About three decades ago, TV already had so many great sitcoms that they went on to become classics like Boy Meets World, Friends, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Full House, and Seinfeld. That didn’t mean another sitcom coming along would automatically be a waste of time, but it definitely wasn’t the kind of thing that would get audiences excited right out of the gate. Besides, this new addition was about a 16-year-old girl who discovered she was a witch when her life was already too complicated. Was it really exciting for everyone? Well, it had a few details that completely changed the dynamic and immediately made it stand out: on top of a protagonist figuring out how to control her powers, there were two other witches with very different opinions on how magic should be handled, a magical house, and a sarcastic black cat.
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Putting all of that together made the show feel innovative in the ’90s (and 2000’s), while also making it age really well today. It had all the ingredients of a great comedy, such as funny characters, ridiculous situations, and a supernatural twist that could also be a lot of fun if handled properly, and still being based on a comic book. Maybe today it’s easier for some people to know the version that came years later on Netflix, but certainly the original was the more iconic one.
Sabrina the Teenage WitchTurned a Comic Book Into One of the ’90s Most Memorable Sitcoms
If you grew up in the ’90s, chances are you either watched or at least heard of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which premiered on September 27, 1996, on ABC before eventually moving to The WB, starring Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina Spellman. The character had already existed since 1962, when she first appeared in Archie Comics, but the show found a pretty simple way to update the idea for TV at the time: Sabrina finds out she’s a witch and has to figure out how to deal with magic, while also surviving school, friends, boys, and all the questionable decisions people tend to make when they’re 16. The difference was that she had the option of using her powers to solve problems, but, as anyone who has ever watched a sitcom knows, using a crazy solution to a simple dilemma rarely ends well.
And that was basically the show’s formula. Sabrina wanted something, used magic to get it, the situation spiraled out of control, and she had to fix everything. Today, that might sound repetitive, but it worked, as the fun came from how relatable it could be. The sitcom had room to play around with pretty much any teenage conflict, so an easy problem with a boyfriend could turn into a supernatural disaster, an insecurity at school could become completely ridiculous, and even a fairly ordinary decision could have consequences nobody saw coming. The real strength was that it never tried to make things more complicated than they needed to be.
And, of course, to make the most of the show’s witchy side, there were also plenty of other characters: Sabrina’s home was shared with her aunts, Hilda (Caroline Rhea) and Zelda (Beth Broderick), who had very different personalities, with one being more impulsive and eccentric while the other was the more serious and rational witch (which was already enough of a comedy dynamic on its own). Then there were the supporting characters like Harvey (Nate Richert), Sabrina’s boyfriend for some seasons; Jenny (Michelle Beaudoin) and Valerie (Lindsay Sloane), her friends; Libby (Jenna Leigh Green), her rival; and plenty of others. But absolutely nobody expected the best part of the whole show to be Salem (dubbed by Nick Bakay), the cat.
Salem Was the Real MVP of the Show
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A 500-year-old warlock who had tried to take over the world was sentenced to live inside the body of the family’s pet and became the character who made Sabrina the Teenage Witch even better. Stealing every scene he was in, Salem Saberhagen was the kind of character who, while the protagonist was stressing over tests, relationships, or problems at school, would be sitting in the kitchen complaining about his own life. And no, he was never exactly a good guy — he was selfish, sarcastic, manipulative, and had an ego completely out of proportion with the situation he was in. Above all, he was always looking for a way to make his own life better. He might want to help Sabrina sometimes, but he could just as easily be focused on finding some advantage for himself.
But you know what the real joke was? The contrast. If Salem had just been a cute talking cat, he probably would have worked for a few episodes before becoming boring. So the character needed a strong enough personality to justify having him around — and he definitely had one. He acted like someone whose mental age was totally incompatible with his body, talking like an exhausted adult who was tired of dealing with incompetent people. And that’s what made everything about him unpredictable, since even if an episode’s storyline seemed more straightforward, the cat could interrupt everything with an ironic comment; if Sabrina was about to make a terrible choice, he would encourage her; or if Hilda and Zelda got into an argument, he would pick a side and enjoy the chaos.
Basically, Salem didn’t need to be at the center of an episode to be the funniest character in a show that was built around having fun and making people laugh. And what makes it even better is remembering that this version of him evolved from what already existed in the comics. In theory, he was just a pet, but thanks in part to the TV show, his identity as a warlock was later incorporated into some more recent versions of the original material. To give an idea of how popular he was, he even won the Favorite Animal category three years in a row at Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch ran for seven seasons and 163 episodes, and for a sitcom about a girl learning how to be a witch, the biggest scene-stealer ended up being a centuries-old warlock trapped in the body of a cat. Funny, right?
Sabrina the Teenage Witch is available to stream on Paramount+.
What was your favorite part of the show? Was Salem your favorite, or did someone else steal the show for you? Let us know in the comments!
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