Also, I won't cover the Filmation series. As far as I know, it isn't as interesting as what came after, but if there's more to it, I may give it a look. For now, I just want to cover what I consider to be the more interesting adaptations.
With that said, have a nice read.
Before I get into the main course, I'd like to give you a recap on the shows I covered so far.
First off, I covered Sabrina: The Animated Series. Going into it I thought it was considered a classic show by many, but going into it now, I realize that a lot of people didn't really like it that much. Even before Mr. Enter claimed it, a lot of people chided this show for its lack of connection to Sabrina the Teenaged Witch.
It could've been a misconception, but apparently, promotions established a connection, and two, Sabrina had always been a teenager in the comics. They just de-aged her for the sake of making a kids show seem more relatable than it actually was. Hey, not every kid show needs a kid protagonist, much like how not every adult show needs an adult protagonist. If you could make it work then you'd have something more interesting on your hands.
STAS was essentially a cash-in, Sabrina the Teenaged Witch aired on ABC while STAS aired on a block ABC had a stake in, which coincidentally extended beyond their own network (STAS also aired on UPN, and a key reason why anyone would bother with that network is that they didn't have the same strict standards as other networks and they tend to book bigger season deals. For example, UPN promised Clerks: The Animated Series 22 episodes on the air while ABC promised them six, and only aired two. This was meant to exploit a big coincidence.)
Sabrina's Secret Life just barely made it before Sabrina could be considered obsolete in the public's conscious. It was more of the same as STAS, but this time they had to follow E/I regulations, meaning that morality tales which were a thing in STAS became more point blank. But beyond that, it was almost close to what STAS was. I will say that Sabrina's voice in this is better than the one she had in STAS.
The Sabrinaverse died out around 2004 when Secret Life ended, we ended on an otherwise acceptable note, DiC Entertainment got acquired by DHX Media (then Cookie Jar) four years later, I doubt reruns of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch were as common at that point, so it was over... right?
Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch
I don't know how this came about, I don't know what encouraged anyone to make a Sabrina series. You might think the comics were still going on which would warrant another show, but the comics ended in 2009, roughly four years before this show first aired. As a reminder, Secret Life might've not been that good, but at least it came out while the comics were still released, as well as within the same year Sabrina the Teenaged Witch ended.
If the bad timing didn't get to you, the production trivia will.
The show was primarily produced by Splash Entertainment. The name may sound familiar, because it is. Splash is the current incarnation of the animation production division of the now defunct MoonScoop Group. MoonScoop, back when they produced shows under the Mike Young Productions banner, were behind a number of cheap CGI shows. They produced Pet Alien, as well as Butt Ugly Martians.
Around the same time this came out, MoonScoop went through a restructure and became Splash Entertainment, with this show being their first production under that name. Oh yeah, and they happened to produce Norm of the North, which I consider to be the worst mainstream animated film of all time, and you can't tell me otherwise.
As this is a Splash/MoonScoop/Mike Young show, their funding would come from international units. Among those who helped fund this are Telegael, who had been in business with Splash since 2005 and you'd see their logo on almost all of their productions, as well as through DSK Entertainment, the production arm of a conglomerate based in India. The animation was done by Laughing Lion Ltd, I'm not certain where they're from.
The show aired on The Hub, remember that network? Well I don't remember seeing this show, then again I wasn't able to get this network until later on. The show lasted for 26 episodes, all within a single season. Going into the ratings this show got, they jumped a whole lot, the highest they got was a 0.274 on the fifth episode. Toward the last four episodes the ratings aren't shown. I blame embarrassment.
Premise
On the surface, this seems like STAs had they kept Sabrina a teenager. However, at least by the summary alone, this time she goes between worlds, living a normal life in high school and training to do magic in another. Plus she's a princess of sorts, yeah, because those are still in style.
Also apparently Salem is evil in this, and I don't mean the past context of him being an evil wizard turned into a cat, I mean he is a spy sent by Enchantra, the big bad to spy on Sabrina and screw her over. Okay, I'm starting to miss Salem being the voice of reason in Secret Life, at least he still had more than an iota of his character in the other adaptations. I'm stressing over this, but that's only because their depiction of Salem seems hollow and incredibly one-note. You can incorporate new aspects, just don't take the easy routes.
Then again, that's just an impression, I could be wrong here.
Like past Sabrina animated shows, their scope of talent comes from Vancouver, aside from the star. Sabrina is voiced by Ashley Tisdale, Sharpay from High School Musical and Candace Flynn from Phineas and Ferb. I have nothing to say on this aside from, hey, she turned out better than Hillary Duff (Haunting of Sharon Tate vibes inensifying.) For the others, we have Ian James Corlett as Salem and a teacher at Sabrina's school in the magic world, I'm gonna save performance quality for when I go into the episode, I have a gut feeling I won't like Corlett's performance.
There's also Kathleen Barr and Tabitha St. Germain, incredibly common actors in Vancouver productions, as well as Maryke Hendrikse, aka Sonata Dusk from Equestria Girls. The rest require some extra drudging, I just wanted to keep it brief.
As far as finding an episode to cover, I wanted to focus on the first, a werewolf episode, both because of my interest in the prospect as well as how other shows portrayed it. I got curious, but it turns out the show's blocked in my country, and I'm too cheap, and lazy, and outright apathetic to invest in a VPN. So, I went for the earliest episode available. Here goes nothing.
The episode
I'm going to focus on the third episode, Shock Rock, where Sabrina acquires a band for a benefit concert and Enchantra's son tries to steal her thunder with his own band.
Before I get into what I find, I'd like to give you an idea on the visual aspects.
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| Courage... |
I get a little taste of Sabrina's attitude in the first few moments. I.e., every teenaged main character ever. Have you ever seen a typical teen cartoon character not knock classical music while promoting the mainstream radio crap? In this, the teacher likes it, so I guess that's new for me. For the record she starts out in the magic world, and apparently they have the same mentality as England through the eyes of Butch Hartman, as in... hardly on the up and up.
Before I go on, here's a question nobody asked. Do I hate Sabrina's voice in this? Well, I'm mixed. On one side it's a stereotypical teen accent that doesn't make her stand out too well. On the other, it still sounds a hell of a lot better than Emily Hart.
While I went on that tangent, did any of you piece together the start of the conflict? If you said jealous asshole disagrees with the music and claims he can do better... uh... if you see me on the streets I'll give you fifty bucks. The jealous asshole is Shinji, the son of Enchantra. Admittedly, they could've easily pulled the forbidden love aspect, where the two like each other, but they didn't. Then again, this is yet another easy route to take. I guess they would've lost no matter what they did, so I won't hold it against them.
Another thing I won't hold against them is the dialog. They try to incorporate the wit STAS and Secret Life had into the show, and well, it has something. The dialog here is automatically better than MP4ORCE, and I will keep bringing that show up until more people cover it.
The dialog's listenable, but it's essentially like anchovy pizza. It's eatable, but there're issues you can't avoid. Shinji took the band thing too far and treated it as if it were a challenge, but Sabrina tried to tell him it wasn't a challenge. It would've been fine stated twice, but they stretch it a little longer than necessary. Did it accomplish anything? Does me thinking Shinji is an idiot count as an accomplishment?
But to be fair, right after that stretched exchange, we get into a real big plus for this series. The opening sequence. Apparently, the show won an Emmy for Main Title and Graphic Design, and I can see why. The intro made use of paper cut-out type animation, it's incredibly fluid and pleasant to look at, it firmly establishes the vibe the show goes for and the song it plays to isn't bad either. It's a pop song indicative of the time, but it's still very easy on the ears, I'd consider it better than Secret Life's intro.
Also apparently Ashley Tisdale won an Emmy for her performance as Sabrina. All I have to say to that is the first Emmy was deserved, it was a damn good intro, and since Tisdale's better than Hart at voicing Sabrina, I'd give her an award just for giving a shit.
Anyway, back to Sinjerkass, obviously he's egomaniacal, and he goes for the ever-typical put name of self in name of band, and have it like blank and the blank-ets. He takes a rebuff against that better than I expected him to. A problem they face is a lack of instruments, so they need to get them from the human world. Given that Shinji heard music from the normal world, I guess it was by instinct that he would get instruments from there to compete with the band Sabrina showed off.
I wanted to wait until the next seen to discuss Salem, just to know for sure how he's portrayed, and now I have an idea. I wanted to see a scene with Salem with Sabrina only, and one where she's in the company of others. Salem doesn't speak, well, not in Sabrina's company anyway. He takes the role of a seemingly innocent cat who relays information to Enchantra. Points for trying something different but this is yet another safe route.
We then get to Enchantra's first scene, where in this she takes on the role of a shipper, well, she tries to make a love potion to get Sabrina and Shinji to fall in love with one another, and maybe lower Sabrina's morale in doing this, I dunno. We go the downtrodden path of someone has a valuable item and they get disrupted by something, causing the item to get destroyed. The destruction comes in the form of a loud and over-compensatory spell cast by Shinji, but to be fair, the item Enchantra has in question gets saved from going to waste. This either plays a part in the plot, or they just wanted to try their hand at subversion.
At this point I learn Sabrina has a female friend, wouldn't you know it, another one, who's on the up and up for Sabrina's witchery. At this point Shinji conjures up the instruments left by the band in the gymnasium and I'm just gonna guess Shinji can't sing. I would say this would be funny, but I kinda saw the shrill voice schtick from a mile away. I can get by most repetitive jokes, but again, they're repetitive and you gotta single out those kinds of aspects.
After that, I finally hear Salem talk, and I've gotta say... it's the worst Salem voice I ever heard. I normally don't want to compare it to better actors, but Nick Bakay practically made the character. Why else would Maurice LaMarche incorporate Bakay's portrayal into Salem for Secret Life? Because it's good? People knock changes like these because more often than not, they're badly executed. Salem's essentially an idiot in this.
Oh hey, that valuable item gag? Turns out I was wrong on both fronts, it's played out the same, just as Shinji's about to do something incredibly noisy. Shinji then attempts to lampoon egomanical singers, touching hallmarks such as a solo career before settling on a genre far off from what he started in. I'm already getting sick of pointing out when they go for the obvious, so I'm gonna try and muster up some compliments to break the monotony. I guess the tone of voice Shinji has makes the joke hit harder than I expected it to, something about sounding so serious makes the joke fly over well, especially when he leaves for real, only for us to go back to the Enchantra important item gag.
But I guess there is a payoff to that. She gets rid of the source of the noise, I.E., Shinji's band to concentrate on her work. At least there was a point to all that. As for what happens to the rest of the band, they get trapped in a bubble, but they decide to make the most of it by practicing due to the bubble having a killer echo.
Anyhow, aside from set-up for a subplot in Sabrina's token friend trying to keep the situation under wraps and a pre-occuring subplot where Salem tries to elude a school guard who heard him talk, Sabrina returns to witch world and finds Shinji, and I expected him to be rude to her. Was he? Actually, no, he turned out to be surprisingly helpful. I mean he basically killed the need for establishing a search for the instruments, but I found it surprising that he was willing to help, albeit indirectly. There's some layers to Shinji it seems.
Anyhow, as the members of Shinji's makeshift band got trapped, they resorted to practicing, and I'm willing to bet, know, I know it's gonna happen, they're going to save the plot. After some more sub-nonsense, Sabrina finds them and the band she hired bailed. As for that Enchantra gag, the failure to secure the important item didn't serve as her downfall, just the usage of the wrong ingredient. Also of that Salem subplot, take every magical creature against someone proving their existence and pinpoint the ending to that kind of plot.
As for the band, well since the bubble they were put in couldn't be destroyed by any means in the witch world, apparently that means a technicality would get them out. That being that it is vulnerable in the real world. This is within the last minute or so for the record. So the performance goes well, although the vocals aren't very good.
Before I close this off, I'd like to point out that Trevor Wall directed this episode. The director of Norm of the North.
Animation
Splash's animation has been mostly stagnant since the beginning, with the only improvements going toward better technology. It's at an all time high with this show, but it's not saying much. The movement can be a little rough at times, characters look plasticky and some of the backgrounds clash with the animation at times. If I had to be nice, at least this was for a TV show, where it's a bit more acceptable. As the episode went on I got better used to it.
While I was able to find stills that amplified how ugly the models looked in Game Over, not even the one I got in the screencap above had the same effect.
Overall
I went into this thinking I'd absolutely hate this. I think part of me just wanted to hate this because Splash was involved, but I actually kinda liked it. Now don't get me wrong, there are some inexcusable flaws, they play it safe more times than they need to. The acting could also use a little spit-shine, but the latter could be said about the other Sabrina cartoons as well. Then there's what they did different. I'm no fan of what they did to Salem, even the few times where he was altered in other cartoons, he was consistent. This was too radical of a change here. For the record, I'm just going by what I saw, I'm taking the premise with a grain of salt, it could've been from an earlier pitch which got abandoned before production began.
While this rates lower than the previous show, the only negative review on the show was someone who got pissy over a lack of morals. A more positive review came out a year after the former review, so I guess it depends on what you're into.
At least for this episode, for something as damaging as the morals STAS try to teach (at the very least in Anywhere but Here), and as preachy as Secret Life, I'm glad this one abandoned the moral schtick and just tried to tell a more straightforward story. Although the Salem subplot could've been left out and it wouldn't damage the plot shown here.
As for me bringing up how it coming out so late was a bad thing, I'm aware that the aspect could be overlooked if the end product was good. I mean how long ago did the third generation of My Little Pony end? And what came after needs no introduction. Maybe the people behind this genuinely wanted to bring Sabrina back and go for what Friendship is Magic did, bring it to a new audience.
I do respect the fact that they decided to keep Sabrina as a teenager in this. It felt less like they were pandering to kids when they made Sabrina a 12 year old in STAS, which actually wound up fucking over the comics. We haven't had a Sabrina cartoon where she was a teenager since the Filmation series, and to be fair, this wouldn't be the last Sabrina series ever, aside from hopes of appearing in Riverdale, there's an ongoing as of late live action series on Netflix, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
Also again, Ashley Tisdale is better than Emily Hart, Hart's older now so I'm not necessarily attacking a kid at this point.
So to sum up, I guess I'd consider this something of a guilty pleasure. I'm aware this isn't necessarily up to par with The Hub's other shows, but there's a hell of a lot worse. This may very well be Splash's best production by default, from this era, I will consider this the best Mike Young/MoonScoop/Splash CG cartoon. Bear in mind this is up against the various Bratz specials, Pet Alien, Butt Ugly Martians, so yeah, this is the best of their CG efforts.
All that's left to say... why was it so hard to make a Sabrina cartoon where she's still a teenager, if this could do it, so could the previous ones.
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