personal when Samantha’s husband Darrin starts to work on a candy ad campaign that uses a crone-style witch as a mascot. Samantha rightly dresses her husband down being ignorant of her plight as a persecuted, totally fictional minority.

“You of all people, you should know better! That’s the kind of thing we’re trying to fight,” she says. “That picture. It’s offensive. Is that how you think I look?” Darrin rolls his eyes at this, saying that since most people don’t believe in witches it’s totally okay to discriminate against them–even though his wife, a witch, is fuming at him right there. “How would you like it if you were always being represented as something different?” she counters before flat-out calling him prejudiced, even bigoted.

So, that’s pretty heavy for a Halloween episode, right? But it’s also what makes this Bewitched episode so special, because it’s the only show that could turn Halloween into a civil rights allegory. It’s important because this episode firmly states it is possible to discriminate against people you don’t even know exist, and when their existence and pain is presented to you, you should really knock it off! This is still way relevant today, as social media gives all sorts of people–people that those in power probably didn’t think existed at one point–a voice.

In a modern Bewitched (which is happening, by the way, and will be very socially relevant!), maybe Samantha would protest via hashtag. Instead, the witches stage a protest in a hazy faux dreamscape to convince the candy company rep to go with Darrin’s radical ad campaign starring a beautiful witch. It’s a bit silly, but ya gotta work in some spooks and spells and laughs in here somehow! If you wanna laugh and learn with the family this season, this 50+ year old TV treat will do the trick.

Buy Bewitched Season 1 Episode 7 "The Witches Are Out" in iTunes