Little Witch 101: Sabrina the Teenage Witch

A Witchy American Sweetheart 

Today we take a step back from anime’s little witches to look at a little witch close to my heart: Sabrina Spellman.  Long before she started her chilling adventures with black magic, demons, and Satan, Sabrina was just your average all-American girl.  She went to high school, had a teenage romance, and lived with an eccentric family.  Plus, she managed to balance all of this while being a witch.  Though she may not have been America’s first magical girl, Sabrina certainly was America’s first little witch and, as the years have shown, she’s always been beloved by many.

From comic book sweetheart, to animated middle-schooler, to black magic princess—the world just can’t get enough of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

An All-American Little Witch through the Ages

Sabrina made her debut as a comic character in Archie’s Madhouse in 1962 and kept appearing as a regular until 1985 even though she managed to get her own comic volume in 1971. This Sabrina was part of the Archie’s line up of characters and had frequent interactions with his friends since she only lived in the next town over.  Sabrina still was a secret witch in this scenario, only ever revealing to the group that she was a witch years later in a remake of the original Archie comics.  It’s also interesting to note that a major point of Sabrina’s story was that if a witch fell in love with a mortal, they’d lose their powers.  In fact, witches weren’t supposed to fall in love at all. This, of course made Harvey’s presence a special problem in the original series.

In the 70s, Sabrina’s first animated series featured some new characters called the Groovie Goolies who are inspired by classic Universal monsters.  This version of Sabrina has a distinct 70s meets magical girl vibe to it that jumps right out at you from the start of the show’s opening:

“Once upon a time, there were three witches, who lived in the little town of Riverdale. Two aunts, Hilda and Zelda, are choosing the ingredients to create an evil wicked witch. But suddenly, Zelda bumped right into Hilda and accidentally added beautiful girls’ stuff as an extra ingredient. Thus, the grooviest teenage witch was born. She has white hair with a pink headband, and blue eyes. She wears a blue dress with a black belt and black shoes. She loves to goof off and battle evil forces using her ultra-magical powers. It so happens that she is the first bewitching American superhero — Sabrina, the teenage witch!”

This was the first time Sabrina’s adventures resembled action packed magical girl adventures. She’s not just a hip high-school student with a band made of groovy monsters, but a kick-butt, super girl! In fact, she really likes fighting evil (reminiscent of the titular character of Star vs the Forces of Evil) just as much as she likes doing regular mortal girl things.  Unfortunately this adorable series only ran for four seasons.

It wasn’t until 1996 that Sabrina would be on TV again, this time in live action form.  Arguably the most popular version of Sabrina, Sabrina the Teenage Witch set a couple of firsts that would influence Sabrina stories for the rest of history. This series was the first to go into depth about Sabrina’s family life as a mortal and witch.  This also is the first series that introduces the lovable and sassy Salem as a talking character, which is now something that’s expected of new Sabrina series. Finally, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was the first version of Sabrina where she wasn’t born with knowledge of her powers, but instead found out about them on her 16th birthday, giving her even less experience and training than all her other counterparts.

Sabrina in Sabrina: The Animated Series follows suit because she is 12 rather than a high school girl. In this series, she often gets help from a genie-like creature called the Spooky Jar in order to do more complex magic.  This magic often backfires on her and causes problems, but always results in important life lessons.

Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch takes a turn for a more Eastern interpretation of little witch but for good reason.  It was heavily influenced by a Sabrina manga made in the 90s.  In this series, Sabrina is a princess who is destined to become ruler of the witch world.  Salem is not a sassy friend, but an enemy spy sent to set Sabrina on a path of destruction. Sabrina even needs to go to two schools: her mortal high school and a magical one.  With this comes double the rivals, and double the love interests with not just Harvey but a dreamy warlock named Shinji.  In this series, Sabrina also battles the forces of evil that are sent to her by Enchantra, an evil sorceress looking to destroy Sabrina and take her powers.  This was the most off-beat of the Sabrina series until recently.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina features a world very similar to the original Sabrina Comics, but with a spooky twist.  Instead of being witches with powers that come naturally, witch powers come from a deal with Satan.  Unlike previous incarnations of Sabrina, she’s proficient in her powers here, but it is expected that she sign her name in blood in the Book of the Beast during a black mass on her 16th birthday.  It’s a pretty heavy change to the normally upbeat and comical Sabrina story, but that isn’t the only change to the Sabrina story…  Poor Salem doesn’t even get to talk!  Though this series has its major differences, it’s a must watch for lovers of horror starring witches.

The Real Sabrina Spellman

Sabrina may have gone through a lot physical changes over the years, but she’s always been the same character at her heart.  Sabrina is a spunky, caring, kind of clumsy girl who just wants to do the right thing and help others.  Of course, this means using her magic, even though she’s never quite a master at it. It especially gets sticky when she uses magic to help mortals.  Sabrina’s interloping with mortal affairs constantly seems to get her into trouble.  These magical hi-jinks are especially worrying to Sabrina’s family, which is comprised of her aunts Hilda and Zelda as well as their cat, Salem Saberhagen.  Unfortunately, Sabrina is separated from her birth parents, warlock Edward and mortal Diana, because of the Witches Council.  Humans and mortals are not to live in peace with one another, let alone marry and have children, so Sabrina is always a special case.

Still, Sabrina lives in the mortal world and is plagued with mortal problems.  She’s half-mortal after all, so these issues are always important to Sabrina whether it’s something as trivial as fitting into slim clothes or as earth-shattering as telling her mortal friends she’s a witch.  This is a reoccurring issue in all of the Sabrina series since her love interest is always Harvey Kinkle, a nice, average human boy. Sometimes Harvey finds out about the magic, sometimes he doesn’t, but his presence is a persistent problem for Sabrina no matter the iteration of her story.  It’s the same question that is reflected in her upbringing.  Which world should she choose: the mortal world or the witch world?  Since she is part of both, Sabrina can’t understand why she can’t have both.  Her parents didn’t choose.  Why should she?

Not only is it difficult for Sabrina to separate herself from the mortals because of love, rivalries always play some sort of role in Sabrina’s life.  Though Sabrina’s original rival was another witch, named Rosalind, all of her other rivals are mortal girls who mirror the real teen issues of high-school hierarchies involving cheerleaders and popular girls. They may seem like trivial problems, but these rivals are often the cause of Sabrina’s interference in mortal affairs.  Girls like Gem, Libby, and Amy have tried to steal away Harvey, bully Sabrina’s friends, and make fun of her family.  Sabrina can’t help but try to teach them their own lessons by using magic to make the girls suddenly nicer or, in a case from the live action show, accidently turn the a girl into a pineapple.  These instances in turn teach Sabrina her own valuable lesson: not all problems can be solved with magic.

Like most little witches, Sabrina’s story of being extraordinary in a world of average people is relatable, but unlike most little witches, Sabrina is tied to both the world she comes from and the world she lives in.  She’s able to solve problems other witches can’t because of her mortal upbringing.  Her witch life has left her with an idea that most problems can be solved easily, which causes other problems in her mortal life.  It’s this constant balance of these two halves that make Sabrina’s story entertaining no matter what adventure she goes on.

There’s plenty of ways to enjoy all kinds of Sabrina stories both legally and illegally so if you want to support the series you definitely can!  Archie Comics has the 90’s comics to the current Chilling Adventures Series available for sale, but no classics.  In that case, you’d have to search them up on illegitimate sites. Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) is available on Hulu, Amazone Prime, and Google Play.  Sabrina the Animated Series is available through Starz, Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is available on Netflix.  Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch is the only series not available for streaming legally.