Sabrina often visited Horrible Hall, which was home to her cousins, the Groovie Goolies: comic versions of classic monster types (vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's Monster, mummies, etc.) who told jokes and played songs. It bore a hit single in 1970, "Chick-A-Boom (Don't Ya Jes' Love It)" by Daddy Dewdrop, the pseudonym of Dick Monda who composed the songs for the show. The single itself was slightly racy; the version on the cartoon was much more sanitized.
About a year later, the show would be split into its constituent halves and shown separately. In 1972, as an ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, the Groovie Goolies would appear in a bizarre Crossover with the Looney Tunes characters, entitled Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies.
This series provides examples of:
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese dub has this
as its theme song. - Adaptational Nationality: Sabrina, Hilda and Zelda, who are American in most versions, seem to have become British based on their accents.
- Babysitting Episode: Sabrina looks after Hauntleroy, Batso and Ratso in "Child Care".
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: The witches have this viewpoint. Except for Sabrina and Zelda, who are often punished for being too nice.
- Baseball Episode: The Goolies play baseball in one sketch.
- Beach Episode: "Beached", from which the page image comes.
- Bratty Half Pints: Batso and Ratso
- Butt-Monkey: Hauntleroy's often a foil for Ratso and Batso’s mean tricks.
- Canon Foreigner: The Groovie Goolies are spinoffs from Sabrina, but from her animated show, not her comic book series. The characters were owned by Filmation, and never appeared in Archie Comics.
- Catchphrase:
- Drac: "This place is driving me batty!"
- Frank (after being struck by lightning): "I needed that!"
- Cheer Up Episode: One of the sketches in the twelfth episode of Groovie Goolies is about Ghoulihand trying to build replicas of the Sphinx and a pyramid to cheer up a homesick Mummy.
- Chummy Mummy: Mummy, obviously.
- Cool Broom: Sabrina's ride had a big cushioned eggshell-like seat with a flower on top. (Aunt Zelda flew a vacuum cleaner.)
- Comedic Spanking: Batso and Ratso usually got this as punishment for their misbehavior, though it's happened to Hauntleroy a few times as well.
- In the home movie of Frankie's birthday party from his childhood, Ghoulihand spanks him as punishment for the damage caused when Frankie blew out the candles on his cake.
- Crossover: In the aptly named Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies.
- Cub Cues Protective Parent: While Frankie and Mummy are on a Beaster egg hunt, Frankie finds a green egg with pink spots, and they soon run afoul of a female dragon, named Smoky, whose child is in the egg.
- Dem Bones: Boneapart and the Bare Bones Band.
- Desperate Plea for Home: Hauntleroy has one after he and Hagatha get shrunk inside the cookie jar in one sketch.
- Eat the Camera: Done at least once or twice with a red furry bat.
- Evil Redhead: Della. Her hair was brown in the comics.
- Evil Twin: Sabrina's cousin Damina, though she had black hair and a different voice.
- Extreme Omnivore: Orville the plant will eat just about anything.
- Fan of the Underdog: Apparently Frank is a huge fan of Looney Tunes No-Respect Guy Daffy Duck.
- Flying Broomstick: Broomhilda, Hagatha's broom.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Hagatha's Bedtime Stories and Wolfie's Theater serve this purpose.
- Glamour Failure: Witches cannot be photographed or filmed. One episode mentions that witches can drink a potion that allows them to be filmed but it is very risky to use.
- Herr Doktor: Dr. Jekyll and Hyde talk with a German accent.
- Hiccup Hijinks: One episode had Sabrina get hiccups while she was at school, causing things to get crazy. She's eventually cured at home only for Aunt Zelda to get hiccups.
- Human Knot: The monster football game "wound up in a tie". And since the show ran on Hurricane of Puns, of course cue this trope.
- Hurricane of Puns: Puns run rampant throughout the show.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Sabrina. In her defense, witches are evil in this universe. One episode had her wish granted, but she relented when she had to contend with the local Alpha Bitch, who turned out to be Aunt Hilda in disguise.
- I Want My Mommy!: Hauntleroy reacts this way a couple times after something awful happens to him. In one of those instances, he says it verbatim when Wolfie spanks him with a surfboard, after Hauntleroy is mistaken for having stolen it.
- Ink-Suit Actor: It's often said that Drac is at least partly based off his voice actor Larry Storch.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- After Ratso and Batso increase the speed on the exercise bike at the Muscle-leum, giving Hauntleroy a wild ride, the bike chases the duo into a corner and spanks them with its paddles.
Frankie: Just as I said: a little paddling is good for you.- After Hauntleroy tricks Batso and Ratso into getting in Hagatha's cookie jar and shrinking, he takes the jar to a cupboard, only to slip off the stool and drop the jar, causing the duo to fly out and the jar to fly onto Hauntleroy and shrink him.
- Laugh Track: True in the Sabrina portion: An unusual example of a Magical Girl show having this feature (it never occurs in magical girl anime). Like many other 1970s American Saturday-morning cartoons, the series included a laugh track.
- Magical Girl: The Sabrina portion of this Saturday-morning cartoon was the first American-made magical girl animated show, the first magical girl that is not a Pink Heroine, and the first magical girl show to air in the United States. When she was seen by the Japanese audiences, she was viewed as being the American counterpart of Sally.
- Meaningful Name: Boneapart frequently falls apart in accidents.Boneapart: (after falling apart offscreen in one episode) That's me all over.
- Monster Mash: The Groovie Goolies portion features classic monsters from Dracula and Frankenstein, among others.
- Multiple Head Case: Dr. Jekyll and Hyde
- They make Boneapart and Mummy this when trying to reassemble them in one episode.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Frankie's voice is based off Boris Karloff (obviously), while Mummy has a voice very much like Ed Wynn (don't ya know!).
- Nurse with Good Intentions: Mummy can come off as this when doing first aid on his fellow Goolies, such as when he puts Boneapart together wrong in one episode.
- Quirky Doctor: Dr. Jekyll and Hyde are one.
- Rapid-Fire Comedy: A couple sections of each episode just consist of several jokes in a row: one being at the beginning of the first half, and the other being the "Weird Window Time" segment that opens the second half.
- Really 700 Years Old: The adult Goolies, at least, seem to be centuries old, as a home movie of Frankie's 505th birthday party shows them as little tykes. Plus, a comment from Wolfie in another episode indicates that Mummy's at least 3 millennia old.
- Red Riding Hood Replica: One of Wolfie's fairytale plays puts a spin on Little Red Riding Hood, with "Red Riding Wolf" contending with a little girl (played by Frankie) who tries to steal the food he brings to his grandpa (played by Drac).
- Running Gag: Several:
- Frankie getting struck by lightning.
Frankie: I needed that!- Every episode opens with Drac, as a bat, trying to fly into Horrible Hall, only for the window to move, causing him to crash into the wall, turning back to normal in the process.
- Mummy getting unraveled.
- Boneapart falling apart in an accident.
- Ratso and Batso playing pranks on their fellow Goolies, and subsequently getting punished for it in some way, usually with spankings.
- Secondary Adaptation: This cartoon is a Spinoff of The Archie Show, which was based on a radio show called The Adventures of Archie Andrews, which itself was based on the Archie Comics of The '40s.
- Shout-Out:
- Boneapart's name and hat are an obvious nod to Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Hauntleroy's name and attire are a reference to Little Lord Fauntleroy.
- The Rolling Headstones is a pun on The Rolling Stones, while the Mummies and the Puppies are a nod to The Mamas & the Papas, complete with a mummy named Mama Casket. Likewise, Tiny Tomb, frontman of the latter band, is a play on Tiny Tim, not just in his name, but in his long hair and high-pitched voice as well.
- Rolling Headstones members Hudson Rock and Ulysses S. Granite are nods to Rock Hudson and Ulysses S. Grant.
- No points for guessing who Dr. Jekyll and Hyde are based on.
- Super Ghoul is an obvious take on Superman.
- The Headless Horseman comes to Bella for help in one episode.
- Bella La Ghostly's name is a pun on Bela Lugosi.
- Tiny Tomb's song "Slip Slop Through
- Simpleton Voice: Big Ethel sounds like a female Bullwinkle.
- Stock Footage: Common, as in all Filmation series. Footage of vampires Drac and Bella would show up decades later on Filmation's Ghostbusters.
- Tempting Cookie Jar:
- One sketch has Hagatha enchant a cookie jar with a spell that will make Batso and Ratso shrink inside the jar when they try to steal the cookies.
- Hilda catches Drac, Wolfie, Mummy and Frankie stealing cookies from a jar in "Living Dolls".
- Totally Radical: Wolfie often uses slang associated with beatniks and hippies.
- Totem Pole Trench: Hauntleroy, Batso and Ratso dress like a scientist this way in the "When I Grow Up" music video.
- Treasure Hunt Episode: One sketch involves Wolfie and Boneapart diving under the moat to search for treasure.
- True Blue Femininity: Sweet, demure Sabrina wears a simple blue dress.
- Verbal Tic: Mummy's got one, y'know.
- Wolfie's speech is often punctuated with howls.
- Vocal Dissonance: Ratso has an unusually deep, gravelly voice for a child.
- Weird World, Weird Food: A musical segment from the first Groovie Goolies episode sings about the Monster Cookbook with all kinds of bizarre recipes like chocolate meatballs, marshmallow tacos, peanut butter steak and more.
- Wicked Witch:
- Hilda and Zelda both had the traditional appearance, though it was belied by a kindly nature in Zelda's case.
- There's also Hagatha, one of the Groovie Goolies. She's not really evil...as far as the viewer knows, anyway...
- X-Ray Sparks: This happens to Frankie everytime he gets struck by lightning, although instead of bones, we see mechanical insides instead.
