The television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch has hosted a wide array of characters and guests over its series run. Sabrina and Salem are the only two characters to remain on the show throughout all consecutive seven seasons and all three made-for-TV movies.
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Main article: Sabrina Spellman |
Sabrina is depicted from the middle of high school through all the way to marriage. On her 16th birthday, she learned that she was a half-witch (through her father's side) and had magical powers. She also learned that her two aunts were witches themselves and that their black cat Salem was a witch who had been turned into a talking household pet as a punishment for attempting worldwide domination. At Westbridge High, she befriended Jenny Kelley (and later Valerie Birkhead in seasons 2 and 3) and had an on-again, off-again relationship with Harvey Kinkle. She also has to deal with her Vice Principal Kraft who dates her aunt Zelda and then in season 4 becomes principal and stops dating Zelda and then goes back on and again not due to car crashes. In the finale they finally stop dating due to Salem driving a car into him. In season 4, Harvey believes Sabrina is cheating on him. They get back together later in Season 4 and then break up again when Harvey discovers she's a witch. She also had to deal with the snobby and headstrong cheerleader Libby Chessler, who became Sabrina's rival for school activities as well as Harvey's affections. Sabrina also at some points transforms herself into Libby to gain popularity (Libby is the queen of the school) for her "dorky" activities. In later seasons, Sabrina was enrolled at the fictional Adams College in Boston. Her roommates are gloomy Roxie, fashion-glamour Morgan, and paranormal activist Miles, who, at one point almost got Sabrina exposed as a witch. After getting her degree in journalism she moved back to her aunts' house with Morgan and Roxie. She took a job with the fictitious ScorchMagazine, a music theme magazine where she interviewed famous artists. Later on, she met a man named Aaron, who also worked in the music industry and the two began dating. Before long, Aaron proposed and in the finale, the two were set to wed when unforeseen events take place. She started to suspect that Aaron was not the one and after Sabrina had tried to connect her soul stone with his, she was sure of it. While it mostly fit, it was not a perfect fit. She tried to ignore it, but followed her heart and canceled the marriage at the altar. When she ran out of the church, she found Harvey waiting for her outside on his motorcycle, holding his soul stone that Amanda, her cousin, had left him. After both Harvey and Sabrina's soul stones were tossed to the side and fit together perfectly, it proved that those two are destined to be together and they rode off together into the distance in true finale fashion at 12:36 on the dot, the same hour they first met. Sabrina's magic takes the form of yellow sparks.
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Main article: Hilda Spellman |
Hildegarde Antoinette "Hilda" Spellman (played by Sherry Miller in the 1996 movie, then Caroline Rhea in the series) is one of Sabrina's aunts, a 642-year-old European witch who is Zelda's younger sister both of whom moved at some point to America. She is often portrayed as the less pragmatic of the two aunts, and constantly worries about things that could be considered superficial. Hilda was also the more outgoing and fun-loving aunt. She was formerly engaged to Drell, head of the Witches Council (played by Penn Jillette), and they were set to marry, but Drell jilted Hilda, and their engagement was called off. She also dated Sabrina's vice principal, Mr. Kraft, until she begins to hate him (with Sabrina) and they desperately try to break him and Zelda apart when Zelda begins to date him. During the college seasons, she became the owner of the coffee shop where Sabrina and Josh worked, and where many of the show's scenes took place. At one point, Hilda tried to help Salem Saberhagen in his quest to conquer the mortal realm, but, when he was caught, convicted and transformed into a cat, Hilda was punished with the job of keeping him worm-free (a job Sabrina took on when Hilda left the series). However, she was pardoned in the final episode of season five, though she decided to keep custody of Salem anyway. It is also claimed by her sister that she caused the American Revolution. For the first three seasons, Hilda played a violin, but was clearly not very good at it as she failed at every audition: In one episode, the violin came flying through the patio doors, and the bow went right through it like an arrow through a heart. At the start of Season 4, Hilda gave up on her violin, and blew it up with a stick of dynamite. She bought a clock shop which had a magical Lost in Time clock in the back room; whenever famous people in the past centuries made a mistake at some point in their lives, they would become lost in time, and Hilda and Zelda had to try to figure out what went wrong. By the start of Season 5, though, the clock shop was out of business, and Hilda bought the coffee shop much to Sabrina's annoyance as she had just moved out of her aunt's house, and was now living with Roxie, Morgan, and Miles. Hilda often made a great fuss over the silliest things: For example, in one episode, Hilda ran for office after a politician publicly stated that her coffee was too expensive. She lost the election without a single vote (the one vote she did receive was disqualified because it was signed with a pawprint rather than a signature, indicating that Salem was the voter in question). As Sabrina's time in college came to an end, Hilda met her soul mate, a train conductor on the Halloween Express, and impulsively married him. However, it almost did not happen after Zelda and Sabrina meddled for what they thought were the right reasons. Hilda later came back in Season 7 to attend Sabrina's wedding. Hilda's magic takes the form of puffs of white smoke.
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Main article: Zelda Spellman |
Zelda Spellman (played in the 1996 movie by Charlene Fernetz, then Beth Broderick in the series) is Sabrina's brainy aunt who is always engaging in new scientific experiments. She is often referred to as a quantum physicist. Zelda is a 659-year-old European witch who at some point moved along with her sister to America. She sometimes teaches at Westbridge High, and (in later seasons) Adams College. In one episode she says she has been accredited with discovering 17 moons. Zelda often plays the role of the mature, logical one, to bring Sabrina and sometimes Hilda back to earth after they attempt some zany scheme or otherwise get into trouble. Towards the end of Sabrina's time in college, Zelda gave up her adult years to bring a broken Sabrina back to life. As a child again, Zelda left Sabrina to run her own life, upon Sabrina's request. Young Zelda in the first episode of season 7 was played by Alexandra Hart-Gilliams (who played Ally in season 3). Zelda came back with Hilda, during Sabrina's wedding in Season 7, only this time as a candle. Zelda was volunteered by Hilda to become a candle for the duration of Sabrina's wedding so that Sabrina's mother could attend the wedding and not become a ball of wax, per her Witches' Council curse. Zelda is more strict than Hilda. Her magic takes the form of purple sparks.
Harvey Kinkle (played in the 1996 movie by Tobias Mehler, then Nate Richert in the series) is a mortal boy whose full name is Harvey Dwight Kinkle. As revealed in episode 62 (season 3), he has some Slavic ancestry. He was close friends with Sabrina, Salem, Roxie, Morgan, Jenny, Valerie and Brad Alcerro. Harvey is portrayed as a very popular and athletic young man, though not very bright. He is second string on the football team, and the object of affection of Libby Chessler, fueling Sabrina's rivalry with her. The character was first introduced in the comics in Archie's TV Laugh-Out #1 (December 1969).[1]
Harvey was Sabrina's boyfriend until the 4th season, when he discovered that she was a witch in the season finale. The reason for this was that Sabrina had cast too many spells on him over the years and, when the limit was reached, his memory was no longer erased after each spell was reversed. After this, Harvey left the show.
Harvey made a few brief appearances during Season Five. In "Do You See What I See?", Harvey called Sabrina and apologized for the way he acted after learning she was a witch. Harvey returned to the show full-time in Season Six. Sabrina's Great Aunt Irma (played by Barbara Eden) later discovered Harvey knew Sabrina was a witch, and put him on trial to make sure he was trustworthy. Harvey was first attached to a lie detector which was not even plugged in, strapped to a spit and cooked, and even put on the torture rack, but he finally convinced Irma that Sabrina's secret was safe with him, and she let him go.
Harvey became Morgan's boyfriend for a time, but had developed feelings for Sabrina again, even coming to her rescue a couple of times. In season 7, it is revealed that Harvey is still in love with her. He makes Aaron jealous since he is Sabrina's ex and they are still close. In "Spellmanian Slip", Harvey still has a special place in Sabrina's heart (with a room of his own). In "A Fish Tale", Harvey has also shown himself to be unselfish; when Aunt Irma turned Aaron into a goldfish, Sabrina tried unsuccessfully to reverse the spell, so she gave up her magic; Harvey harnessed Sabrina's magic, and changed Aaron back. When Sabrina talked to Aunt Irma, she found out that Harvey was able to undo her spell because he wanted to make Sabrina happy (which, in Irma's opinion was a more powerful motivation than Sabrina's, which was to defy Irma). Sabrina went to Harvey's apartment, only to find him gone; she found only a cardboard box with the vase that contained Sabrina's magic, a picture of them together, and a good luck note.
In the series finale, Sabrina realized that she and Harvey were soul mates, and she abandoned her wedding and rode off with him, her first and true love.
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Main article: Salem Saberhagen |
Salem Saberhagen (voiced by Nick Bakay) is a 500-year-old warlock who was a criminal of the Other Realm and was sentenced to spend 100 years as a cat as punishment for attempting to take over the world. He was sent to live with Hilda who was punished with keeping Salem worm-free. Despite his megalomaniacal desires for world domination (which he attempts periodically throughout the series), he is generally portrayed as having a good heart and being a loyal friend to Sabrina. In the series he would generally serve two roles: one as a mentor for Sabrina, as she found it easier to go to him with her messier problems, or the trouble-maker, such as finding another illicit way to become human without being punished or convincing Sabrina to use magic to solve her problems, both of which generally ended up putting Sabrina in even more trouble. When Sabrina's aunts left for the Other Realm, Salem stayed with Sabrina, and continued his attempts to become human. Salem became good pals with Harvey after he returned to the series, and would generally attempt to abuse this friendship to get some more power to take over the world. Salem also went on vacations with Sabrina in the made-for-television movies.
Salem has a grown-up daughter named Annabelle.
Salem was seen in human form a couple of times in flashbacks (as a teenager and adult), but his face was always obstructed from view, although Nick Bakay did make a cameo appearance in "A Girl And Her Cat" as a man who tries to kiss Zelda when Sabrina and her aunts were knocking on doors, looking for Salem.
50 more years were added to Salem's sentence at the end of the episode Salem, the Boy in Season 3.
At the end of the series 32 years of his imprisonment are over, meaning he has 68 more years until his punishment is terminated (if he behaves, of course).
In "Spellmanian Slip", he states that he wishes that Sabrina would marry Harvey.
Jenny is a mortal character, Sabrina's best friend in the first season until Michelle Beaudoin left the show. Her disappearance is never mentioned or explained. Jenny had a powerful social conscience, was a vegetarian, and a very honest and loyal friend. She always dreamed of other worlds behind closets. Her dream came true when she accidentally entered the linen closet and met Drell. Drell turned her into a grasshopper, but she was saved by Sabrina and her aunts by making Jenny believe everything was a dream. Jenny was very imaginative and whimsical.
Played by Jenna Leigh Green, Libby is a snobby, rich, and spoiled cheerleader who delighted in tormenting Sabrina and her friends. She often referred to Sabrina as a "freak", and, while ignorant of the fact that Sabrina was a witch, she suspected that Sabrina was different. Libby is the mean girl of the series. Libby's major conflict with Sabrina revolved around the girls' competition for the affection of Harvey Kinkle, who clearly preferred Sabrina. Only a few personal details are known about Libby. She was once dubbed "pure evil" but simply took this as a compliment. She apparently comes from extreme wealth, and lives in a step-family arrangement of some sort. Her mother appeared in the episode "Five Easy Pieces of Libby" and is played by Cristine Rose; the mother is much like the daughter—snobby and mean-spirited. She has a stepbrother, Russell, who is seen in the episode "Sabrina Claus", and is played by Richard Taylor Olson; he and Libby have a combative relationship. In one episode, Sabrina accidentally turned her into a puzzle, so Sabrina had to learn more about her. She found out that Libby is bad in math, she takes after her mother in that she is rude and snobby, and that her grandma is very close to her heart. Her appearances generally involve her being mean to Sabrina and others, and getting poetic justice at the end of the episode. At the start of season 4, Libby was sent off to boarding school and was never seen again.
Valerie is Sabrina Spellman and Harvey Kinkle's mortal best friend at Westbridge High School. She is also despised by headstrong cheerleader Libby, who rivals both her and Sabrina for much of the show. Valerie remains Sabrina's best friend until she moves to Anchorage, Alaska, in 1999. She is a shy and often awkward girl who looks up to Sabrina despite being quite bright herself. Valerie often expresses her wish to be in the "cool crowd" even trying her hand, and winning a spot on the second string cheerleading squad in season 3, much to the worry of Sabrina who feared Valerie would transform into a mean, spiteful person like Libby. At the start of Season 4, she moved to Alaska with her family. She had agreed to move in with Sabrina to attend their senior year together, but then she decided to stay in Alaska instead. She was played by American actress Lindsay Sloane.
"Mr. Kraft", as he is often addressed on the show, is portrayed by Martin Mull. He is an administrator at Westbridge High School and regularly issues detentions at the drop of a hat (sometimes literally). He also expresses a personal dislike for Sabrina, Harvey, and Valerie (particularly Sabrina), and occasionally gives them detentions simply because he does not like them. He started out as Vice Principal in the second and third seasons before becoming principal in Season 4. He is known to have one brother and one sister. Mr. Kraft dated both Hilda and Zelda during the show, causing complications for Sabrina. Mr. Kraft is a mortal, but in one of the episodes where Sabrina and Hilda try to separate Zelda and Mr. Kraft, they find out that he was once married to a witch (named Lucy, played by actress Julia Duffy) who tried using her magic to trick Mr. Kraft as revenge for leaving her. At the end of season 4, Zelda breaks up with Mr. Kraft, who is then hit by a car, thanks to joyriding Hilda, and again by a joyriding Salem, and is never seen again.
Dreama is a young girl who has Sabrina Spellman as a quiz master. Dreama is learning how to use her magic in the episodes of season 4. She is quite clumsy in the beginning. She gets turned into a mouse in one episode by Brad, but she is turned back when Brad's witch hunting gene is removed. Sabrina helps her learn and control her powers.
Josh is a mortal guy that runs the coffee shop and gave Sabrina the job. Technically, Josh is her manager, although the relationship is somewhat different because Sabrina's aunt Hilda later owns the shop. Josh is interested in photography, and manages to sell one of his photographs for $1,000 (with Sabrina's magical help). He was attracted to Sabrina in the fourth season, but at that time she was dating Harvey. He often acted jealously towards Harvey, and got a mostly negative review by the fans of the show. In the fifth season he dated Morgan, and then in the sixth season he dated Sabrina. In this season Sabrina is willing to tell Josh she is a witch, so that she can tell him she loves him, but in the end she does not have to and he never figures it out. In the Season 6 finale, Sabrina gambles her love life in order to bring her Aunt Hilda back to life because of this Josh took the offer in Prague, and he was never seen again. Sabrina later discovers she is meant to be with Harvey. He was played by David Lascher, formerly of the Nickelodeon series Hey Dude.
Roxie, a mortal, was introduced to the show in Season 5 as Sabrina's college roommate. At first she dislikes Sabrina, but they later became best friends. Roxie is environmentally conscious and sometimes staged protests. She is a cynical character who puts up the front that she despises the thought that her housemate Miles has romantic interests in her. However, in "You Can't Twin", she has a dream about Miles and many episodes hint a romantic future for the two of them. In a Valentine's Day episode, Sabrina casts a spell on Roxie to make her see the good points of Miles, bringing out an exaggeration of her possible true feelings for him. In Season 7, Roxie became one of the leading characters in the absence of Sabrina's aunts. She was played by Soleil Moon Frye, formerly of NBC's Punky Brewster from 1984 until 1988, and the cartoon spinoff It's Punky Brewster in 1985.
Morgan, a mortal, was introduced in season five as one of Sabrina's college housemates and resident adviser. When she was first introduced, she spoke with a normal tone (much how Elisa Donovan, the actress who played Morgan, speaks) but as the series progressed she developed, and spoke in, a more high-pitched tone. She is very shallow, superficial and over-assertive, but she became one of Sabrina's best friends. She dated both Josh and Harvey (among many others). In a Christmas episode, Morgan invites Sabrina to spend the holidays with her family, since she finds dealing with them alone quite daunting. In the seventh season, Morgan's supporting role becomes a leading one in the absence of Sabrina's aunts.
Miles is a mortal character that was introduced in the fifth season as one of Sabrina's college housemates. His behavior was endearingly abnormal and he was a conspiracy theorist, something his family did not exactly approve of. Miles had romantic interests in Roxie, but she did not outwardly reciprocate. However, in a Valentine's Day storyline, Sabrina cast a spell on Roxie to soften her feelings towards an initially frightened Miles. In another episode it was revealed that he is a huge fan of Adrienne Barbeau. It is hinted in many episodes that Miles and Roxie become a couple in the future, even to the stage of marrying and having children. In the episode "I Fall To Pieces", Miles finally began to notice the unusual behavior of Sabrina's witch-turned-cat Salem. Unfortunately, Miles was never seen again and his disappearance was never explained (on-screen) although in one of the season 7 episodes the reporter on the TV can be heard saying "Goodman was shot today" possibly implying he has died. Miles was played by Trevor Lissauer.
Aaron is Sabrina's last mortal boyfriend, who appears in the seventh season. She meets Aaron at the Scorch magazine office. They become engaged but Sabrina's aunt Irma turns him into a goldfish but Aaron is turned back when Harvey (who is in love with Sabrina) uses Sabrina's magic because he wants to make Sabrina happy. In the series finale, Sabrina prepares for her wedding but stops it when she realizes Aaron is not her soulmate and she runs off with Harvey, her soulmate and first true love (they are soulmates because when their soul stones drop to the ground they fit perfectly) at 12:36, the time they first met seven years ago. and whom Sabrina chose to be her groom. He gets jealous of Harvey since he is still close with Sabrina. Aaron was played by Dylan Neal.
Brad was Harvey's best friend from Texas. He was not very nice to Sabrina. Sabrina later learned that Brad had a rare witch-hunting gene that made those who have it want to ferret out witches, which explained why he did not like Sabrina; because he sensed the magic in her (although he didn't know that) and it made him suspicious. Should a witch reveal herself to a witch-hunter, she is condemned to spend the next century as a mouse. Unfortunately, Dreama just happened to do this, and she became a mouse. The only way to restore her without waiting 100 years was to remove Brad's witch-hunting gene (which was literally a tiny pair of blue jeans) within 1-hour before the mouse form becomes permanent. With the witch-hunting gene gone, Brad's relationship with Sabrina became slightly friendlier, and Sabrina can use magic on him without ever risking exposure or becoming a mouse. Brad's departure was never explained. Brad was played by Jon Huertas.
Mr. Pool is mortal. He is Sabrina's favorite teacher who teaches Biology until Paul Feig left the show after season 1. He was sometimes bitter and sarcastic, but always interesting and usually lively. In one episode, Sabrina casts a spell that endows him with the knowledge of changing lead to gold, but is later forced to retract the knowledge due difficulties it would have caused. Mr. Pool, who had benefited greatly from the knowledge, was very unhappy when he lost it. In the episode "As Westbridge Turns", he reveals that Sabrina is one of his best students. In that same episode, he also plans to marry the school nurse, who ends up running away with the new janitor. Mr. Pool's response to that situation was a calm, "Meh. I got farther than I thought I would."
Albert is Sabrina's quizmaster in season 2 with the job of teaching her how to use magic rightfully so that she can receive her witches' license after a year of witch training. Though Sabrina likes to work with him, she often finds him annoying. In spite of disliking him a little, she found that she couldn't have any Quizmaster but Albert teach her. The Quizmaster taught Sabrina how to turn herself into fire, water and wind, which is said to be very hard for a witch to do.
Throughout the year, he was only known as Quizmaster; however, his name is revealed on "Quiz Show" episode of season 2. It turns out to be "Albert", but they decide to stick with Quizmaster instead. The actor who played him (Alimi Ballard) left the show after the second season, as Sabrina receives her witches' license, giving the character no further role in the series. He had a strange but colorful clothing style and was afraid of clowns.
Gwen is British witch, played by Tara Strong (credited with her maiden name Charendoff), who only appears in the movies Sabrina Goes to Rome and Sabrina, Down Under, as Sabrina's friend during her travels. Like Dreama, she has a hard time controlling her magic and her spells never work the way she expects them to; while Sabrina casts spells with her index finger, Gwen casts spells by clenching her fist. She is shown to have a liking for jellybeans. In the first film, she aided Sabrina in solving the mystery of her family locket, while also facing her own dilemma after she accidentally turned her crush, Alberto, into a pigeon; in order to reverse the spell, she went around randomly kissing pigeons (the only way to reverse the spell) and eventually succeeded. In the second film, she goes on holiday with Sabrina in the Australian Great Barrier Reef, where she helps Sabrina to prevent the destruction of a mermaid colony at the hands of water pollution and a greedy marine biologist. By the time of the second film, she has gained more control over her powers through practice, but has yet to completely perfect them; upon reuniting with Sabrina, she demonstrates this by transforming Sabrina's shell necklace into a flower lei, but unintentionally gave her a rabbit's tail in the process; in response to this, Gwen explains, "In my defense, I didn't say I was good; just said I was better."
Throughout the series, Sabrina met members of her family who were also witches. Throughout Season Three, relatives would come to the Spellman house for a visit, and at the end of their visit, they would give Sabrina a clue to the family secret. Sabrina did not solve it until the Season Three finale: "Every member of the Spellman family is born with a twin". Here are some of Sabrina's relatives.
In Season Four, Hilda bought a clock shop which had what seemed like an ordinary grandfather clock in the back room. However it turned out to be a magical Lost in Time clock from which certain people from past centuries or decades emerged. These people included:
Many episodes involve Sabrina getting to meet, through natural or supernatural means, popular real-life musical artists of the time, including the band of Melissa Joan Hart's then-boyfriend (now husband) Mark Wilkerson, appeared in an episode in 2002.