Sabrina: The Animated Series facts for kids

Sabrina: The Animated Series is an animated children's television series based on the Archie Comics character Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It was produced by Savage Studios Ltd. and Hartbreak Films in association with DIC Productions, L.P., which was owned by Disney at the time.

The show is also a spin-off of the 1996–2003 live-action series Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

The series ran on ABC (also owned by Disney) and UPN. Following the series, a film, Sabrina: Friends Forever (2002) and a sequel series, Sabrina's Secret Life (2003–2004), were produced by DiC, this time without Disney, as they had already sold off DIC by this point.

Premise

Unlike previous incarnations, Sabrina Spellman in this series is depicted as a 12-year-old attending middle school. As in the original comic series, Sabrina lives with her paternal witch aunts, Hilda and Zelda Spellman, and her loud-mouthed black cat Salem Saberhagen, all of whom advise Sabrina on the use of several magics.

Most episodes center on the typical issues of middle school, along with those that emanated from Sabrina's inexperience with or misuse of several magic, witchcraft, and extremely powerful and complex spells. Sabrina and her best friend Chloe would often use magic (often from the "Spooky Jar"; a cookie jar containing a genie-like being in the family's kitchen) for all types of perceived emergencies, ranging from trying to fit into skinny new clothes to turning Sabrina's crush Harvey into a superhero. By the end of each episode, her innate magical abilities would unintentionally backfire and Sabrina would learn that using magic usually is not the solution to her everyday issues.

Characters

Main

• Sabrina Spellman: Sabrina is a half witch–half mortal that won't become magically empowered until she's 16, but she is able to borrow spells from her aunts Hilda and Zelda using a magical "Spooky Jar", which she often does. The series follows her into her preteen years. However, she usually finds that her meddling turns situations from bad to worse. Her friend Chloe is aware of Sabrina's magic but Harvey Kinkle, another friend and her romantic interest, isn't. She is secretly in love with Harvey and wants one day to marry him. She wears a white-and-pink striped tank top that exposes her midriff, a green moon-shaped earring paired with a yellow star-shaped earring, pink skirt, pink hairclips in her bangs, with pink-and-white sneakers. When she casts a spell the magic produced is pink and yellow. She is voiced by Emily Hart; Melissa Joan Hart's sister who played Sabrina's cousin Amanda in many episodes of the 1996 Sabrina the Teenage Witch television series.
• Hilda Spellman and Zelda Spellman: While Hilda suggests they bend the rules sometime and use magic to get ahead, Zelda is determined to say no right up until the moment she gives up. Hilda is more carefree and reckless than her cautious sister Zelda, and, although they do butt heads sometimes, they are still sisters. In this series and Sabrina's Secret Life, Hilda and Zelda both have the appearance of teenagers, as this was the punishment they received from Enchantra for "abusing magic" in the past. In the animated series, Zelda wears a red blouse and blue bellbottoms in addition to a pair of blue glasses, and has long strawberry blonde hair. Whenever she casts a spell, the magic produced is always blue and yellow. Hilda wears a purple minidress and has tan skin, with brown hair that is shorter than Zelda's. When she casts a spell the magic produced is purple and yellow. They are both voiced by Melissa Joan Hart, known for playing Sabrina in the Showtime film adaptation and the ABC series.
• Salem Saberhagen: Salem knows the right buttons to push to talk Sabrina into just about anything, and he does it guiltlessly—until he's caught. Salem was once a powerful wizard, but he was locked into a cat-form because he was constantly trying to take over the world. However, he makes up for his predicament with magical charms that help Sabrina in some situations. He is voiced by Nick Bakay, who reprises his role from the 1996 Sabrina, the Teenage Witch TV series.
• Uncle Quigley: Uncle Quigley is an original character created for the animated series. He is Sabrina's maternal great-uncle, and the household's adult guardian. Because Uncle Quigley doesn't have any magic powers, one understands that Sabrina's mother is a mortal. He is voiced by Jay Brazeau.
• Chloe Flan: Chloe is Sabrina's best friend of African-American descent. She's the only mortal besides Uncle Quigley who knows Sabrina's secret. She is voiced by Cree Summer.
• Harvey Kinkle: Harvey has a cute and sweet personality. While he only admits to Sabrina that she is his "best pal," he likes her very much. However, Harvey is unaware Sabrina is a witch although often sees the results of the magic himself. He is voiced by Bill Switzer.
• Gemini "Gem" Stone: Gemini is snobby, pampered and a very spoiled mean girl. Gem lives down the street and sees Sabrina as her main competitor for Harvey's attention (whom Gem is interested in as well), though Harvey likes Sabrina more. She is similar to Libby Chesler in the sitcom. She is voiced by Chantal Strand.

Supporting

• Spookie Jar: Spookie Jar is a genie (or possibly a demon of some kind) who resides in a purple cookie jar in Sabrina's kitchen. Whenever Sabrina needs a special spell, she can get one from the Spookie Jar, but they rarely turn out the way she expects. Spookie Jar speaks entirely in rhymes. He is voiced by David Sobolov.
• Perry "Pi" McDonald: Pi is Harvey's best friend and Sabrina and Chloe's friend too. He is very smart and quite unusual in his own special way. His eyes are never seen because his pork pie hat obscures them. He has been described by Sabrina as "totally out of it and really smart at the same time." According to the episode "Upside Down Town", it is implied that he is of Chinese descent. He is voiced by Chantal Strand.
• Slugloafe the School Bully: Slugloafe is the fat school bully who calls the people he is mean to by their last names. He is a bigger bully than Gem Stone. His real name is Horace. There have been times where he compliments Harvey. He is voiced by Jason Michas.
• Bernard: Bernard is a small, bald, nerdy boy with glasses who is friends with Sabrina, Pi, Chloe and Harvey. He is often bullied by Slugloafe and easily bossed around by Gem. He is voiced by Chantal Strand.
• Tim the Witch Smeller: Tim is a witch hunter who appears in "Most Dangerous Witch", "Documagicary", and "Enchanted Vacation". He was previously bullied by witches as a child due to his lack of magical powers, except his immortality, even though his mother was a witch. For this reason, he viewed witches as evil and so he collects them as trophies for revenge along with his sidekick aardvark named Elton. Tim wears a hat with a witch cauldron marked with a ban sign on it. Both Tim and Elton are voiced by Bob Bergen.
• Queen Enchantra: Enchantra is the ruler of all witches and head of the Witches' Council. She wears a tight-fitting red catsuit with a flowing cape and black, over-the-knee boots. She speaks in a thick British accent and has long black hair, tan skin and green eyes. When she casts spells, the magic produced is red and purple. She was voiced by Kathleen Barr, who reprises the role in the later series Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch.
• Mr and Mrs. Stone: Gem's parents are the richest people in town. They first appeared in "Witch Switch"; when Sabrina wishes herself to be rich they almost sent Sabrina to Cambridge when they found out she got a C in her report, but later changed their mind after Sabrina unwished herself as being rich. They also appeared in "Stone Broke" when they lost their money and had Gem move into Sabrina's house until their dog struck oil.
• Edward Spellman: Sabrina's long-lost father who is a very strong warlock and Zelda and Hilda's younger brother. Some years after he and his mortal wife, Diana, mutually separated, he ended up falling for another human named Futura, whom he intended to marry until a jealous Sabrina tried to break them up.
• Diana Spellman: Sabrina's human mother who is an archeologist and works at a dig site in Egypt. She is heard in the episode "Picture Perfect". Due to a ban on witch-human relationships, Sabrina cannot look her mother directly in the eyes or her mother will be turned into a ball of wax.

Production

Sabrina had previously appeared in an animated format on The Archie Show (animated by Filmation), but the popularity of the live-action Sabrina the Teenage Witch sitcom formed part of the basis for this spin-off series.

The series was developed by Savage Steve Holland and Kat Likkel, and Holland served as showrunner and executive producer of the series. As such, the series reflected some of the irreverent style of humor seen in Eek! The Cat. Celebrity voice cameos in this series included Mr. T, Long John Baldry, and "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Melissa Joan Hart, who starred as Sabrina in the live-action sitcom, served as producer of this series, but her younger sister Emily Hart (who played the recurring character Amanda on the sitcom) voiced Sabrina. Melissa instead voiced Sabrina's two aunts, Hilda and Zelda, originally played by Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea. Nick Bakay reprises his role as Salem from both the film and live-action series. The theme song is sung by B*Witched.

Episodes

Broadcast

United States

The series first ran in syndication on UPN (on Disney's One Too weekday morning & afternoon block) and ABC (on Disney's One Saturday Morning block) for one season, with 65 episodes produced. The series remained on both blocks until 2002.

The series reran on both Disney Channel from September 3, 2002 to September 2, 2004 and Toon Disney from September 3, 2002 to September 5, 2004.

Beginning in 2004, the series aired on the Syndicated DIC Kids Network E/I block, joining the sequel series Sabrina's Secret Life.

During the 2006–2007 television season, the series returned as part of CBS' new KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS and was briefly part of the KEWLopolis cartoon lineup. On September 19, 2009, the series returned to CBS as part of the Cookie Jar TV cartoon lineup.

Reruns of the series were aired on the "This Is for Kids" block on the TV channel This from Fall 2012 to October 2013.

As of 2017^[update], reruns of the series started airing on the Starz channel, Starz Kids & Family, and the series is also available to stream on Starz's streaming service.

The series is also available to stream on Pluto TV's After School Cartoons channel.

International

In Canada, reruns of the series were aired on Teletoon from late 1999 to mid-2005.

Beginning in 2004, many broadcasters who already aired the series began to air it as part of a package with Sabrina's Secret Life titled "Totally Sabrina". The package was pre-sold to TF1 in France, RTÉ in Ireland, Mediaset in Italy, ORF in Austria, Alter Channel in Greece, FORTA in Spain, SBT in Brazil and Teletoon in Canada, Super RTL in Germany, Noga Communications in Israel and Saran in Turkey, in addition to Disney Channel and Toon Disney networks in the United Kingdom, Asia, Taiwan, Australia, France, Latin America, Brazil, the Middle East, and Spain.

Home media

United States

International

In the Philippines, Viva Video and Cookie Jar Entertainment released a few DVD sets in the countries.

In the United Kingdom, budget distributor Prism Leisure and Fremantle Home Entertainment released "Sabrina in Love" and "Salem's World" on DVD which had the same 2 episodes as the US VHS releases respectively, but including an additional episode. An exclusive UK DVD titled "Witchy Girls" was also released in the same year, also containing 3 episodes.

Merchandise

Viacom Consumer Products and DIC Entertainment co-released merchandise based on the series.

An 11-inch Sabrina fashion doll was released by the company Bambola. Several other small plastic toys, including a few figurines and a Polly Pocket-esque Sabrina doll were sold in stores while the series was in production.

Video games

On August 17, 2000, Simon & Schuster Interactive's Knowledge Adventure and Havas Interactive officially announced the video game Sabrina The Animated Series: Magical Adventure for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh computer systems. It was released in October 2000, and followed by Sabrina The Animated Series: Zapped! for the Game Boy Color system, released on November 22, 2000,

On September 4, 2001, it was announced that Simon & Schuster Interactive had acquired the rights to the series, under license from Archie Comics based on the video game license. They subsequently released Sabrina The Animated Series: Spooked! (which contains the first levels for Game Boy Color platform). It was released on November 6, 2001.

Comic book

While Sabrina: The Animated Series was airing, Archie Comics printed a comic spin-off for the show. The first issue was dated January 2000 (meaning it was on-sale in late 1999), and it lasted for 37 issues. In order to tie the plot in with their Sabrina series, it was stated in the first issue that Repulsa the Goblin Gueen had sent Sabrina back in time to relive her pre-teen years, so that she would be out of the way while Repulsa attempted to conquer Enchantra's realm. In issue 38, the Repulsa plot was resolved, and the comic book returned to chronicling the teenage Sabrina in the next issue.

See also

In Spanish: Sabrina: The Animated Series para niños