Paul Lynde Gave the Gays What They Needed on ‘Bewitched’ 55 Years Ago

As far as I’m concerned, Paul Lynde is the patron saint of Halloween. His campy, mischievous, subtly sinister style is exactly the vibe I want all October long—and it doesn’t hurt that he gave us the greatest Halloween special ever. His status as a frightful figurehead for the spooky season also makes perfect sense because of his most popular role (after playing himself on Hollywood Squares, of course). Lynde starred as the campy, mischievous, and subtly sinister warlock Uncle Arthur across six seasons of Bewitched—a role that he debuted in 55 years ago today. So not only did Paul Lynde give us the only Halloween special to feature Betty White and KISS, he also made his bewitching debut as a warlock just a few weeks ahead of Halloween. All hail Paul Lynde, patron saint of Halloween!

But let’s talk about that sitcom-defining debut 55 years ago—because if there’s one things gays should love as much as Halloween, it’s Uncle Arthur. Lynde only appeared in 10 episodes as Uncle Arthur, a stunningly low number considering how essential his gleeful sneer is to Bewitched’s legacy. As the troublemaking Arthur, Lynde brought chaos to Bewitched by crashing parties, conjuring up cows and historical figures, transforming into a fish, baseball player, clown, skeleton—literally, I could be here all day.

But there’s more to Uncle Arthur than just his quips. There’s a reason why Paul Lynde as Uncle Arthur is so iconic, practically ingrained in our shared gay DNA. Uncle Arthur was the role that let Paul Lynde be Paul Lynde—and it was the role that let gay men see themselves on TV, perhaps for the first time.

As perfect a fit as Lynde seems for Bewitched and Uncle Arthur in particular, it’s a role that could have very easily not happened at all. Remember: Lynde was never a series regular on Bewitched. He wasn’t the Urkel of the ’60s. He didn’t show up late and then take over the show so thoroughly that there was nothing left but him. Lynde only got the role on Bewitched because of his decade-long working relationship with series director—and Mr. Elizabeth Montgomery—William Asher.

Asher and Lynde first met in the mid-’50s, when Lynde—then an up-and-coming theatrical talent in New York City—got a semi-steady gig performing on The Colgate Comedy Hour towards the end of that variety show’s run. Asher became a fan of Lynde’s unique, biting (re: gay) wit. Lynde’s post-Colgate success with the smash hit Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie only made Asher want to work with Lynde more, and the two started developing sitcoms—a Paul Lynde Show—that would cater to Lynde’s numerous yet specific strengths. One cast Lynde as a fussy father to a live-in daughter and son-in-law named Howie. Another cast Lynde as the head of a toy company and father to a couple of rascally teenagers. Neither worked, and neither were picked up.

Elsewhere in TV land, though, Asher was having major success with The Patty Duke Show. That led to another hit show of his, Bewitched, debuting in the fall of 1964. Even though his direct collaborations with Lynde kept getting passed over, Asher kept casting the comedian in guest roles on the shows he was actually selling. Lynde guest-starred in the second episode of Patty Duke, and Asher brought him in to play a panicky driving instructor named Harold Harold on… Bewitched?

Yeah—Lynde actually played a different character entirely at the end of Bewitched’s first season. Lynde is, of course, great as the decidedly human driving instructor in “Driving Is the Only Way to Fly.” Thankfully for gay history, the rest of the cast and crew thought so, too—especially star Elizabeth Montgomery. She loved working with Lynde so much that she wanted him back—permanently. In modern television, there would likely be a bit more hesitancy to bringing back an actor in a different role, especially in episodes that aired so close together. But this was before the days of IMDb, Wikipedia, and heavy serialization. Actors frequently played different characters on the same show. Hell, Lynde played three different characters in two seasons of I Dream of Jeannie! Bringing him back wasn’t impossible back in 1965—thank god!

Enter: Uncle Arthur, the character that made his grand debut in “The Joker Is a Card” on October 14, 1965. To be blunt: as a barely closeted gay man, this was the role Lynde was literally born to play. It’s wild to think about this now, but prior to Uncle Arthur, Lynde was regularly typecast as frazzled dads. That’s because of his breakout role as the temperamental, conservative father Harry McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, a role he originated on Broadway and played in the feature film adaptation. It’s also the same kind of part Lynde played in his two failed pilots with Asher. These roles didn’t work for him because, well, they weren’t gay enough. They weren’t gay at all!

Now, it has to be said that gay actors can play straight characters. There is absolutely nothing that prohibits that, or prevents those performances from being successful. Look at Neil Patrick Harris in How I Met Your Mother or—I mean, look no further than Paul Lynde in Bye Bye Birdie! He was so successful in that role that people kept wanting to see him repeat it. Seriously—Lynde even sings “Kids” in his 1976 Halloween special because, uh, kids go trick-or-treating? Sure.

But as great as Lynde is at playing a cantankerous patriarch, he was even better playing a character that is so clearly close to his own heart and, quite frankly, his lived experience. Uncle Arthur is never explicitly labeled as gay. He even tries to get married to a woman in his final episode, a plot that falls apart because he knows his bride-to-be can’t handle all his… pranks. Is “pranks” a metaphor for Arthur’s actual sexuality? Isn’t all of Bewitched a metaphor?

For those unfamiliar, yeah, all of Bewitched is a metaphor for clashing cultures, with the central marriage between a mortal and a witch allowing the show to address topics like bigotry head on… with jokes. It’s no wonder why so many queer people were cast on the show (Lynde, Dick Sargent, Maurice Evans, Agnes Moorehead based on some accounts). It’s no wonder why the show attracted a massive queer audience over the decades. And these are the circumstances under which viewers—specifically out or closeted viewers—were introduced to Uncle Arthur.

Uncle Arthur is gay, even if Bewitched couldn’t come out and say it in 1965. He is a fussy, stylish cutup who is quick with quips. He’s also—and this is huge—an uncle. This word carries extra weight in the gay community—so much weight that my generation felt the need to come up with another term, guncle, to lighten the load. I’m a gay uncle, my husband is a gay uncle—and that’s how we’ll remain as we, like so many other gay couples, choose to not have children. And for a lot of gay couples, especially our gay forefathers, the choice wasn’t theirs to make. Laws prevented (and still prevent!) gay couples from adopting and prohibited (and still prohibit!) same-sex couples from raising children. Gays have often focused all their affection on their nieces and nephews, and having Uncle Arthur have that relationship with Samantha? It’s a sincerely sweet aspect of his character—possibly the only one. Arthur was a joker and a card, after all.

All of this—Lynde’s natural fearlessness, Bewitched’s central metaphor of tolerance, Arthur’s status as an unmarried uncle—combined to create a character unlike any we’d seen on TV up to this point. Of course there had been actual practicing homosexuals on TV before 1965. They were just treated like perverts, psychological oddities, or criminals. And Lynde was far from the first gay man to get a recurring role on a TV show. Richard Deacon did five years on The Dick Van Dyke Show and Hayden Rorke was a series regular on Bewitched’s “competitor” I Dream of Jeannie. Perry Mason’s Raymond Burr, arguably the most popular actor on TV in the 1950s and 1960s, was also very gay but very closeted. And none of these characters—Deacon’s uptight producer Mel Cooley, Rorke’s analytical Dr. Bellows, or Burr’s superstar defense attorney—were gay or even coded as gay. You can add three more examples to the list of gay actors successfully playing straight characters.

Lynde in the role of Uncle Arthur was something completely different. He was unrestrained, running amok, being completely himself on a massively popular show without having to hide behind a TV wife. Uncle Arthur was, quite possibly, the first time that gay kids of the ’60s (or ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s thanks to reruns) saw a character that showed them that being gay was not only a brave and bold decision, but also a helluva lotta fun.

That’s why, in addition to celebrating all that goes bump in the night, we should all take the time this Halloween season to celebrate this one warlock in particular and the man who played him. Because honestly, if you could describe Uncle Arthur in two words, they’d be “trick” and “treat.”

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