The visual effects for Wanda’s powers were still executed in the practical style of pre-CGI sitcoms. Considering WandaVision‘s bewitching opening credits, it’s only perfect that Wanda should break the single bed rule for herself and Vision in homage. Bewitched was the first sitcom to break the trope of couples sleeping in single beds when witch Samantha and her mortal husband Darren shared a bed. The code prevented men and women sharing beds on film and television but by the late ’60s and ’70s, this was changing. This reflected a historical shift in film and television in the ’60s and ’70s brought on by the dwindling influence of the Hays code. In the opening scene, Wanda and Vision are sleeping in separate single beds, but by the end of this cold open Wanda has fused the beds together into a double bed, and her and Vision are clearly gettin’ busy. After 30 episodes, I Dream of Jeannie had a similarly dramatic shift into technicolour.īewitched (1964) /// #WandaVision (2020) /5NpkML1aZF Even the episode’s stunning ending in which Wanda and Vision see the world shift into technicolour mirrors I Dream of Jeannie. The opening credits themselves are an obvious homage to Bewitched‘s iconic animated credits. Episode Two: “Don’t Touch That Dial”Įpisode two really ramped up the Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie references. I mean, let’s not forget, Vision is dead after all. The expectation for the audience to accept the uncanny that was central to The Twilight Zone lives on in WandaVision. Often the show merely remarked on the strangeness it had just portrayed and carried on. Running from 1959, The Twilight Zone was notorious for dangling disturbing science fiction concepts in front of its audience with little to no offer of comfort. The scene feels like something straight out of the original series of Rod Serling’s sci-fi anthology series, The Twilight Zone. After a minute, Wanda breaks her domestic housewife routine, commanding Vision to help Mr Hart, and just like that the scene returns to normal. The table sits in awkward silence with Mr Hart choking and Mrs Hart’s uncanny chipper pleading to Wanda to stop. As Vision’s boss, Mr Hart, questions where the couple is from, he begins to choke on his dinner. But when the episode steers suddenly into a darker tone, even this has a reference point. In WandaVision‘s first two episodes, Wanda’s powers aren’t expressed with her usual red glow, but practical levitation and obvious jump cuts garnished with chintzy chiming bells.įor the most part, the episode brims with an upbeat tone that is nostalgic of post-World War II sitcom optimism, with all the references to bolster it. The comedy is not necessarily based on Wanda and Vision being outsiders with superpowers, but is grounded in neither of them remembering that Vision’s boss is coming to dinner and their having to scramble to get a meal together to impress their guests.Įven Wanda’s powers and their subsequent special effects are straight out of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. This is perfectly shown in the final dinner sequence of the first episode.
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