The 2018 Show:
- Acting for Two: Luke Cook both played Lucifer and voiced Salem (the latter in season 4 episode 7).
- Actor-Inspired Element:
- Miranda Otto felt that Zelda's appearance would be influenced by film noir and the likes of Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford.
- Salem's non-talking diminished was due to Kiernan Shipka's cat allergy.
- California Doubling: Like Riverdale, the show uses Vancouver to substitute for wherever Greendale is supposed to be. Notably, the kids are seen drinking retro-looking Pop Shoppe sodas in the classic stubby recyclable bottles, which are hard to find in America outside of specialty stores (and form part of the show's Retro Universe setting as a result) but have been reintroduced in Canada.
- The Cast Showoff: Kiernan Shipka sings "Always Is Always Forever" in "Witch Academy" and "Masquerade" from The Phantom of the Opera in "The Mephisto Waltz". The whole of the band contribute vocal talents to a cover of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." This isn't the first show where Ross Lynch sings, after all. Miranda Otto, Lucy Davis, Jaz Sinclair, Tati Gabrielle, Adeline Rudolph, Abigail Cowen, Gavin Leatherwood and Lachlan Watson get to show off their vocals too.
- Dawson Casting:
- Ross Lynch plays Harvey at age 22. Kiernan Shipka is an aversion, as she was 18 when the first two seasons were filmed.
- Jaz Sinclair (Rosalind) was 23.
- Tati Gabrielle said that most of students at the Academy of Unseen Arts are already over 50.
- Dueling Shows:
- Unusually, Netflix decided to release Sabrina and the Season 2 of Castlevania on the very same day. Both being dark and gothic TV adaptations of a comic book and a videogame respectively. This can be blamed on Netflix trying to capitalize on releasing horror shows right before Halloween. So far, both have received very positive reviews.
- As a minor example, Sabrina was released 2 weeks after yet another dark and gothic TV adaptation, this time of the classic of horror literature: The Haunting of Hill House (2018). Again, as with the other two, this series has also received extremely positive reviews. It's a good time to be a horror geek.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- Kiernan Shipka is naturally blonde, but had long brown hair when she tested for the part. She dyed it blonde and bobbed it to match Sabrina's style in the comics (the sitcom and animated series had given her long hair).
- Ross Lynch is normally blond but became brunet because producers felt he looked too much like Kiernan with blond hair.
- Fake American:
- Miranda Otto (Aunt Zelda) is Australian.
- There's also Michelle Gomez, who is Scottish, playing Madame Satan.
- Canadian actor Adrian Hough (who you might recognize as the voice of Templar Grandmaster Haytham Kenway) plays Farmer Joe Putnam.
- Adeline Rudolph (Agatha) is German/Korean; however, her character is an orphan, so she could been brought over to the USA at young age to be part of that sector of the Church Of Night.
- Playing Against Type:
- Comedy actor Richard Coyle as The Dragon to Satan himself. His prior experience comes in handy when playing Hilda disguised as Blackwood.
- Also, Bronson Pinchot— more known for Perfect Strangers and other comedic roles, is an asshole principal who hates anybody who's not straight.
- The Other Darrin: In the Japanese dub, Kazue Komiya voiced the alternative Hilda Spellman instead of the late Toshiko Fujita.
- Queer Character, Queer Actor: Theo Putnam, a transgender boy, is played by non-binary actor Lachlan Watson.
- Recursive Adaptation: The show is set to have its ownSusie comic continuation.
- Role Reprise:
- In the Latín American Spanish dub, Diana Pérez, in her final time in the role before her 2021 death, returns as Hilda Spellman from the 90s sitcom TV series.
- In the French dub, Herve Grull reprises his role as Harvey Kinkle from the animated series.
- In the fourth season, Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea played the alternative versions of Zelda and Hilda. This carries over with some dubs of the characters, as in the Italian dub, Barbara Castracane and Chiara Salerno once again reprise their roles as the alternative Zelda and Hilda; in the Latin American Spanish dub, the alternative Zelda and Hilda are dubbed by Dulce María Romay and Rebeca Manríquez, who respectively played the Broderick and Rhea versions of the characters in the first season of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch; and in the Japanese dub, the alternative Zelda is once again played by Sakiko Uran, who voiced the Broderick version of Zelda in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
- Romance on the Set: Between Ross Lynch (Harvey) and Jaz Sinclair (Roz)
- Self-Adaptation: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the writer of the comics, is also involved in the writing of the show.
- Separated-at-Birth Casting: Mckenna Grace, who played Young Sabrina during a flashback sequence, looks like a younger clone of Kiernan Shipka at that age.
- Typecasting: Mckenna Grace once again - after Once Upon a Time, The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and Captain Marvel (2019) - plays the younger version of a super-powered woman. If one includes I, Tonya in the mix (Tonya Harding has no supernatural ability but is a very talented skater) that makes five.
- What Could Have Been:
- It was planned as a direct Spin-Off to Riverdale that would air on The CW. However, it ended up going to Netflix, leaving it in doubt what continuity it will have with Riverdale. Word of God is that the two shows will be separate, but there is the possibility of a crossover. Ben Button has a cameo as a pizza delivering guy in the seventh episode.
- Due to Kiernan Shipka's aforementioned cat allergy, producers considered turning Salem into a dog.
- Susie was meant to come out as transgender much earlier on the show, but upon casting Lachlan Watson it was pushed back until the second half of the first season.
"I think in bringing me on board and having me talk about my own identity, I think it may have swayed the writers just a little bit to maybe hold off on labeling or defining [Susie] just yet.”- There wasn't initially planned to be a Christmas Special, but after the first season aired, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasca realised they had done a Halloween Episode and Thanksgiving Episode, and decided to create the special.
- An early draft of the Pilot
indicates that the show was meant to take place in 1968. This was later dropped in favor of an Ambiguous Time Period, but some of the Retro Universe trappings remain. - The now canceled Part 5 was supposed to be a crossover with Riverdale. The story of the crossover would have been about a war between the witches of Greendale and the witches of Riverdale.
- Word of Saint Paul: According to the actresses playing the Weird Sisters, the dynamic between the characters is variation on Nice Mean And In Between, with Dorcas being more timid and gentle, Agatha being the most sadistic and bloodthirsty, and Prudence falling somewhere in between the two. (On the show, though, this dynamic is really only visible during the events surrounding the death of Tommy Kinkle, and mostly disappears thereafter.)
