Trivia / Sabrina: The Animated Series

• Acting for Two:
  • Gem, Pi, and Bernard are all voiced by Chantal Strand.
  • And Hilda and Zelda. Both are done by Melissa Joan Hart.
• Actor-Shared Background: The episode "Fish Schtick" involves Harvey becoming a lifeguard. His actor Bill Switzer was a gifted swimmer in his school days.
• Blooper:
  • In the rumor episode of Sabrina's Secret Life Sabrina addresses one girl as 'Margot' when the character's name is Tiffany.
  • In "My Stepmother the Babe", a close-up shot of Quigley has him asking talking with Zelda's voice.
  • In the movie, Gem is shown in Sabrina’s class at the graduation ceremony!
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic appears As Himself doing a parody of the Flavor Babes' song in "Witchy Girrrls".
  • Mr. T plays an alien leader with his trademark mohawk.
• Channel Hop:
  • In the United States: From ABC (Saturday mornings) and UPN (Weekdays and Sunday), lasting until 2002. Then the series found a home on Disney Channel and Toon Disney from 2002-2004, as well as a spell on the DIC Kids Network syndicated block from 2003-2006, which is where Sabrina's Secret Life first aired on. Then it re-aired on CBS from 2006-2007 as part of KOL Secret Slumber Party, and returned in 2009 as part of Cookie Jar TV until 2011. Starz Kids & Family then re-aired the series for a time in the 2010's.
  • Internationally, the series' pay rights were with Disney Channel, due to DIC's then-status of being a Disney subsidiary. After the sale, the show remained on Disney Channel in most territories, and so did Sabrina's Secret Life. Elsewise, the series has seen many hops on different TV stations.
• Children Voicing Children:
  • Emily Hart was thirteen at the time, voicing the twelve-year-old Sabrina.
  • Chantal Strand was twelve voicing the preteens Gem, Bernard and Pi.
  • Bill Switzer was a little older - fourteen voicing Harvey at twelve - but still qualifies.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Pi is voiced by Chantal Strand, who also voices Bernard. Averted in Polish dub, where he was voiced by prepubescent boys.
• Cross-Regional Voice Acting: A DiC staple, using a mix of Vancouver and Los Angeles voice talent.
• Dawson Casting: In contrast to the child examples above, Cree Summer was thirty voicing the twelve-year-old Chloe.
• Edited for Syndication: The theme song was cut down to 45 seconds when UPN aired the series on Disney's One Too, and was cut down further to 30 seconds when Disney Channel and Toon Disney aired it, alongside an alternative version used on DIC Kids Network syndicated airings. This is averted internationally, and for home media.
• Fake American: Besides the Harts (New Yorkers) voicing the Spellmans, the other voice actors Cree Summer, Chantal Strand, Jay Brazeau and David Sobolov are all Canadian. Bill Switzer as Harvey was born in Texas but later relocated to Canada.
• Fake Brit: Bob Bergen (American) puts on a hammy English accent to voice Tim the Witch Smeller.
• Fake Nationality: Canadian voice actress Kathleen Barr uses a Middle European accent for Scheherazade and a British accent to voice Enchantra.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • In "Witchy Grrrls" the Spellmans and Chloe form a Girl Group but are Dreadful Musicians. Even after casting a spell to become talented, Sabrina tells Chloe she's the Lesser Star and refuses to let her sing on the next single. Cree Summer was actually in a band when she was thirteen and has been a professional singer in addition to voice acting (as demonstrated in All Grown Up!).
  • In the same episode, Gem is revealed to be lip syncing, implying she can't sing herself, and in "I Got Glue Babe" she sings along to the elf song in a horribly off-key voice. Her voice actress Chantal Strand is also a singer, and has sung in other roles.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Being a 65-episode cartoon, this show certainly has no exception. In general, trying to get the whole show physically is a headache for fans.
  • On DVD, if you include the Mill Creek-distributed 2011 DVD that contains the first thirty-two episodes in production order and the other DVDs (if you exclude the episodes on the other DVDs) it makes up forty-four episodes altogether. Leaving the other episodes in limbo.
  • While the STARZ network had most of the series for streaming, it's only 52 of the episodes. Even worse, none of these have the episodes in airing order (instead opting for production order). Needless to say, if there's a specific episode you're looking for, it's gonna take some digging.
  • Sabrina's Secret Life on the other hand is even worse when it comes to DVD releases. Only around three episodes made it in the United States, and were bundled as bonus episodes on other Mill Creek DVD releases of Cookie Jar-owned shows. The complete series did make it to France, as well as in the DACH countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), but only contain their respective French and German dubs. There were a few Region 4 DVD releases in Australia, but they only go up to the eighteenth episode.
    • The series was fully uploaded to YouTube in 2021 for free.
  • The same thing applies to the licensed games. They've long since fallen out of print and have never been re-released in any form, for obvious licensing issues.
• Licensed Game:
  • Zapped! and Spooked! for the Game Boy Color. A duology of platform games where you control Sabrina.
  • Magical Adventure for the PC, a Minigame Game where Sabrina has to thwart Gem's dastardly plot.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Due to Melissa Joan Hart and Disney no longer producing the series, the voice actors in Sabrina's Secret Life were all changed. Only Britt McKillip is kept from the Friends Forever movie, reprising her role as Sabrina.
  • The Italian dub of Friends Forever has different voices than the series, due to the movie being dubbed in Rome, rather than Milan. Doubles as Role Reprise since Sabrina, Salem, Hilda and Zelda have the same voice actors from the sitcom (also dubbed in Rome).
  • The Friends Forever movie featured a different voice for Salem than Secret Life, when the rest of the cast carried over. Louis Chirillo voiced him in the former, and Maurice LaMarche in the latter.
  • The Polish dub of Friends Forever also suffered from this, due to it being recorded in Łódź, rather than Warsaw like the series.
  • In the French dub of Sabrina's Secret Life, none of the voice actors from the previous animated series reprised their roles, with the exception of Philippe Bozo as Salem.
• Out of Order: All the episodes of both The Animated Series and Secret Life were aired out of production order. Thankfully, this is rectified on the former's DVDs.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Chantal Strand would later be typecast for voicing sweet little girls, and voices three roles distinct from that (two of whom are boys); Pi is an eccentric non-conformist, Bernard is a shy nerd and Gem of course is a shameless Alpha Bitch.
  • Emily Hart had been the bratty, antagonistic cousin Amanda on the sitcom. Here she voices the heroic and kind-hearted Sabrina.
• Predecessor Casting Gag: Sabrina's aunts Hilda and Zelda are voiced by Melissa Joan Hart, the actress who played Sabrina herself in the original sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
• Produced by Cast Member: Melissa Joan Hart served as producer, as well as voicing the two aunts.
• Production Posse: Bill Switzer who voiced Harvey had also starred with Melissa Joan Hart and Emily Hart on the Made-for-TV Movie The Right Connections.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • In Sabrina: The Animated Series, Sabrina is voiced by Emily Hart. Her aunts are voiced by Emily's older sister, Melissa Joan Hart.
  • In Sabrina: Friends Forever and Sabrina's Secret Life, Sabrina is voiced by Britt McKillip while Portia/Cassandra is voiced by Britt's older sister Carly McKillip.
• Recycled Script: The animated version had many similar plots to the sitcom, although admittedly done in a different style.
  • "Witchitis" - Sabrina catches a magical illness that makes her powers go haywire and tries to hide it so she can still go to school.
  • "Witchy Grrls" - Sabrina and her friends are Dreadful Musicians and cast a spell to become talented, get famous and let fame go to their heads. In the sitcom, she cast the spell behind her aunts' back; in this version, the aunts are part of the spell.
  • "Nothin' Says Lovin' Like Somethin' From The Coven" - Sabrina throws an impromptu Halloween party in opposition to the Alpha Bitch, and tries to prevent it from getting too boring. In a reverse of the above, the aunts are in the house for the sitcom's party but are absent for this one.
  • "Documagicary" - Sabrina ends up with her own reality show and has to sabotage it to get out of her contract.
  • "Witch Switch" shares similarities with one of the sitcom's novelizations Switcheroo - where Sabrina casts a spell to trade lives with the Alpha Bitch.
  • "My Stepmother the Babe" - Sabrina's father turns up with a new girlfriend and she's predictably not happy. In the sitcom, she's a witch named Gail and in the animated series a mortal called Futchera.
  • "Fish Schtick" and "Dante's Inferno" from the sitcom contain a Running Gag involving puns coming to life. In the sitcom, Hilda has an illness called 'Punitis', and in the animated series it's a calendar event called 'Cliché Week'.
  • "A Tale of Two Kitties" would later be repeated in the sitcom's "Salem & Juliet" - Salem encounters a witch he used to know also turned into a cat, falls for her and discovers she has ulterior motives. In the sitcom, she just wanted a date for a dance to one-up an ex-boyfriend, and in the animated series she's trying to marry Salem to turn back into a human. Both times the cats are white-furred.
  • "I Got Glue Babe" is an extended version of the first half of the sitcom's "Five Easy Pieces of Libby". In both, Sabrina ends up magically attached to her rival, and the Aesop is them learning to work together.
  • "Witchwrecked" would be recycled in the sitcom's penultimate episode; Sabrina and friends get stranded in the Bermuda Triangle, where her magic doesn't work.
• Recursive Adaptation: The cartoon itself was an Animated Adaptation that was slightly Truer to the Text than the sitcom it was adapting. Archie Comics produced a comic spin-off of this series too - using some Arc Welding to say that Sabrina had traveled back in time to her preteen years to tie it into the main continuity.
• Role Reprise:
  • Nick Bakay reprises his role as Salem Saberhagen from the sitcom.
  • Jesse Conde voices Salem in the Latin American dub of the first animated series, just like in the first season of the sitcom.
• What Could Have Been: Before “Sabrina’s Secret Life”, there were both plans for a second proper season, and later a spin-off featuring Salem. The latter, just tiled Salem, would have been about him trying to become a warlock again by doing good deeds.

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