Excited for the ‘Sabrina’ Reboot? Here’s How the Teenage Witch (and Her Cat) Have Evolved

Having already reinvented Archie and the gang on the CW’s “Riverdale,” the comic book writer and showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has modernized another clbadic Archie character: Sabrina Spellman (also known as Sabrina the Teenage Witch), who returns to TV Friday with Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” The series stars Kiernan Shipka of “Mad Men” as Sabrina, a young woman struggling to choose between becoming a witch or remaining mortal, as forces of evil conspire against her.

The new series is a sharp departure from the lighthearted sitcom high jinks of Sabrina’s previous live-action series, “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” starring Melissa Joan Hart. But Sabrina has undergone a lot of reinventions since her debut 56 years ago. Here’s a refresher on her history, both onscreen and on the page.

‘Archie’s Mad House’

Created by the writer George Gladir and the artist Dan DeCarlo, Sabrina debuted in issue 22 of the comic book series Archie’s Mad House, in 1962. She was introduced as a mischievous teenager who enjoys playing tricks on her clbadmates. The issue establishes that Sabrina can never fall in love or she will lose her powers (a character trait reminiscent of Kim Novak’s witch in the 1958 film “Bell, Book, and Candle”), but that aspect of the character is dropped fairly quickly, as many of her stories involve going on dates and flirting with boys. Later issues reveal that Sabrina lives with her aunts Hilda and Zelda, who look like stereotypical witches — unlike Sabrina, who dresses as a modern teenager. Sabrina appeared in issues of Archie’s Mad House all through the 1960s before moving to other Archie Comics titles, but she received her biggest boost in visibility after her jump to television.

Early Animated Appearances

In 1969, Sabrina was introduced to new audiences in an animated TV special titled “Archie and His New Pals.” Soon after, she appeared in recurring segments on “The Archie Comedy Hour,” in which the character tries to use her magic to solve problems while hiding from Archie and his friends that she is a witch. In 1970, Sabrina received a spinoff, “Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies,” in which she encounters wacky situations involving the Goolies, a group of monsters based on Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, a mummy and a wolf man. The Goolies were later spun off into their own series, and Sabrina’s show was retitled as the first “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”

That series gave Sabrina an origin story: The opening narration states that Hilda and Zelda were attempting to create a wicked witch but accidentally knocked “beautiful girls’ stuff” into their potion, inadvertently creating Sabrina, the “grooviest teenage witch.” The series ran until 1974. Sabrina rejoined Archie in 1977 for “The New Archie and Sabrina Hour,” but the show was canceled after one season. She continued to appear in comics (including her own self-titled comic, starting in 1971), but she didn’t appear on TV again until the mid-90s.

‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’

In 1996, a TV pilot film of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” starring Melissa Joan Hart (and featuring the future “Deadpool” Ryan Reynolds) debuted on Showtime. The pilot was picked up for a series by ABC, but most of the film’s cast was jettisoned except for Hart. The series began on Sept. 27 that year, and it was seen by more than 17 million viewers. It was the highest-rated series in ABC’s T.G.I.F. lineup for the next four years.

In this version, Sabrina is the daughter of a male witch and a human, and she discovers she’s a witch on her 16th birthday. Partly because of a curse, Sabrina is unable to be with her parents, so she lives with her aunts Hilda (Caroline Rhea) and Zelda (Beth Broderick). A typical episode might feature Sabrina trying to use her powers and having them backfire, usually resulting in some sort of life lesson. Several details from the live-action series were later added to the comics: In addition to Sabrina’s half-mortal parentage, her cat, Salem, who in the comics was a regular orange tabby, became a talking black cat, and Hilda and Zelda were turned into normal-looking people. The show ran for four seasons on ABC before it was canceled and picked up by the WB, which aired its final three.

‘Sabrina: The Animated Series’

While the live-action series was airing on ABC, a Saturday morning cartoon titled “Sabrina: The Animated Series” was also produced. This series was more directly inspired by the comics, with Sabrina portrayed as a middle schooler who already knows about her witch ancestry. The show did retain Salem as a talking cat, however. Hart’s younger sister, Emily, played Sabrina, while Melissa voiced Hilda and Zelda. The series ran for 65 episodes but was canceled from ABC around the same time ABC canceled the live action “Sabrina.” Sabrina went on to make a few more animated appearances in “Sabrina’s Secret Life” from 2003 to 2004 and “Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch” from 2013 to 2014, although neither show achieved the success or popularity of earlier series.

‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’

The new Sabrina series has its roots in recent comic history. In 2013, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa began writing Afterlife With Archie, a horror series in which Riverdale is plagued by a zombie outbreak caused after Sabrina uses her magic to resurrect Jughead’s dog from the dead. The series was filled with gore and graphic violence, and it was a huge success. Aguirre-Sacasa followed it up with another mature horror series titled “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” The book features a 1960s-era Sabrina dealing with becoming a witch while being targeted by Madame Satan, an evil witch who is seeking revenge on the Spellman family. Aguirre-Sacasa was hired as Archie Comics’ chief creative officer in 2014, and he developed “Riverdale” for the CW, which debuted three years later. Many fans expected that Sabrina would eventually make an appearance on the show, but instead a new series, based on “Chilling Adventures,” was created for Netflix. Longtime Sabrina fans may be shocked by “Chilling Adventures” (especially with all of the Satan hailing), but the new series gives Sabrina a refreshing new essence.