“Susan Harris, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, and Diane English all worked with their husbands who executive produced their shows.” She laughs and adds, “My husband's an architect.” “ Golden Girls, Designing Women, and Murphy Brown had male executive producers,” she says. They joined a co-executive producer and two supervising producers who were all women. That meant that the first three names on the call sheet were women, which was virtually unheard of at the time. It was, ‘Be careful of your powers, but we will encourage you to use them.’ “We were a comedy, and I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with the concept that she was living with her aunts and that her father was only available to her through the book. “It just seemed very sad,” Scovell explains with a laugh. She felt a need to keep the show realistic-even as it concocts truth sprinkles and has characters that chat with a talking photo framed on their kitchen wall.Īs Scovell details in her 2018 book, Just the Funny Parts: … And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club, she got pushback from Viacom execs Steve Gordon and Chris Sanagustin about keeping Sabrina’s mortal mother alive (though she was rarely on the show) to avoid the dead mom trope. Intentionality for Scovell also came from her experience as a woman in a position of power in a business that was, and remains, run by men. “It was, ‘Be careful of your powers, but we will encourage you to use them.’” “But that is the difference between a show in the ‘60s and a show in the ‘90s created by someone who grew up in the ‘70s and had Gloria Steinem in her life,” she says. Many of the choices Scovell would go on to make during her single-season tenure on Sabrina and later in her career were directly influenced by some of the women she looked up to growing up post- Bewitched. “What was so much fun for me was that twist,” Scovell admits. “She doesn't have a date for the prom, so her aunts make one out of man-dough, as one does.” Scovell can’t help but chuckle recalling the sixth episode of the first season, titled “Dream Date,” with guest star Brian Austin Green.īut the zaniness of the sitcom, and what it would quickly become-a teen classic that, unlike the older classic, Bewitched, portrayed a young witch who is encouraged to use, not hide her powers-was what made it so remarkable.
“It was just running all the old sitcom tropes through this additional twist of magic,” she says. Scovell, at first, seems modest about its impact and helming the series, which she adapted from the original Archie Comics. It ran for seven seasons, ending in 2003. It’s been 25 years since Sabrina, The Teenage Witch premiered on ABC. She, like me, wanted to be good in school, and a good person.” She doesn't want to be a cheerleader popular. “And the revolutionary idea of Sabrina is she's a good kid. “I wanted to make a show that I would've liked to watch when I was a young a girl,” she tells on a Zoom call from Los Angeles.
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH MOVIE TRAILER TV
It also served as the impetus for co-creator and season 1 showrunner, Nell Scovell, a TV veteran whose writing credits include Murphy Brown, Coach, and Newhart. It’s this kind of reflection, bizarre and relatable in equal measure, that humanizes both Hart’s portrayal as well as Sabrina the series. She, like me, wanted to be good in school, and a good person. The revolutionary idea of Sabrina is she's a good kid. “I have to be a witch, I have to be a mortal, I have to be a teenager and I have to be a girl all at the same time.
“What's the matter?” Sabrina asks with exasperation in the 14 th episode of season 1.
So, while she’s struggling to fine-tune her potions, she’s also weathering a pivotal time in her life as she juggles high school, crushes, impending womanhood, and so much more. That’s partly because Sabrina, who lived with her supportive 600-year-old aunts Zelda and Hilda (Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea), only learns that she’s half-witch with magical abilities at the start of the series, when she turns 16 years old. Starring Melissa Joan Hart, fresh off her star-making turn as the title character on Nickelodeon’s Clarissa Explains It All, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch has everything-humor, heart, magic, and a female protagonist with extraordinary powers yet similar insecurities as her young audience. But in 1996, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch was appointment viewing for 17 million households. Watching a talking cat and a teenage girl navigate the wacky ramifications of spells that make unpalatable lima beans disappear or stop the school bully from spreading lies might not seem like a fun Friday night for those growing up in the TikTok era.
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