Tabitha From ‘Bewitched’ Reveals Which Darrin Was the Better TV Dad

Sitcom kids aren’t supposed to play favorites, but with all of her TV dads now performing on that big Nick at Nite in the sky, the actress who played Tabitha on Bewitched is finally ready to get real about her comedy paternity. 

Erin Murphy, now 60, played half-witch/half-mortal toddler Tabitha Stevens on the 1960s sitcom. Her first TV dad was played by Dick York, who wasn’t any happier with his daughter’s witchcraft than he was with his wife’s.

But York had a painful, degenerative spine condition that forced him to leave Bewitched after its fifth season. For Seasons Six through Eight, Tabitha had a new daddy in Dick Sargent, a man equally fixated on keeping his daughter’s powers at bay.

Who was the better Darrin Stevens — first daddy or second daddy? “My entire life I have been so diplomatic because I loved them both,” Murphy told PEOPLE. “They were wonderful guys.”

Oh, knock it off, Tabitha. No TV fathers are created equal. Which one was really your favorite? “Watching the show,” she confessed, “Dick York is a better Darrin.”

Murphy says York was more of a father figure to her on the set, too. “Dick York was a dad and he had a lot of kids and he was just more paternal,” she explained. “So he was more like a dad.”

As for Sargent? “Dick Sargent was a great guy, and we were in touch up until he passed away,” said Murphy. “But I’m going with Dick York on this one.”

Murphy isn’t alone. “Which Dick is best?” is a popular question on Bewitched fan sites and message boards, and while Sargent has his defenders, York inevitably comes out on top. Even Agnes Moorehead, who played Darrin’s mother-in-law, Endora, preferred the original. “About the third or fourth show I was in she said to people in front of me, ‘They should never meddle with success,’” Sargent said years later. “Meaning Dick York should never have been replaced, which I thought was a very cruel and unthinking thing to say in front of me. But that was her.”

Like Murphy, Bewitched celebrated its 60th anniversary this year. “It's so interesting because I grew up on the show, so it’s the only childhood I know, but I feel lucky,” she maintained. “It’s like people love the show. They watched it when they were kids. Their kids watch it now, their grandkids watch it.”

Murphy is old enough to have grandkids of her own — do they watch the show? “You know what’s funny? Not a lot,” she claimed.