Tucker's Witch

Tucker's Witch is a detective comedy television series that aired on CBS from October 6 to November 10, 1982, and again sporadically from March 31 to June 2, 1983. It stars Tim Matheson and Catherine Hicks as a charming married couple, Rick and Amanda Tucker, who own and operate a private detective agency in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. Amanda is a witch who possesses psychic and other powers that help the agency solve cases. However, as Amanda is often not in full control of her powers, her witchly exploits also often lead the couple into trouble.

Also in the cast were Bill Morey as the Tuckers' grumpy (but ultimately friendly) police contact Lt. Fisk; Alfre Woodard as the Tuckers' efficient administrative assistant Marcia; and Barbara Barrie as Amanda's cheerful widowed mother Ellen, a herbalist and healer who often visited the Tuckers. Amanda inherited her powers not from Ellen, but from Ellen's deceased mother—witchly powers were said to skip a generation.

Amanda's beige-and-black blue-eyed cat (and familiar), seen prominently in the credits and most episodes, was named Dickens.

Pilot
The show's pilot was first filmed in early 1982 as The Good Witch of Laurel Canyon and starred Art Hindle and Kim Cattrall. In May 1982, CBS announced that the series had been picked up with that title and cast.

However, Cattrall's racy scene in the 1982 film Porky's reportedly caused CBS to demand her replacement. The show was retitled Tucker's Witch and the pilot was reshot with a new cast; Catherine Hicks replaced Cattrall and Tim Matheson was cast in Hindle's role (Hindle had also played a small role in Porky's). The original pilot never aired, but it is now available on the Amazon-owned IMDb TV streaming service along with the show's other episodes.

In a 1986 interview with the Toronto Star, Hindle spoke of his and Cattrall's departures from the series:

"All the networks show these pilots to members of the public they pick up on the street and they put push-button responses in their hands. They respond to whether they like the character, don't like the character; or they like the story, don't like the story; like the scene, don't like the scene. She (Cattrall) she didn't do too well with these reponses [sic] so they replaced her. And then I just walked. I had other things to do and I didn't really want to get involved with something they were going to start pulling strings all the time."

Broadcast history
Tucker's Witch aired at 10 p.m. Eastern on Wednesdays in its first run, and proved unable to compete with ABC's Dynasty and NBC's Quincy, M.E.. The show was placed on hiatus after six episodes had aired; months later, it was brought back to burn off the remaining episodes. The program was switched to Thursday for the second half of its run.

In later rebroadcasts on the USA Network, the program was retitled The Good Witch of Laurel Canyon, the series' original title.

The show was produced by Hill-Mandelker Films.

Cast

 * Tim Matheson as Rick Tucker
 * Catherine Hicks as Amanda Tucker
 * Bill Morey as Lt. Sean Fisk
 * Alfre Woodard as Marcia Fulbright
 * Barbara Barrie as Ellen Hobbes

Episodes
The series pilot, in which Art Hindle and Kim Cattrall played Rick and Amanda, was never broadcast.

Ted Danson played an elevator killer in the premiere episode, which aired just one week after the premiere of Danson's Cheers. Others Tucker's Witch guest stars included Barry Corbin, Simon Oakland, Joe Penny and Noble Willingham.

Releases
The entire series, including the unaired first pilot, is available on the Amazon-owned IMDb TV streaming service.