Sabrina:
Between Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melissa Joan Hart practically raised a generation of telly addicted tweens. Clarissa was smart and wore luminous cycling short but she never had the magic of Sabrina. Or a talking cat for that matter.
Sabrina Spellman lived with her wacky and witchy Aunts – Hilda and Zelda. On her sixteenth birthday she found out that she was a witch. Much gentle hilarity ensued as she went about trying to obtain her witches licence whilst balancing the dramas of being a teenager.
And then there was Harvey Kinkle – with his floppy hair and sweater vests. (I personally preferred Salem – he was a warlock trapped in a cats body, OK!?). Dappy crushes and cutesy “oh, look at me with my kooky magical ineptitude” aside, Sabrina and her Aunts were an (arguably) feminist force to be reckoned with.
Sabrina kind of lost the plot during the awkward “college years” phase, but she will always be one of the best witches thanks to her red leather bell bottoms and dance moves in the opening credits.
Grotbags:
There’s somebody at the door, there’s somebody at the door! Is it a classic character from eighties UK kids TV? Err, yeah. How did you guess?
With her bright green hair and matching green face, Grotbags was a witch from the warts and all old school. She was shrill, manic and carried around a terrifying weapon called a bazazzer. She also had an irrational urge to acquire an emu.
Rod Hull and his feathered hand puppet always managed to foil Grotbag’s plans, which made it all a bit boring. Then, in 1991, Grotbags got given her own TV show and the glory that she deserved.
After a stint on the pantomime circuit Grotbags (played by Carol Lee Scott) has finally hung up her bazazzer. I like to picture her sitting on a comfy chair, in full costume gazing lovingly upon a life-sized stuffed emu curled up by the fire.
Morticia Addams:
Whilst she never outright declared her witchdom, it can be taken as a given that Morticia knew her way around a broomstick and cauldron.
With her vases of decapitated roses and garden of deadly nightshade, Morticia subverted feminine gentility and motherly concern. She actively encouraged her children to be as unpleasant as possible, whilst seducing her hapless husband with breathy French bon mots. She (be)headed the Addams Family with a twisted calmness.
Originally played by Carolyn Jones, she practically floated across the floor in her clingy black gowns. Some say that Morticia was a vampire, others say a witch – whichever she was, she certainly deserves her place on this list.
Samantha:
Whilst Morticia was playing the black and white vamp, Samantha was out living the full on technicolour 1960s American dream. Fair enough, the show was shot in black and white, but you could tell that it was a more colourful place.
Samantha was a 100+-year-old witch who defied her parents to marry a mortal called Darrin. Her parents did not like it a jot - and that was before they’d even seen how his name was spelled.
Darrin and Samantha attempted to live a normal life in suburbia, without giving away Samantha’s witchy roots. Unfortunately, normal wasn’t an option. With interfering parents, backfiring spells and nosy neighbours a-plenty the couple found themselves in all sorts of hilarious scrapes.
With her sixties bouffants and twin sets, Samantha played against the witch stereotype, preferring a wiggle of the nose to a wand. A wiggle that I am attempting as I type. It is impossible.
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