"USA Today Article on Sabrina"

The following article appeared sometime during December 1996 in USA Today, and was also available at "http://www.usatoday.com/"


LOS ANGELES - ABC hasn't produced an instant hit series in three years, since NYPD Blue and Grace Under Fire.

Which explains why the network is so excited about Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, the No. 1 show with children ages 2-11. The Friday T.G.I.F. comedy premiered to stellar numbers. Within two weeks, ABC responded by renewing the show for an entire season and switching it to 9 p.m. ET/PT, the key time slot for the night.

Why did this show, basically Bewitched: The Early Years, take off so quickly?

For one, Melissa Joan Hart had years of cable exposure as the star of Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All, and young viewers tuned in en masse.

"It's also a cool role, the special effects are great, and it's a show the whole family can watch together," says Hart, 20,in her dressing room, which is decorated with photos of Margaret Hamilton (a k a The Wicked Witch) and Billie Burke (The Good Witch) from The Wizard of Oz.

Nell Scovell, an executive producer and head writer of Sabrina, attributes the success of Sabrina to kids' interest in magic, as well as their love of Hart.

"She reminds me of a young Candice Bergen," Scovell says. "She's an incredibly beautiful woman who's not afraid to look ridiculous."

Hart grew up on the set of Clarissa at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., where she worked with a tutor for several hours a day when not in front of the camera.

She was so isolated that her producers and crew had to throw her a high school graduation party on the set, since she was the only student in her class.

Hart is now at the other Universal, in California, but her hours of studying are history. She has completed some college and will make further college plans at the end of the season.

On the plus side, Hart has noticed that life is definitely sweeter for a network TV star than for a kid on a cable TV show. "I have a much bigger dressing room."

ABC had expected this season's TV version of Clueless to click with kids, but instead it was Sabrina right out of the box. Hart wasn't surprised.

"The idea of Clueless can get real old fast. Sabrina has an attitude . . . but she's still a normal teen-ager. Something extraordinary happens to her - the magic powers - and she has to figure out how to deal with them. Kids can relate to that. What would I do if that happened to me?"

She used to get stopped on the street all the time by kids wanting to talk about Clarissa. But three weeks after Sabrina premiered, she attended Nickelodeon's "Big Help," an event to drum up interest in volunteerism among youths, and was surprised that more kids called her Sabrina.

Melissa works side-by-side with her manager mother, Paula Hart. Her stepfather, Leslie Gilliams, heads Hartbreak Films, her production company. And Melissa's boyfriend, James Fields, last year a sporting goods salesman in Park City, Utah, is now living with her in Los Angeles and occasionally acting on the show.

They met last year when Melissa guest-starred on an episode of Touched by an Angel, which is filmed in Salt Lake City.

She laughs about his last name, noting that if they were to marry, "I'd be named Mrs. Fields," the moniker of the Utah woman who is famous for her cookies.

Meanwhile, Hart, whose Clarissa spinoff series was turned down by CBS two years ago, is delighted the network paid her that favor.

"I would have been stuck playing Clarissa all my life," she says. "Like the woman who played Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick). I would have been typecast."

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY


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Eric Last, 25/5/97

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