Original Air Date: September 27, 1995
Starring: Melissa Joan Hart, Nick Bakay, Caroline Rhea
Directed by: Robby Benson

Cat Out of the Bag Alert!  This review contains some spoilers for this episode!

Synopsis: Sabrina Spellman (Melissa Joan Hart) awakens on her 16th birthday believing the biggest challenge of the day will be getting through the first day at a new school.  But things get more complicated when her aunts inform Sabrina that she is a witch.

Cinema Cat: This show was based on the popular character from Archie Comics, who was also adapted into an animated series by Filmation in the 1970’s.  This updated version was very popular and ran for many years. One of the highlights of the show was Salem, the black cat who also lives with Sabrina’s aunts (in the animated series Salem was an orange cat.  In the original comics Salem was black and white.)

Since the cat was called upon to speak in the series, a majority of Salem’s part was performed by an extremely talented group of puppeteers and voiced by Nick Bakay, one of the show’s writers.  But there were live cats used in the series as well to give Salem that added touch of realism.  In the pilot episode we first see Salem when Sabrina brings him downstairs with her after getting up.

When Sabrina leaves for school, Salem runs out the door ahead of her.  As the camera dollies back the puppet Salem is sitting on the fence post, so the cut between the real cat and the puppet cat is very smooth.

Salem’s background is touched upon in this episode as well.  Apparently he was a young warlock who wanted to achieve world domination and was punished by having to spend 100 years as a cat.  He bemoans not being able to dance or play squash.

In the closer shots the animatronic Salem is used but for the wide shots a real cat plays the part.

At the end of the episode, Sabrina is happy and comes into her room and picks up the real cat Salem to dance around the room with him.  The live cat is also featured under the end credits.  Salem has only a supporting role in this first episode but would become a major player in many episodes to follow.

Four main cats named Elvis, Lucy, Witch and Salem were trained by Mark Watters and played the live action Salem throughout the series.  The show’s creator and executive producer, Nell Scovell, was quoted in one newspaper article as saying, “Elvis is the best, but Witch is the cat we use when we want to go nuts.”

Final Mewsings: Talking cats get all the best lines!

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