From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, there was a big gap in TV programming that was witchy, spooky, and supernatural. The ’60s gave audiences The Munsters, Bewitched, Dark Shadows, and (the most revolutionary) The Addams Family—then nothing until the late 1990s, when we would get Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed, Buffy, and more.
Apparently, this dry spell of the fantastical brewed with the ordinary contemporary American life was not the result of people just twiddling their thumbs. In 1989, NBC ordered a pilot of an all-Black family sitcom called A Little Bit Strange but canceled it after one episode, and it was a big topic of discussion on Twitter over the weekend.
The trailer https://t.co/4v27dio9TB
— Talk2Pops (@talk2pops) January 21, 2022
The show was set to follow a warlock widower introducing his non-magical fiancée to his family of sorcerers, witches, and more.
The reception at the time versus now
Originally titled (before it aired) Little Monsters, the show premiered Sunday April 23, 1989. Because it was canceled so early, there is not a lot known about its reception at the time. Assuming there was no behind-the-scenes drama, it probably got cut because of low viewership, it wasn’t as good as the promotions, and/or it just wasn’t given time to grow. It looks campy and corny enough to have broad appeal, and 100% played off the success of The Cosby Show (as heard in both trailers).
Currently, IMBD users rate the show a weighted average of 5.6 out of 10. The data is really skewed because there are only eight women and 26 men who rated this pilot, or trailer. It’s hard to say what they’re basing their opinions on when anyone with an IMBD account can rate it. On average, the men rated it 3.4, while the women rated it 8.0.
(Image: NBC.)
The comments, quote tweets, and more agree that while this didn’t look like stellar television, it looked like a good time. Even though it’s structured in the (still commonly depicted) middle to upper-class Black family, it would’ve been so cool to see reruns of this when I would begin forming memories around media about a decade later.
Instead, Black and brown fantasy fans had to settle for token characters of color for decades or imagine “what if” scenarios because shows like A Little Bit Strange never got a chance to shine. Someone under the original tweet compared it to the Key and Peele sketch “If Hogwarts Were an Inner-City School.” This comedy sketch show is loved for a variety of reasons, but this episode’s popularity is because Black fans wished to see themselves in their favorite fandom. (This also applies to that hilarious sexy vampire sketch.)
Who was involved in this project?
A Little Bit Strange’s cast included Michale Warren, Shawn Skie, Cherie Johnson, Myra J., Finis Henderson III, and Martin Lawrence (yes the Black Knight) as the Mastersons. All the Mastersons had the power of wizardry, except the grandmother Maggie (J.), who was a psychic, and uncle Frank (Henderson), who portrayed a Frankenstein-like character. Vanessa Bell Calloway played the fiancĂ©e-to-be (who would hyphenate her name).
The three main writers of A Little Bit Strange included Stephen Curwick, David W. Duclon, and Sharee Anne Gorman III. Because the show would’ve come to viewers five years into the Cosby Show, and due to the less than stellar record (even today) writers’ rooms being mostly white (or a more racially diverse team writing for a white audience i.e. Kenya Barris projects), this show probably would’ve been just as eyebrow-raising on how race was depicted. The pilot was directed by Jack Shea—a man connected with many important shows of Black TV like Sanford & Son, The Jeffersons, and later, a few episodes of Sister, Sister.
That being said, it also could’ve bridged the gap between the spooky and witchy shows of the 1960s and the supernatural revival of the late ’90s through today—a revival that started off very white until the mid-2000s (with the multi-ethnic Italian and Mexican American Russos in the Wizards of Waverly Place) and as reboots of the 2010s took into full effect.
(via Twitter, image: NBC and Bmuscotty88.)
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