To capture the classic sitcom feel, WandaVision producers met with Dick Van Dyke and employed filming tricks from Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie

Entertainment Weekly

"For its premiere episode, Marvel’s first Disney+ TV show went full midcentury sitcom, filming in classic black and white in front of a live studio audience (all of whom signed very, very strict NDAs), crew members came to set in ’50s-era clothing, and used period lenses and lighting to capture that dreamy vintage glow," reports EW's Devan Coggan. "The special-effects team employed wires and camera tricks straight from Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie, making wine bottles appear to pour on their own and household appliances zoom about like magic. And when Vision’s familiar maroon skin didn’t look quite right in grayscale, the makeup artists painted (Paul) Bettany blue instead." Last summer, director Matt Shakman and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige had lunch with Van Dyke at Disneyland during the Disney D23 Expo to pepper him with questions on his famous sitcom. “(The Dick Van Dyke Show) can be very broad with silly physical-comedy gags, and yet it never feels false, and I wondered how they did that,” Shakman explains. “His answer was really simple: He basically said that if it couldn’t happen in real life, it couldn’t happen on the show.”