well, Jessica and Zack, from the day they were born, they started watching Car Madi because it was on, she was a golden girl. He had Seinfeld, Andre, and they said a nine year old Frasier fan might just be, and same Harry and the Hendersons. Mindy and Mork now Jessica and Zach get together and talk. They'll never say the sitcom glory days are gone they'll still watch it because it was on. Because it was on Because it was on. Because it was on Because it was was on.
Is it too early to start a Patreon, because it was on Because it was on Because it was on Because it was on because it was on. Hello and welcome to Because it was on, we Are like that Fancy Film podcast, but for people who prefer to talk about that episode of Will and Grace, where Jack thinks he is turning 29, but he was mistaken on his own age and is in fact turning 30.
My name is Jessica and I've accidentally swapped my moisturizer for Bear Pheromones and it made for a very unpleasant camping trip last week. And hello, I'm Zachary and I came into work this morning to find out the man who got cheeky with me on a grinder date and I threw a beer on last night is my new boss. And if you haven't guessed it by now, we are talking about fantasy sitcoms.
This is our part two discussion of fantasy sitcoms where we'll be talking about the topic of powerless, powerful women, including Bewitched. I dream of Genie and the Flying Nun. Yes, that's exactly right. So thank you for joining us for part two. I know everybody really loved part one, so get ready and buckle up and buckle in cuz we are gonna have just as much fun on this one. So let's jump right into it, um, and get to talking about our. Powerless, powerful women.
And I think a good place to actually start with this conversation is connecting it back to somebody we didn't get a good chance to talk about in, uh, last week's episode on fantasy sitcoms, part one. So in discussing the Adams family, we may have briefly mentioned in passing what an absolute badass granny is. And she absolutely is. Um, she's allowed to live her life as an out loud and practicing witch. She takes no bullshit from men and she gets to really be herself.
And I think that's an excellent contrast to the women that we will be talking a little bit about today, who really just don't have that benefit. So we have Samantha from Bewitched, who is a witch, who has agreed to suppress. Her magical powers for the happiness and comfort of her mortal husband. This is a Darren hate cast. Big, big Darren hate cast, but this is a very pro andora cast.
Yes, So if you were wondering where we might stand and thought we might not be pro Andora, we're here to clear that up. We're very pro andora. Then you have Jeanie, who is a genie, and she is beholden to an astronaut named to who she refers to as master and whom she serves. And then we have Miss Sally Field as the flying nun who joins a convent in Puerto Rico where it's known to be windy and she wears a big hat. And so she flies around, but. She's not really supposed to fly around.
People don't love this flying around bit that she's doing. They come to love it, but people don't love it. So we have these, these power, powerful, powerless women. And I just say, yes, I'm gonna interrupt your important shit to say my dumb shit. I respect so much how lazy they are about explaining the flying Nun thing, Liv, they're just literally But that's how all shows should do it. Like nowadays, I feel like you have to have like a 30 minute fake explanation of the science of it.
Like Wanda from Wanda vision can't like just have magic. She has to have like Newtons or whatever in, in her blood. I don't know. But there, there's always overexplaining and I just love the magic nun was like, force plus some momentum equals lift motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. Leave me alone. It's, it's literally just like she's 90 pound and the shit is windy. What more do you want from us? You ever notice how these nut hats look like a plane and of explanation?
Now the reason I keep mentioning the wind is that it's as important to our story as it was to the Wright Brothers. You see, one of the many things we didn't know about Sister Bedroll was that she only weighed 90 pounds. Dripping went. Yeah, end. End of explanation. Yes. I absolutely live for it. And the flying nu, I would say like it really, really rides the line between powerless powerful women and fever Dream. It is like right on that line for how high concept show is.
But I think our seminal show here in this category, I think we should talk about all three. I think our centerpiece is bewitched. Absolutely. Please tell me you saw episode five help, help. Don't save me. No. Tell me all about it. Okay, so this is Bewi, the happy ending if you like shut it off after 15 minutes, because Darren and, oh no, Darren and Samantha, Samantha get into an argument like she contribute.
He's, he was like struggling with one of his ad campaigns and like coming up with an idea and show. So she just organically comes up with a few clever taglines and like, does it up for him? Yep. And Darren gets excited and like, these are perfect, but then he is like, wait. You use magic to come up with these. There's no way you came up with them yourself. No. And then she says, oh no, I didn't. And she says, of course you did. There's no way you could have come up with this herself.
And so they get in this argument and Samantha just like, he does it once, like, Samantha doesn't fuck around. Uh, you're a liar once. And she's like, excuse me, And then she, there's like all of these like visual gags of her packing up her bags by like the bags themselves packing themselves. Go, go. Hi darling. Hello honey. Oh, you must be dead. Did you have a hard day? Oh no. I often lose the agency's biggest accounts two or three a week sometimes. Darren, you didn't have an idea.
No. And I didn't use yours either. Well, I thought you might in an emergency. Well, you have almost as much faith in my lack of integrity as you have in my lack of talent. please. Well, you weren't entirely wrong. I thought about spreading out your miracle there before. I'm just to save my own face, but I bet my tongue. That I let him walk out on me. In spite of all your influence, what do you mean by that? I could feel you there in the restaurant prodding and digging at my conscience.
Well, I haven't been anywhere near your conscience all day. I've been right here at home. I've vacuumed and scrubbed and cleaned and I made dinner. Well, big deal. What does that mean? Well, I've seen the way you can wham wash and, uh, pow, clean and ring aing up a dinner. Well, I didn't wham power ringing up anything. These are bonafide dish pan hands. You could have whipped that up too for appearance. Thank you. Calling me a liar if the shoe.
And he's like trying to placidly give orders to the flying objects. Like, Samantha, you get back here right now, you're not leaving this house. And just him, Darren, his most impotent as like his wife. His wife is sucking, leaving you Darren. Samantha is done. and like, and then she leaves and then indoors like there. And it's like, fucking Finally honey. Yeah. Fucking finally she shows up in her fucking green CFT tan and is like, thank the fucking devil. You asking House.
Samantha waves her hand and she does a full glow up back to her witchy glory. Oh, I collar fuck. And then, and then and dos like, let's go. And she puts her arm around him and then they just, like heaven sent, they just evaporate into glitter. And, and that's when the show ended and that's when the show ended. And it's weird that the witch is so popular and only lasted five episodes.
Oh my God. Uh, so, okay, so then eventually she chooses to forgive her husband without him making any growth or realization that he was wrong. He learns, he says he's sorry for calling her a liar. That's the resolution. He doesn't, he doesn't believe that to be clear, smart enough to have created these things. Yeah. That's never resolved. The, his current lack of like, respect for his own, his wife's. Like cognitive abilities.
Yeah, like if you are in the ad agents like the ad business and you are convinced that like it takes her a special kind of brain to come up with this kind of stuff, Then you have, you have a disease of the brain Like it's just, she was literally just like, gum drops be bum drops. It's just like some nonsense and he's like this brilliant. There's no way that you're fucking genius. There's no way you genius use magic for this clearly soup. Good. What? He's like hungry for apples.
I'm sorry, Sam. I should have known You wouldn't lie to me. What made you change your mind? Caldwell wouldn't buy the campaign. What do you mean? Caldwell wouldn't buy the campaign? I mean, he wouldn't buy the campaign. So it must have been your imagination, your ideas were no good. Well, Darren, I don't think that's very nice. Well, I don't mean your ideas are no good or that you don't have any imagination, but call Well, he didn't think there were any, you know, I know what you mean.
I understand. And it doesn't matter. The only thing that's important is that I love you and I love you. So that's the resolution. He doesn't learn anything. Oh my God, no. So I, I watched some random as episode. I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna literally close my eyes and pick and see what the gods have in store for me, what heck a tea has for me. And, I found an episode in season three, uh, where they have a daughter.
And this is the episode where their daughter starts showing her own magical abilities. And it's very interesting because in this. Situation. Right? The entire episode is Samantha trying to hide her daughter's magical abilities from Darren because she is afraid that he is going to be mad and reject her and reject the daughter. So because she has magical abilities, it is so dark.
She literally, at one point in the episode, tells her daughter, you have to stop because your daddy just wants us to be playing people. Now, Tabitha, you have to be good tomorrow because I can't stop them from using you in the campaign. That's not what it means so much to your daddy, and I can't tell your daddy about you because then he'd be afraid to let the music in the campaign. No, no, that's what I mean. You're gonna have to be good, honey. I know. I know.
What a wonderful feeling it is to be part of the magical life to have. So much at your fingertips, but we are living in a world that just isn't quite used to people like us and I'm afraid they never will be. So I'm gonna have to be very firm with you. You are going to have to learn when you can use your witchcraft and when you can't. Now your wonderful daddy wants us to be just plain people. So you're gonna have to stop wiggling your fingers whenever you want anything.
first of all, all the daughter is doing is getting her stuffed horse to come to her. So like, first of all, what the fuck? Second of all, like how fragile can your masculinity get? Cuz that's all I see in this show. That's all I see from Darren is just incredibly terrified and like shriveled little masculinity because obviously, Obviously he's attracted to the idea of a powerful woman. He is interested in it on some level sexually.
This is why he would get with a witch to begin with, right before we get a million emails about it. I'll clarify this canon. In the pilot episode, there is an introduction where it's revealed that Samantha did not let Darren know until uh uh, they were married. All right? I take back everything I said. He hates strong women. It's a little fucked up, Samantha, that you didn't tell him. Like if we're gonna be real about it, it's a little fucked up, but still, I understand why you didn't. Right?
There's safety in the the witchy closet. I understand, girl, but still, fuck this guy. I hate. And the fact that he is like so willing after all these years. I watched a random episode in season three. There's an actual fear that he might reject his daughter. Yeah. So dark Darren is clearly the villain of this entire series. Yes. And Dora is the voice of reason at all times. Live, live, live, live, live, live, live for Endora.
So this Endora is Samantha's mom, and she's essentially a witch who is very proud of being a witch. And she very much dislikes the fact that her daughter did not marry within the witch community, within the magic community. And she married Immortal, and she has made it her personal mission to make Darren's life a living hell. And there's nothing I love more than the fact that at any fucking moment this misogynist.
Could have a 60 year old witch in a green caftan in his living room, making his life utter hell at any moment, Good morning, darling. Or should I be more specific and say, uh, good, four o'clock in the morning. What are you doing up so early, early? I'm my plate. One party after another. I haven't been to bed yet and neither have you. Apparently. Typical. Typical of what? Of the neglected housewife. Drinking coffee. Eaten a lie by suspicion.
A husband out to the wee small hours of the morning doing whatever it is he's doing. Darren's working in the study. Uh, uh, another point of order about the canon of Bewitched and Dora is hundreds and hundreds of years old. She's like 600 years old. Yes, yes, yes. The actress is probably 60. Yeah. And Dora herself is, is a force of nature.
So this'll be my one gesture to like a defense of Darren is that, to realize that there which is in the world is one thing, but the cosmic horror of realizing that there is this particular kind of witch that exists because these are not witches, these are gods, they can do literally anything. yes, they can do anything they want there. There is no limit upon their power. There is, there are no rules. There is no law of nature under which they must abide. Agreed.
This, this would be, this would be cosmic horror. And to think like you're a man in the 1960s, right? And you have this idea of what your role should be in the marriage and what women are, who women are. and how you are supposed to relate to them and then you get married and then all of a sudden the person you married that you thought for all of this time you were physically, socially, mentally superior to is essentially a God that really must shrink your balls.
Yeah. I mean, it is sort of, if you have any ounce of like fragile masculinity in you, like you are fucked. It's gotta be pulled out and to understand that like you really can't leave if you ran, if you really wanted to, and she really didn't want you to, there's really not much you could do. I feel like there is a very good movie to be made, like an a 24 style thriller movie about like marrying a woman and then realizing that she and her family are literally gods, are literal gods.
Actually, if this podcast doesn't work out, we have a script to write Yeah. It, it really does. Like, so I get it there and it is urry, like if you get into a fight with this woman, you are, you're not only, fuck, she can't, she can't just like kill, she can kill you, but she can also like send you to hell Yes. Yes. Like she could turn you into a mosquito that can't die.
Yeah, I mean like Andora is constantly enumerating the ways that she can fuck you up for all eternity, and there's no repercussion, like a whim. She can just do it cuz she wants to. Even the horror of just like your mother-in-law, desperately wanting to do those things to you, but only because of the good whims of your wife is that being prevented from happening. And yet, and yet this motherfucker is still so fucking brazen. He doesn't realize the situation he's in. It's the thing. Denial.
No, and I think like, like how fucking deep is your misogyny? That like you are married to a God and a, uh, the mother of that God actively hates you. And you're still just like, you better have that magic baby from me, motherfucker. You are alive by her grace alone Like, that's just the, the, the depths that is the depths of male delusion, of fragile masculinity and of like in deeply internalized misogyny.
Yep. It just pour Samantha, I mean, it, it is, it's sad to think that she would just degrade herself to this extent. for Darren. Fucking Darren. He's an an ad guy. Darren, like, what are we doing? And you know what? I always find it so fucking interesting. It is always. In these stories because they're not rare. It is always the witch who wants to give up herself to marry a mortal man.
You find me one motherfucking story about a warlock who's seeking to give up his powers to marry the mortal woman. No, not, there's none. There's none. And I can name three off the top of my motherfucking head. You have the, you have Bewitched, you have Sabrina the teenage. And you have the Little Mermaid where they're all willing to give up. Like they're, they're missing power.
Does Sabrina give away her magical powers in the cannon of the sort of the, the comic books especially, and it's played up in the newest incarnation of it, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Like it's, it's essentially implied that she would, she has to choose between her moral life and her witch life. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I it's literally just like a metaphor for like, you have to submit to a man. Correct.
Uh, of just like that, like women's freedom and like having a romantic attachment to a man that they are opposites and what a dark thing thing to teach children. Yes. You're never gonna see the other way around. The closest thing comes actually in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, where we see Sabrina's father, who essentially was rejected and sort of excommunicated from the Church of night because he married Sabrina's Mortal mother.
But we also learned that the only reason he married her was not cuz he loved her, it was because Satan asked him to, cuz he needed that pairing in order to make like, essentially the anti-Christ. Right. Right. Yeah. So that's the closest I can find to men willingly, uh, giving up something, giving up magical power for women. That's the closest thing. But yeah, I mean, you don't get it a lot and I mean, it's obvious reasons why, right?
This is all an allegory for, for actual actual power and the dynamics that exist in sort of heterosexual relationships. One thing I did want to bring up, and I know you read my notes, uh, where the actress, Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha, In an interview did suggest that there were heavy overtones, um, or sort of threads meant in the plot, related it to closeted homosexuality. So in a quote, she, she, she said, don't think that it didn't enter our minds at the time.
We talked about it on set, certainly not in production meetings. This, that this was about people not being allowed to be what they really are. If you think about it, be witched is about repression in general and all the frustrations and trouble it can cause. What do you think? There are a lot of themes of like a, a queer subtext to this show, and I think a lot of it is intentional. The seventh episode of this show is about, it's titled The Witches Are Out.
And the idea behind it is that Darren is working for a candy company's doing an ad campaign and they want to have witches in the ad campaign. So Samantha and her witch friends are offended at the representation of witches in, I've seen this episode. Yeah. In, in the campaign. And so they haunt the candy executives dreams with like protest signs saying We demand fair representation and this could be seen as like a civil right, a not a civil rights.
It could be seen as a non liberation, queer liberation. It could be lots of different things. Again, it's like television. So you're, they always have to like a degree of separation from the topics, right? And again, it's that theme of using fantasy, right? As a degree of separation so that, uh, it can be palatable and like, you're not gonna lose sponsors and the executives will allow you, there's no real threat because witches aren't real. Right?
And therefore, we can tell this story about civil rights, about queer liberation, about women's liberation through the avatar. There is a lot of Samantha sort of like being in the closet and never getting to show her true, true colors. The concern about her daughter and maybe her daughter being a witch or like having powers. It's all there. What's that? What's a Halloween witch for a billboard? you were gonna use that picture? Well, that's not quite finished yet.
I thought I'd put another ward here. how could you? You of all people you should know better. That's kind of thing we're trying to fight. What are you talking about? That picture? It's offensive. Offensive That how you think I look. Will you calm down, Sam? Well do you? Of course not. Then why did you do it? Because that's the way most people think witches look. Is that any reason to discriminate against a minority group? What? Minority group? Witches, of course.
Sam. People don't believe in witches. What's that got to do with anything? How can you discriminate against something you don't know exist? Don't split hairs Sweetheart. If you realized how ridiculous you said, where are you going? I'm going to hang by my feet for a beam in the attic and cackle at the moon. It's the matter with you. Are you serious about this? Of course I am. How would you like it if you were always being represented as something different?
Well, let's face it darling, you are a little different. Darren, please. What did I say? You are prejudiced. Prejudiced Mother was right? You can read it through a queer lens. Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, all I'm really hearing here is be Witch is so rife for an interesting retelling where you did not get that with Bill Ferrell. You don't think the Nicole Kidman Will Ferrell movie really tapped into those themes? I can barely remember.
I saw it with my dad when I was like 10 and I definitely saw it in theaters. Yeah, I did see it in theaters cuz once again, I love Be Witched. Yes. So I was like, yes, yes. Fuck yeah. And then it wasn't interesting. It was very meta. Um, it was not good at all. Okay. So Bewitched, we're talking a lot about repression, a lot about her giving up something in order to be with this fucking mediocre ass man. Okay. Let's, let's compare it to I Dream of Jeanie, because Yes, please.
That they're, that's where like to go. They're very different shows and how they handle I agree. Basically because Jeanie is an enthusiastic sub and she just wants her daddy to top her big time. Big time. And that's, so in my memory how I've remembered Bewi, I dream a genie as a kid who watched these things is I remember them very similarly to be honest about a woman who is powerful and gets to exercise.
And I think when I watched both these shows, I, I realized that that obviously was not the case. And they're both very different in how they talk about restrictions on women's power. I, I guess, be, which had a lot more of Samantha, like the, a lot of the drama was about her writing the fence. There was an episode where she wanted to leave and so there is this constant tension of her restraining on her restraints. But Jeanie, she can dream of nothing more than satisfying. It's a male fantasy.
It's just like a male powerful. It's such, okay, I'm glad you said it. This is a hundred percent male, straight male wish fulfillment. Yep. Like, I mean, this is like, if somebody, I think I wrote it in my notes. This is like somebody took a penthouse forum letter, removed all the penetration and created a show out of it. That is what this is. Yeah. I'm quite surprised.
Like I've always known about, like, I, I could picture Jeanie in my head of like what she was dressed like, but uh, of course it's iconic, right? But as I was sitting down and like looking at it analytically, it, it's kind of bonkers that she's allowed to walk around in that outfit for like the time that it's, and I think that that is like a little bit of like orienta orient. Okay. I never pronounce this word Orientalism Orientalism, though. It's, she's Barbara Eden as white as fuck.
Yeah, I know. It's just like, but she's coded as Middle Eastern. By the way. We, before we get too deep into I dream of Jeanie, we should talk about how fucking racist the show is. This is unreal. I did not realize this. Okay. So when I watched this, I swear to you as a child, like, and me remembering it as an. It was just like she is a genie, but the idea that she is Middle Eastern, that that wasn't there, it was just like she's an American fucking genie. Cooney's an explanation.
Going back and watching this. She references Baghdad. Yeah. In like this second episode, she takes them back to her homeland. Yeah. And they go to Baghdad, like, which apparently is all white people. Yeah. Yes. We are talking about blonde ed, ivory skinned, blue-eyed, Barbara Eden, and they are trying to tell me that she is from Baghdad. Like she literally in the second episode, she is referencing, oh, in ancient Persia, we used to say this a pity.
The sky reminds me of a bright summer day in Baghdad. Does it? Mm-hmm. See? Has the weather changed much in the last 2000 years? Oh, weather is weather in ancient Persia. We had an old saying, everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. you're kidding. Yeah. I guess this is like Lawrence of the Lawrence of Arabia Times where Hollywood don't give No, the snuck of effect. Not even a single fuck, but it's like, I, I just don't, I can't conceive of it.
Not even entering people's reigns. She sure looks like she is from Glendale, just like straight from Ohio. This lady's coming to this and then she says at the very beginning, like first five minutes, she says this nonsense Arabic. Before she like used this magic to translate herself. Actually, I would be curious to know if any of our non-existent listening translate if she actually said, Anything. Yeah. I, I just don't have enough faith in the writers. Or it would be Farsi, I suppose.
She's from Persia. Yeah. But, so yeah. Very racist. I, I think I just wanted to say that off the bat. Forgot Yeah, absolutely. Throw it up top. Incredibly racist. Oh. But the reason that I was reminded of it is I think that sort of like orientalist degree of separation again, is what allows her to be in such a scantily, scantily clad outfit.
Because there is this like, branch of racism that like, especially with like the Ottoman Empire and stuff and like the, this fascination of the harem, right. Um, that, you know, it's like this fetish object of like, right. Victorians I think did it a lot where like, yes. There was a sexual fascination with the harem, and it was permissible to think of women that way because they were othered a little bit. So a hundred percent we're thinking of white women like this.
Yes. And so, even though Hundred percent. So even though this is Barbara Eaton, she is coded as Middle Eastern enough to get away with like walking around in Uh, yes. Yeah. In a, I mean, she's entirely a fetish object. Yeah. In this show, like there is, there's seemingly no agency. Like I, I don't even know if she can come out of her bottle without like being prompted to. Yeah. She another canon. No. Is she definitely can't Not initially. She, well, yeah. Yeah. She had to be wished on that time.
So once she was free, he has to like physically restrain her in there if he wants, wants her to do it. No, no, that's what I'm saying. Like he, he can put her away. And like we see in like, I think the first episode, and it's especially in the voiceover for the rest of season one, that like Tony essentially is like, well, you're free now.
And like she's like, no, I'm with you Daddy like it literally says in the voiceover, she did not wanna be free because in it was a genie, oh, not your average every day genie, but a beautiful genie who could grant any wish. Captain Nelson was so grateful. He set Genie free only, she didn't want to be free. You know how it is when you've been cooped up in a bottle for 2000 years. She wanted to have fun and she wanted to have it with Captain Nelson again.
God, there are no. But this God loves you and wants nothing more than sub to submit to you. Yeah. Wants nothing more than to chill with you on Cocoa Beach and get that interplanetary d like that is all this woman wants. about like the depiction of other women in this show. I do want to to have that the fiance and the pilot is h. did you watch the pilot? No, I watched the second episode.
So in the pilot, the fiance, so like he just found Jeanie and then he got home after like abandoning Jeanie and thinking he's done with it. He gets home, his fiance comes in and they're like talking, and then Jeanie like comes out of the shower in like full, I'm wearing my boyfriend's t-shirt mode. And the fiance is, is like Tony And he quickly comes up with a lie, oh, this is my housekeeper. And she clearly doesn't believe it.
And then she has this amazing line, which is, I may be tolerant, but this is ridiculous. And then rage. Like, what? What does she. Yeah, like I what are you into girl Like, like what are you tolerating girl like That's what I'm more interested in. Is it just like show the NOI consent like Yeah. Is it like, like Tony, you can, you can have, you can have as many fetishized genie objects as you want. You just have to tell me about it first. Yeah, you have to. I'll tolerate it. A thumbs up.
we check on each other's comfort with us, Tony But what's hilarious is apparently she can, she is very tolerant because in the next scene she does not give a fuck. So wait, I, she just needed to know. Yeah, we tell, we communicate. Tony like literally the next scene, she's just like having dinner with her dad and Tony and it's no bie. It's cool. Tony fucked a housekeeper, but you know, what are you gonna do?
Yeah. I mean I think partially goes back to the expectations of women and power dynamics of, of the time and like the expectation of men's infidelity in a lot of ways. Yeah. I think specifically for that situation, it's such a male fantasy show. Yes. That actually dealing realistically with the fiances feelings would be way too much screen time for her feelings. Correct. Right, yes. Like, cuz then we'd have a whole show Yeah.
Of like that is the issue here and we need to get that moving very quickly so we can continue into this domination, submission fantasy. So kinky, I assume that this launched a thousand ships of like people that realized they were into some kinky shit. Oh, it had to like there is no way that there was not a significant portion of the viewing audience of I Dream of Genie, who was not actively hard the whole time.
I, so as you know, my mother is active in the leadership of her B D S M community, her local BDSM community. Yes. And I, a constant complaint from my understanding as my mom just like talks about her busy day is that all the Normies that came in, because they watched 50 Shades of Gray Mm. And wanted to dip. They're chosen and they're like, you know, they're all very like Gate keep about it. Mm-hmm. like, you don't know what you're fucking talking about. You just walking off the street like this.
So, and I think it was the same thing, like people were watching I Dream of Genie and then they were going to whatever the fuck you did back in the sixties to get your kick your rocks off And, uh, these, there was a lot of women who started calling their husband master. Mm-hmm. I believe it. Yeah. You know what I literally thought about like being like, what if we brought your mom on this show to give us her analysis of I dream of Jeanie from a B D S M perspective.
I genuinely, I swear to you that I was like, maybe I'll pitch this idea for this episode. Hey, Patreon, Patreon content. Patreon, content I'd honestly love to hear it. So I, I did not ask my mom about I dream of Jeanie, but I did ask my mom about, so she was alive and watching TV when Bewitched was on. And so, and she was also, she came from a very fundamentalist like religious background. Like she was very deep into that community. Yeah. And so I wanted to know like, Hey, was there.
Like a religious backlash against be witched. Like, were you not allowed to watch Be Witched or anything like that? And first of all, she instantly knew what I was talking about, like what angle I was coming from. Yeah. And she was like, no, we didn't do that back then. And so, because I, we mentioned about we grew up with either being like this Harry Potter thing Yeah. Of like people protesting like book signings and Yeah. Trying to cancel Harry Potter.
Yeah. And so I, we were both curious about that and I did a little bit of digging on it. And there is, this is an observed phenomenon of like, there has not always been this. Flavor of Christianity that like, I don't know how, how to phrase this there. I mean, there was, was a, it was a move towards like political activism in the church that didn't exist prior to essentially the Reagan era. Yeah. So I, I imagine that's largely it, right? Is like, yeah.
So basically just the Satanic panic era of the 1980s is where you get this kind of thing of just there are many, yeah. Like, people that make full careers out of, like digging into and finding the satanic in contention of pop culture, if you like televangelist, uh, there's a, that started in the eighties. There's a bazaar world where that's indeed your.
Oh, oh my God. So I have, I followed this TikTok account called Satanic Panic at the Disco and it's like basically the greatest hits of the genre of like hucksters, like trying to link pop culture to Satan and it's, it's fucking amazing. But let me tell you what really concerns me. The legacy. Oh, the leprechauns, these little people. Our little demons, minions of Lucifer.
When people come to me for an encounter, whether it's virtual or in person, I always look to see if they have Irish somewhere in their heritage. If you want to wear green. That's all right. But B where the leprechauns, the Saint Patrick's day demons. Yeah. And I would love in the world where like gay rights did not advance enough for me to like be comfortable enough to live my life as a homosexual. And we got married. Yeah. Yeah. So and that you would've our Michelle Michelle Bachman phase.
But my whole thing would be that I'm like just talking about the teenage min ninja turtles. And isn't a sewer kind of like the closet and and Yes. So the teenage meat and ninja turtles are like the homosexuals. Yes. Yeah. And I'd hope that I'd be in a place where I also have to make an ad that says I'm not a witch. I'm you. I can only hope. But yes. Yeah. And there there's a bizarre world where that is a hundred percent you. That's us. Yes. That was plan B. realities. There's another world.
Another world But what was I saying? So you were essentially saying like you had asked your mama by dream of Jeanie, it wasn't a thing. And we both agreed that like that political movement really didn't start until Reagan era. so it was the Satanic panic of the 1980s where you got this tradition of like overreacting. There was a few documented incidents that I could find. There was actually a paper that I found, like a scholarly paper on this.
And Darren, the actor that was playing, Darren was doing like an interview. On radio and one of the callers made a complaint that would kind of fit mm-hmm. into the modern way that people have a relationship with the, basically the modern kind of complaint you'd get. And there was another one that was even smaller and less significant. There was not like a concentrated movement. Right. It's not something you saw until later. Right.
I also thought it was really surprising that the line in my mother, the car in like the very catchy theme song, but it's like everybody knows that sooner or later you come back as an alligator or something like that. So just a direct enforcement of the idea of reincarnation. Yeah. And no waves were made about it. I guess in a way it was more religiously tolerant or I think yes. Maybe more religiously tolerant or people realize that it didn't fucking matter.
Yeah. I mean like that the stakes are so fucking low. Mm-hmm. you know what, I'm, I'm about to serve you up A piping hot take that I just came up with, and so I, this hasn't been vetted. This is raw, hot takes coming in. Anyway, let's hear it. Let's hear it. Um, so have you, you've heard of like pre-Roe v. Wade Christianity was much more segmented and there was not a lot. Mm-hmm. of like a unified Christian. Right. Sort of the moral majority using Christianity as a political voting block. Right?
Yeah. It was much more segmented. You had like a million different kinds of Protestants and Catholics. They're all divided. Yes. And Roe v. Wade really made like a concentrated, unified Christian movement that came after it, right. And made it more of a political force where its will was being known, kind of headed by, headed by a specific flavor in the leadership of like evangelicals, right? And so I think this is just like artifacts of. A period before we kind of lived under that regime.
Right. Of that threat of that movement. Whining about our pop culture Right. Right. So like they, because today these people still live in my head. Mm-hmm. because every time I watch pop culture and I see something that's like religiously spicy or the kindest thing Yeah. That I know they'll complain about. They have real estate in my head. Yeah. And I know that they are going to complain about it. Yeah. Like when I was watching the new Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Oh yeah.
There's no way that they were constantly there. Yeah. Like they were just in my head and I could hear them talking. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. All of the things that this movement was going to say. Yeah. And so it's interesting that we can look back on it and in a way, in a particular way that was a more religiously tolerant. Because there was more of a Christian plurality. Right? Right. Obviously like gay rights didn't exist or anything like that.
Don't get, don't get me wrong, but don't get it twisted. Yeah. it was like less organized. It was less organized and just like inner pop culture, at least people aren't as touchy about this kind of shit. Yeah. I think it's cuz they realize that it doesn't actually matter, right? Yeah. The stakes of it are actually quite low because the people who are doing it today and using it today, I mean, they're using it as a tool to an end, right? Mm-hmm.
like it's not, it's not about Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It's about getting people mad about Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Yeah, it's just a constant selling point that we are the victims, that we are being persecuted. Correct. Percu, persecution, fantasy. Yes. That we literally live in Roman times because Sabrina the teenage Witch exists. Yes. Yes, exactly.
So with Bewitched and I Dream of Genie, very different in terms of like how they treat women and their power with like be, which clearly there's more of a struggle and an angst there about these powers. I dream of Jeanie, she's here for it. Um, she wants to be his, his his little magic slut. She loves it but I also think like she's largely portrayed as like unworthy of having her powers. Interesting. So in that, all her powers generally do are cause problems, right?
So she's portrayed as essentially stupid, naive, very innocent in her behaviors and her decision making is not, you know, thought through. And all it does is cause problems for Tony, that Tony then has to fix for them both. And usually he has to fix it by like being very specific in directing her to execute some sort of magical spell, right? Yeah, she's definitely infantalized. Um, very much so.
So I think that be, witched is a really good example of, so like when there is a specific kind of person that when they watched Disney movies, they automatically sympathize with the villain most times. Mm-hmm. like as a kid, I fucking loved Ursula. Fuck yeah. Ursula Scar. Yes. Oh yeah. Yes. And like, and it's often, I don't think for a long time I had the vocabulary to justify why I was so into these murderers, and like hucksters. Yeah. But I think Bewitched, like I had the realization that.
When you're watching something that was made with like values that are very different from your own, it can feel more natural and comfortable to sympathize with a person that is cast as the villain, which is endora. Andora Andora, like the writers intended for Andora to be this snob, this awful person that was constantly dealing with our straight man. Uh, Darren, you're supposed to empathize with Darren in this situation, but, but obviously I could never do anything but empathize with Endora.
Yes. And I think it's part of like the writers of this have values different from my own to such an extent that I want to emphasize with Endora. And it's like, it's like, as a reader, as a watcher, I'm asserting my independence even as like a kid right. Of distancing myself. Like, I'm not gonna, yes, you're trying to manipulate me one way, but fuck you. Yes. And same thing with like Disney villains of, it's just like, I don't like the particular values that, right?
Like I was a little kid, but I don't really like what a little mermaid's sell in here. So I think I'm kind of gonna like de default to, I like Ursula fuck this whole mess. And with I Dream of Genie. It's just like, I don't know, there's nobody to root for. There's to this situation for, I can't empathize with Jeanie because she's such a little infant and I guess I want her to have some self-esteem. Yeah. And it is just nothing there. Like it's, her whole quest is to Mary Tony.
Yeah. It's, it's, it's so, it's like alienated from my values, but I have nobody to latch onto. Right. And that's why we can make it like a difficult show to like get into the same way that I fucking love Be witched. I'll watch a whole mess of a witch. Yeah. I'd still watch Be Witched. I don't think I could really find myself watching I dream of Genie. I'm certain it will come up again for us in this course of making this podcast.
Yeah. But it's, it's not like I'm, it's not like I'm like going to a fun place when I'm watching I dream of Jeanie outside of like, eh, she's gonna like, Barbara Eden looks great in her costume, but like, that's about all I've got. So where does the Flying Nun our third show? Yes. In this topic? Yes. In this category of, um, powerful power Powerless women. So Zach, tell me what you thought about the Flying Nun. So I think that we have like slightly deferring opinions on the Flying Nun.
I do think that it was a fairly progressive portrayal of a woman that was like combating and overcoming fairly patriarchal forces in her life. And I was reading this account of a woman that I guess we can put show notes that really empathized with and valued having this powerful, this power fantasy for a woman that she could see. Because women do not tend to get powerful power fantasies, especially in the sixties. It's very goofy and it tends to get dismissed.
I think when we were trying to think of episode ideas, we thought about like going through doing episode of like the worst sitcoms of all times and I Googled like some lists and the fine mountain is always on there. But it never, but I watched a show and it's fine. It's, it's a good show. like it's well produced, like it's not, I've seen much worse sitcoms, especially of the era.
Yeah. But I think it gets dismissed because it has a female lead in the sixties, whips the ass out of the Becktel test and in this era that's worth mentioning. Yes, Yeah. True. This is a show true, like women are always on the screen and barely will we get a male character. Yeah. And I think it was a show too that it should be noted. It was made for girls, like it was made for young women. This was primarily a children's show when it came out.
So it is a show that was made for essentially little girls. Yeah. And again in, so this is within the height of the counterculture movement, civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, tons of protests were going on riots. And the first, within the first like minute of us meeting Sally Fields's character, the Drops, the fact that she was arrested in a free, free speech protest. Uh, you play cards often, sister Beru. No, I just learned about three weeks ago. Help pass the time while I was in jail.
Prison. Yeah. I was arrested at a free speech protest rally. Just kind of like aligning herself to that, which I feel like is a very ballsy move for this. I think just like the dissonance of it being a nun that did this, gave us that like fantasy distance that I keep talking about and maybe like palatable to put on television, but uh Right. She becomes somewhat unassailable because she's a nun.
I also think my, my take on it was that the sound of music came out two years prior and somebody was like, quirky nuns are so hot right now. Yeah. It it's that TV executive half brain just like, yes, quirky nun, quirky nuns sing Magic. Exactly. Magic Lady. Magic Lady Nuy. Exactly. Which makes me, again, believe like how much, how much of it was in, how much of it was really intentional versus quirky. Nuns are so hot right now. I mean, it is a lot.
So I will say, once again, I did it for a dream of Jeanie. I'll do it for this. This show is quite racist. Yes. We're in Puerto Rico and there's one Puerto Rican nun in this convent. Yes. All of like the major speaking roles are white women for some reason with like just Midwestern accents. makes no fucking sense. Like at one point in time, like Sally Field calls it out, like her character calls it out as like somebody speaking to her and she's like, oh, like you don't have an accent.
You speak English. Cuz she, like, the rest of us would expect to find Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. And the woman's like, why wouldn't I? I'm from Boston. Like, uh, I, I do think that this is, I don't know. Yes. Oh, I'm Sister Jacqueline who Oh, you speak English? Well, I'm from Boston. It goes with the territory. This Sisto sister Cito is from Puerto Rico. Yeah. Oh, Gusto in Conno. Armo your little wet behind the ears.
But this is like a criticism of missionary work in general that you just send white people to go save the third world. I, I I, I don't think that they were taking that route. It's just, I think the producers were like, no one's gonna watch this if it's a bunch of Puerto Ricans. But it, I don't even know why they bothered basing it in Puerto Rico then. Yeah, I don't understand it. I don't know if it was like really cheap to film there.
If that was the reason or if it's just like that area is indeed known for wind and they're like, they're not gonna buy it anywhere else. Yeah. If we, they should just said it in Chicago. They mentioned it in the pilot, just said Chicago. Chicago thought it as a city. Like they're both, yeah. Yeah. I agree. Incredibly odd to me. But, and, and it's also there. Is it, it it's racist for another reason in that like the.
This white lady is coming to the third world and within five seconds she's whipping this place into shape like she is. She sent to her kindergarten class full of Puerto Rican orphans, and they're in like shabby clothes and they don't have any equipment for learning and all that. And this is explained to her by the children. And she's like, well, someone's gotta whip this place into shape. And then they do like this little like nonsense montage where the over the, the voiceover says.
And she introduced a new, a, a new word into the local vocabulary credit and sees all the children walking out and clothes, new clothes. So, oh, this white lady taught, taught all these children to shop with a credit card. Is that what she sold to us? Yeah. So all she did was put them in debt that their family is now beholden to. Yeah. So like, The, it has a very similar plot to Sister Act and like this Maggie Smith equivalent character is 100% valid.
And like her complaints of like, you motherfucker think you're gonna show up to my orphanage within five minutes and start giving me these ideas like, oh, thanks for borrowing money against my orphanage. In order to clothe them thank, thank God we didn't have anything else. I have to pay the electric bill. How the fuck am I gonna do that if I have to repay your shopping spree? Like she solves nothing. Right, right. Yeah. And of course it's just like, of course it's credit, right?
Because it's like women be shopping. Yeah. And women don't know, don't know how money work. Yeah. I, I mean there that like, uh, monologue that Maggie Smith character is the villain of the show. And so, but I. Again, it's just like, I'm sorry, I gotta empathize with you a little bit. That made no sense and it is truly insulting it a bit racist to think that this white lady's gonna show up and cure third world poverty in five seconds by teaching them to sing and borrow money for clothes.
Look, I mean, don't, don't knock a tried and true method. Yeah, of none. Singing equals problem solved. So, but if, if you acknowledge, if you like acknowledge that and it's definitely problematic. But in general it does have a very empowering depiction of women, I would say. Just, you know. Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree with that. And it's funny, my mom used to talk about the Flying Nun all the time. She loved the Flying Nun growing up.
You know, it's, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. I think partially it is like the silliness of it that just attracts children. Yeah. It is The idea that she had like some sort of power. And it is also like my mom grow up going to Catholic school where like the nuns were horrible. And so I think like seeing, like seeing the, it's like somebody who looks and acts like people who treated you terribly.
Sharing your beliefs and sort of representing values that maybe you have is I think, empowering. I think they all three of those powerful, powerless women, they use the Mechanica fantasy in three totally different ways to, you know, with Samantha, it's like this power that she is suppressing and like that it's creating tension, that fantasy element. And I dream of Genie, it's like, it's like a problem of this woman having power. Basically. It's from Darren's perspective. Yes. The show.
Yes. It's a problem of her having power and she uses it only for service of him. Right. She is not, this woman could do anything. Like we said, when she's released, she has God-like power. She could do any fucking thing and she chooses to serve Tony. Right. And then with the flying nun, it is the fantasy element of it. I think like just serves to empower basically. It's just, it's basically a Superman. It's just Right.
Her thing is, Yeah. That she flies and, but she solves problems for her community, just like Right? She wants to help, she wants to use it to help. Right. There is the problematic element of her coming in as a white foreign outsider, um, thinking she can help and solve all these problems. But yeah, I, I like, I can see your point for sure. Yeah. That the overall premise is that she's seeking to use the ability to fly to better serve the people around.
and there is no suppression element to it either, of like, oh, we have to lie about it. We have to conceal this. Like the mother superior will candidly tell anybody. like, yeah, yeah, that bitch flies It's something to do with the wind. I dunno. Yes. I, we do see her in the pilot episode intentionally trying not to engage it, right? Mm-hmm. like we see her pushing away from it, at least at the beginning because, you know, she's, she's afraid of it. Right.
And we, you know, we see sort of antagonists on the island. Not necessarily love that she can do this, right? Yeah. But it's not the, we're not talking like bewitched levels of suppression, rejection. It's not internalized, I would say is what I like, like when she tries to conceal it, it is, first of all, it's temporary. Like it's not a constant threat. So, and it's practical. Yeah. For her ends, so Right. It's like she can't be washing a car and then just fly away.
Yeah. Versus like, oh, my man will never love me unless I submit and suppress my powers. That's not really part of it. She said, no, no. After all, So we've now sort of taken up tour of the biggest fantasy sitcoms of the 1960s. We've created this taxonomy of sort of our spooky norm core, our, um, powerless powerful women, our science fiction marvels and our fever dream apolitical fantasies.
And so we've taken this tour now, and I guess my, my question for you is, why, why do we, as a culture turn to fantasy sitcoms and why do, especially a lot of the ones we've talked about today, why do they endure as sort of these banner carrying sitcoms from that era? There were a shit ton of sitcoms that aired in the 1960s and these are, these ones have stood the test of time in a lot of ways.
Yeah, I, uh, I talked a little bit about like why writers would want to employ fantasy to like, get their messages across or to opt out of, right. Having the content, political content as far as like why the audience would opt into it. That's a, that's a very important question to me cuz I, I dream of Genie and Be Witched are two very important shows for me. Yes. Uh, like as a kid I was obsessed with both of them. I liked, I dream of Genie a lot more when I was a kid than I do now.
Doesn't Me Too really give me anything anymore? Yeah. And I think it's probably similar reasons. I was a little gay boy living in the South and I really was fascinated with the image of these powerful women and just, you know, being able to like, control things and have, I dunno if you like, they exercise their will on the world around them when that was not always something that I gotta see in real life.
Yeah. And yeah, so I think it, it is a lot of gay men will tell you that, that shows like, be Witched in, I Dream of Genie had this sort of like, camp value to it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, yeah, not a gay man, but as we know, usually if a, if a gay man identifies with a character, so do I. Oh, I felt the same. I felt the same way about both of those characters.
And I think when you're a kid, the nuances that we've picked up on in terms of having to curb and hide your powers or having to serve a man, they're there and your little brain picks 'em up, right? And helps form ideas, beliefs, and all those sorts of things. But they, they pick them up, I would say more subconsciously. And what you see is magic woman. Magic woman does magic thing. And I think there's definitely power in that and validation in that, that I definitely experienced as a kid.
And then you add on top of it, like why I liked, I dream of Jeanie Moore. She had a better costume. Yeah. Like she looked great. Like I wanted the costume, duh. And there are kids eyes and did the. Her bedroom. So cool. I still would live in that lamp. Like her bedroom is still an absolute hit. It's like, duh. It's better from a kid's perspective.
Yeah. I mean, because I don't think in a kid's perspective, you're not necessarily picking up on like the gender dynamics of it, and it's just like, well, she's clearly the most powerful person in the room. Exactly. Yeah. She's making stuff happen and she's just the most colorful, fun character. Yes. Yeah, and I mean, I'm pretty certain as a kid, I also still liked Endora more than I liked Samantha or Darren. Yeah, exactly. In the same way that like. Viewing one of the Lion King.
I was really appreciating scar just because I think on some level I was picking up on the weird monarchist propaganda of the Lion King. Yeah. And so I was like, I actually, I like, I like Scar Emper. Tyran. Yeah. Well, I think also like, yes, there's that, and then there's also like being able to recognize, like in the movie he's, he is portrayed as different. He's still powerful. Right. And he's still part of the main body of Lions, but he's the powerful one. Right.
And I think it's very similar in other characters, at least for me, that I've connected. And specifically with Scar, again, this is a little off the rails, but with the way that they choose to other scar in order to tell you that he is a villain. Is they? Yeah, they gave him up. He's a, he's a, a purry little pussy cat. That's definitely how I refer to all gay men. Yeah. Yo, he, he's like stretching in this very feline way that you never see. Mo Mo Faso was.
Yes. And in my day to today as a little boy, I carried myself much more like, like he's definitely doing like a, like a this with his nails. I know no one can see what a this is, but it's like a, like a, a, a limb. It's super offensive. I already, uh, limb game and then like this. Yeah. This is what Scar does. Yeah. Yeah. I get you This is what Scar does and it's also how I look at my nail polish. So, this is what he does. Um, but yes, like I, I agree with that.
And then I think like, in general, why audiences also connect to fantasy sitcoms is it's like when the world around you is in turmoil and is in such disarray and there's a lot changing, it can feel very, I think like, I don't wanna say comforting, but even if like the story that's being told is challenging to social norms or presenting something different, it's, it's very much like, like everything is chaos right now. So like why not watch a Frankenstein be married to a vampire?
Reality's a little bit too much right now, so I want to step away from it. Yes, I want to step away from it, but also like, uh, it's comforting in that. Like my me as a conservative man in the 1960s, seeing like women get more power and queer people get more power, um, it's almost like fantasy sitcoms are highly non-threatening, even if the messaging is ultimately subversive, which I think we agree in a lot of cases they are.
It's back to what we said about being little kids watching I dream of Genie and Be witched. Those things soak into the sponge right in the subconscious. But the first and foremost thing is like, like haha. Look at their, their, you know, vampires, haha look at their kind of goth. I think it's important with these shows to again, place it in historical context of that these shows were being put on side by side with the news coming in from Vietnam. Color television had just been released and so.
And many historians attribute the fact that it was color tail elevation, so that these images, they could tell what was mud and what was blood making it much more of a visceral image. And so they were watching like corpses and human rights violations every night on the news.
So when you are picking out which channel you're gonna go to, maybe you're going for the one that's about like a genie, may maybe you don't wanna be reminded of reality so much when there's this much horror on your television for the first time. Cuz there had always been that like filter before with these images of, you know, this is actually an interesting link on this topic. So there was always this filter before with like newspapers. Yeah. Like curating what they were going to see.
Charles Adams, the cartoonist, who the Adams family was based off of. He got his start in the newspaper industry editing like images that were coming in from the war, uh, to take out the blood. Hmm. So that to like to clean up the entry of it. Yeah. If that doesn't turn you goth. Yeah. What will, what will, like literally just looking at corpses and like, eh, cleaning, clean cleaning up to make it more palatable and suddenly Yeah.
That wasn't happening and people were seeing all these images every night and so yeah. Maybe there was definitely a market of just being like, please let me watch something dumb. Let me watch something that does not remind me of what's going on. Right, right. Yeah. You totally see that with like post nine 11. Yeah. A similar thing happened. I guess there was more of a divergence with post nine 11 because you do get a lot of like heightened fantasy elements.
Lord of the Rings popping off totally one of the most successful franchises, but you also do get like a lot of hyper reality as from the nine 11 of just like mm-hmm. people not having an appetite for silly things anymore. So I think there were just diverging ways that the media was. Reacting to it. Yeah. And I think you get, you get it now too, right? Like I think mm-hmm. you receive a resurgence in a lot of sort of fantasy sitcom elements coming back.
You have what we do in the shadows, obviously a fantasy sitcom. Right. But on top of that, like I already mentioned, they're doing a Monsters reboot, right. Uh, movie, not a television show, but still we're, we're going back to a sixties fantasy sitcom. They're also doing a Wednesday Adams television show on Netflix. Oh, excited about that. And yes, me too. And they're doing a Velma from Scooby-Doo, which is, Scooby-Doo is a fantasy sitcom as well.
Yes. Yeah. So they're also doing a, a reboot of that. And so obviously, yes, nostalgia bomb for sure. It's a huge part of it. But I do think it's a re a return to a fantasy sitcom that we're seeing research in a Trump era, in a post covid era, in a era where we're, you know, heading into economic uncertainty. Right. These things go hand in hand for a reason, right? Yeah. There's, it's just like a, an opting out. And then, yeah.
So basically the, it's this dynamic where it seems to be that the audience wants to opt out of being reminded of reality. And artists, because they're artists and they want to create like meaningful things, will use the fantasy to in turn, sneak in mm-hmm. things about reality right back into 'em. Right. That make it more comfortable.
And even if like audiences do wanna hear like a progressive message or a critique of society, it, it, it helps take the edge off in a very contentious world to couch it in a fantasy element. Like what we do in the shadows, I think is a great example because not only is it a super well-written show, It's able to be like, uh, like it's queer politics all over what we do in the shadows, right?
Yeah. Like it's a very queer show in a lot of ways, but like my very, you know, socially conservative dad watches it and enjoys it just as much as me. And I think like that's kind of the ultimate beauty of a fantasy sitcom is they can, they can have all of that.
And I as a viewer can simultaneously escape from every day because it's a fantastic show and be like, hell yes, these queer politics are awesome and my dad can just escape and not have to really engage with the queer politics because that's vampires. Yeah. And hopefully on some, I guess there is this vague hope on some level that yeah, people will be bettered I think so. Right. Better like, I think, think it goes back to what I said, like it goes into the sponge. Mm-hmm. Right.
It goes into the unconscious. So I think that's the, I think that's the word on it. Anything. I mean, we've been now recording for three hours on fantasy sitcoms. That is, why do you keep doing this This is, I swear to you, I promise you it's been three hours and 27 minutes. So I'm subtracting our planning time. That's how long we've been talking. A Titanic long take on 1960s fantasy sitcoms. God bless you. If you were out there and you were listening to this you're our people.
If you're listening to it for sure, you get a t-shirt, listen, email me bat Cave 2 99 and if you do, you get a free t-shirt, making it to the back to the end of this, which Batman was also a fantasy sitcom of the 1960s. Uh, but yes. All right. Well thanks everybody for watching and for sticking it out with us through the long haul. This very likely will be a lovely little two-parter. So if you made it to the end of the second part, thank you friend. We really enjoyed this topic.
It's super silly, but I think we were able to, to hit on a lot of really important things. Um, if my mom does start talking to me through my my Kia soul, you guys will for sure be the first to know and I will make sure to detail my reaction to knowing that there is in fact a heaven and a bureaucracy that sent my mom to my my Kia soul. So again, thank you. You know what to do. Find us like rates, subscribe, and we'll see you next. I retract my offer about the T-shirts. I don't have t-shirts.
Bye-bye. That's the final.