Skateboarding Dog Dressed As Santa

Because I loved it so much as a child I dedicated myself to watching every episode on DVD. After three seasons of watching him yell accusations at Samantha and the rest of the family I couldn't take it anymore. I realized my childhood favourite was nothing more than a domestic squabble with magic thrown in. Remove the magic and add some love and you have That Girl.

Even with his problems, Dick York was a much better actor - somehow, his Darrin was likable enough to get past the whiny-ness of the character. Dick Sargent's Darrin was pretty unlikable - not to mention that he was obviously not into his wife - even more so than Mr. Brady.

Where did the graphic at the top come from? When did both (cartoon) Darrins appear together?

It's interesting to see an instance of this where bad-blood wasn't involved. I honestly hadn't really thought about it, but always had assumed Dick York had had a falling out with producers. I imagine most people at the time thought that as well. If they had gotten the full story, they might have been a bit more forgiving of the swap. Kept in the dark though, they could only use their gut to determine if they could follow the show with such a drastic change of casting.

Clearly they did not care for it.

Thanks for the article. I was too young to watch the show on first run, but syndication in the 70's branded its theme song into my brain. Small correction, York's ill-fated cowboy movie was They Came to Cordura -- see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053351/ .

Can you blame the second Darrin for the show's troubles? A lof of the original episodes were well-thought-out stories about acceptance and tolerance. By the time Darrin #2 came in, the stories were formulaic. Magic stuff happens, Darrin's boss/client/etc sees it, and Samantha saves the day with a catchy jingle to tie up the freaky loose ends. It's as painful as the "everybody knows but nobody knows" formula that is Dexter, or the "never get off the island" formula of Gilligan's Island (or Lost).

When Dick Sargent joined the show, it lasted another 3 years so it was not "soon" cancelled as it's described in the article.