One Episode Of Bewitched Was Written By High Schoolers
In the "Bewitched" episode "Sisters at Heart" (December 24, 1970), the young Tabitha (Erin Murphy) brings home a new friend named Lisa (Venetta Rogers) to stay for a few days. Tabitha and Lisa have become very close very quickly, and refer to each other as sisters. Like with every episode of "Bewitched," Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Darrin (Dick Sargent) worry that the new social wrinkle in their lives will expose the fact that Samantha is an ancient, magic-practicing witch and that Tabitha also possesses eerie powers.
The drama of "Sisters at Heart," however, quickly extends past the show's usual shenanigans. A client of Darrin's, a bigoted toy manufacturer named Mr. Brockway (Parley Baer) swings by for a surprise in-home meeting. When he sees Lisa, he is outraged. Lisa is Black and Mr. Brockway, not having met Samantha, assumes that Darrin is married to a Black woman. Because he is evil, Mr. Brockway immediately wants Darrin removed from the account because of his assumed interracial marriage. Mr. Brockway exhibits a shocking amount of outright racism for a mainstream sitcom.
Tabitha, hearing that she and Lisa can't be sisters because their skin doesn't match, casts a spell to give herself black spots and give Lisa white spots. Samantha has to find a way to reverse the spell, confront Mr. Brockway, and force him to not be racist.
"Sisters at Heart" bore a unique writing credit: it was attributed to the students attending 5th Period English in Room 309 at Thomas Jefferson High School. It seems that the students of room 309 were taken to visit the set of "Bewitched" by their teacher, Marcella Saunders, because they were struggling with reading assignments. Perhaps, Saunders thought they would be more into storytelling if she taught it in a TV context.
It worked.
Sisters at Heart
To credit the episode's writers by name, they were: Sandra Black, Eddie Brown, Burles Cook, Patricia Don, Larry Freeman, Bobbie Harris, Carliss Henderson, Harold Henry, James Hidgon, Mittie Huddleston, Deborah Janisse, Annette Johnson, Waymon Jones, Orall Joseph, Jr., Stephen Kirk, Glenda Petty, Robert Randall, Gail Smith, Carmella Stuckey, Tanya Sweed, Angela Thomas, Donnie Wallace, Ronnie Wallace, Glenn Williams, Joe Williams, and Bruce Woods.
Saunders was interviewed in a 1970 issue of Jet Magazine, and she found that her students were being underserved by the school, with many of them still only reading at a third-grade level. Saunders was able to get in touch with Montgomery, whose husband, William Asher, directed and produced "Bewitched." They invited Saunders' class to visit the set to see how a TV show is made, and how writing translates to the screen (which sounds like the most exciting field trip ever).
The students were so inspired by the field trip that they decided to author their own script with Saunders overseeing. Their teleplay was "Sisters at Heart." Asher was quoted in Jet as saying that he had seen professionally written scripts that "weren't as well-written or creative."
In 2020, Erin Murphy was interviewed by Closer Weekly and recalled the filming of the episode:
"I remember the entire process of that episode, because it was completely different than usual. Typically we would have one of our regular 'Bewitched' writers write the episode, we'd do our weekly table read on Mondays and then film throughout the week. But this episode was written by a 10th grade English class from Thomas Jefferson High School, so for the table read they had the entire class and their teacher come to the set. It was a great experience [...]."
Closer also printed some excellent on-set photos.
Elizabeth Montgomery's favorite episode
Murphy continued:
"[I]t was Elizabeth Montgomery's favorite episode by far. I love the episode as well. I didn't even realize all the political implications associated with the episode. When the Watts Riots happened in 1965, I was a baby. This episode was five years later."
"Sisters at Heart" was given only a small brush-up from veteran TV writer Barbara Avadon of "The Donna Reed Show." In the 2013 biography, "The Essential Elizabeth Montgomery," author Herbie J, Pilato interviewed Avadon and she also recalled working with the students of Thomas Jefferson High School and gaining some interesting insight. To the Black students, "Bewitched" was already a TV series about an interracial marriage, only between a human and a witch. That was the students' inspiration to write a story about racism and the hatred of interracial marriage. Avadon suggested that "Sisters at Heart" be a Christmas episode, and the writers agreed.
The denouement of the episode sees the racist Mr. Brockway hypnotized to see everyone as dark-skinned, including himself. He immediately concludes that race is a construct, and he apologizes for being such a d*ckhead. A line of dialogue about eating an "integrated turkey" with white and dark meat was repeated by Spike Lee in his film "She's Gotta Have It."
There has been some criticism of "Sisters at Heart," notably its use of white actors in Black makeup. Also, author Walter Metz noted its attitudes reflected a "paternalistic approach to liberal racial tolerance [that] implies that only white patriarchs have the cultural authority to declare that racism is wrong."
One might forgive its mawkishness and awkward sentimentality, given that it was penned by a group of 15-year-old first-time writers.
However one views it, "Sisters at Heart" is the most dramatic, and least trifling, episode of "Bewitched."