Monday, November 15, 2010

BEWITCHING MAUDIE

With all of the TV characters she played over the years, Maudie Prickett played four different women in just 'Bewitched' alone.

The first two appear to have been Tabitha's teachers in school:

MRS. BURCH
("I Don't Want to Be a Toad, I Want to Be a Butterfly")
When Darrin's mother enrolls Tabitha in nursery school, Tabitha uses her powers to turn a class mate into a butterfly. - from TV Rage

MRS. PEABODY
("Tabitha's First Day at School" & "School Days, School Daze")
Tabitha starts her first day at school, but she then turns a bully into a frog and now Samantha must help Tabitha into changing him back. - from TV Rage

There's an easy enough splainin for this "Double Vision" - Mrs. Burch was a divorcee who eventually married a man (hopefully not a time-traveling dog) named Peabody.

The character she played between those two was from an earlier time - several centuries earlier....

MRS. FARLEY ("Samantha's Old Salem Trip")
Mrs. Farley was the tavern-keeper's wife in Olde Salem who took in Samantha when she magically arrived there without her memory. Mr. and Mrs. Farley may have been the ancestors of Mrs. Burch-Peabody, in fact. (We'll have more to say about Mr. and Mrs. Farley in a later post - about 'The Andy Griffith Show'.....)

The fourth appearance by Maudie Prickett in 'Bewitched' was actually her first - she played "Woman On The Street" in the episode "Take Two Aspirins and Half a Pint of Porpoise Milk". We might as well toss her in as being the first appearance by Mrs. Burch on the show.

Or, even better... perhaps the "woman on the street" was Mrs. Matilda Tazey of Clifton, New Jersey. Mrs. Tazey could have been in Westport, Connecticut, to visit her twin sister Mrs. Burch. Mrs. Tazey was seen in "The Deserted Village" of 'The Adventures Of Superman'. (I'm just going to assume that Lois Lane's hometown of Clifton is the established one in the real world.) BCnU!

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