Tabitha

1 9 7 7 – 1 9 7 8 (USA)
12 x 30 minute episodes

A belated sequel to Bewitched with Samantha and Darrin’s daughter Tabitha making her way in the world as an assistant at Californian TV station KXLA.

Although it was only 11 years since she was born in that original series, the magic of television – or, indeed, the magic inherent within her – here transformed Tabitha Stephens into a beautiful young woman beginning her career as a television production assistant.

Tabitha worked for producer Marvin Decker (Mel Stewart), and her chief assignment was The Paul Thurston Show. Thurston (Robert Urich) was the station’s handsome, but not-too-bright, star newscaster. Tabitha’s brother, Adam (David Ankrum), was a fellow employee at KXLA, and Minerva (Karen Morrow) was her meddlesome aunt.

Tabitha had the same witch powers as her mother which caused her the same problems as her mother had encountered too.

Unfortunately, she failed to cast a spell over the show’s audience, which proceeded to vanish after just a handful of episodes.

A pilot episode which was screened in the US by ABC on 24 April 1976 (not shown in Britain) featured Liberty Williams as Tabitha and Bruce Kimmel as Adam.

In the series that followed a year later, Tabitha was played by Lisa Hartman – She also sang the theme song, It’s Magic, and later enjoyed a successful career as a rock singer.

The idea to spin off Tabitha into a show of her own existed some years before the launch of the TV series.

On 2 December 1972, ABC screened a one-off, one-hour animated special, Tabitha And Adam And The Clown Family, in which the teenage witch and her younger warlock brother were pitched into a circus setting. Cindy Eilbacher and Michael Morgan provided the principal voices.