Alyson Hannigan famously played a witch in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” but Willow Rosenberg was not the actress’s first on-screen brush with the supernatural. She starred in a short-lived, now-forgotten sitcom where she played a teenager whose dad hired a housekeeper who was secretly a witch.
The show, “Free Spirit,” marked Hannigan’s TV debut after two late-’80s film roles, including the Dan Aykroyd-led comedy “My Stepmother Is an Alien.”
In the show, 10-year-old Gene (Edan Gross) wishes somebody would have time for him after his father, Thomas (Franc Luz), gets divorced. The wish summons Winnie Goodwinn (Corinne Bohrer), a young witch whom Thomas hires as a live-in housekeeper without knowing about her magic powers. Gene and his teenage siblings, Robb (Paul Scherrer) and Hannigan’s Jessie, know Winnie’s secret. Shenanigans ensue.
Hannigan was not in the original unaired pilot; she was cast to replace Shonda Whipple, who originally played Jessie.
“Free Spirit” premiered as part of ABC’s first-ever TGIF programming block on September 22, 1989. It moved to its regular Sunday night slot two days later, where it remained for the rest of its run.
Free Spirit was voted the worst show on television before ABC cancelled it
“Free Spirit” doesn’t appear on TVLine’s ranking of the best TV shows about witches, and critics were harsh from the start. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Free Spirit” was voted the worst show on television in a poll conducted by the trade newspaper Electronic Media.
Viewership was low. Beginning in December, “Free Spirit” also aired opposite “The Simpsons” on Fox. ABC cancelled it on January 14, 1990, after airing 13 of the 14 episodes produced. The final produced episode, “Love and Death,” never aired in the United States, though a recording from an Australian broadcast surfaced online in 2015.
“Free Spirit” is also connected to the much more successful show that ABC slotted into Sundays afterward: “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” After airing as a TV special in November 1989, the show began its regular run on January 14, the same day “Free Spirit” aired its final episode.
