Craft services: The most iconic TV shows about witches

After her turn as Clarissa Darling, Melissa Joan Hart moved on to playing the most-famous teen witch this side of the movie “Teen Witch.” Upon turning 16, Sabrina Spellman finds out she is a witch, and so begins balancing that with her teenaged life. Also, her cat Salem can talk and do yourself a favor and look up some Salem GIFs sometime. The show was a big TGIF success at first, airing four seasons on ABC before moving to The WB for the final three seasons.

It’s been decades, but “Bewitched” is still the witch-centric sitcom of record. A witch marries a mortal man who would prefer she not use her witch powers, and Samantha Stephens does want to do the whole suburban housewife thing too. Of course, in literally every single episode Samantha uses her witchcraft, and every single time there are complications, occasionally humorous. We’ll stump for the early seasons, the ones in black-and-white with Dick York playing Darrin. You can skip the color episodes with Dick Sargent.

Ambition and innovation has not commonly been at the heart of the MCU. As such, “WandaVision” deserves some credit. The show is about how Wanda Maximoff poorly handles the grief of losing Vision, but the way it is delivered is through a series of riffs on old sitcoms, ranging from the 1960s into the early 2000s. Now, by the end, like many MCU projects the whole thing devolves into people throwing magic at each other, but “WandaVision” was quite fun there for most of its run.

Fairy tales are full of witches (and shoe-cobbling elves). Thus, it only makes sense that a fantasy show built upon storybook tales would include a witch or two. “Once Upon a Time” is, um, it’s a lot. At first, the premise is that the Evil Queen Regina has used a magical curse she got from Rumplestiltskin to trap fairy tale characters in the real world in a small town called Storybrooke. The protagonist, Emma Swan, is secretly the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and the savior of the fairy tale world. Eventually Peter Pan, Merlin, and Cruella de Vil end up in the mix? In the end, there are a lot of witches, a lot of magic, and a lot of overstuffed plot lines.

Maybe you didn’t catch “The Owl House,” and that’s fair because it just ended its run on the Disney Channel. When you think “Disney” and “witches” you might think of the “Halloweentown” movies. “The Owl House” was a little more high-fantasy, a little less dumb fun. It focuses on a 14-year-old girl who goes into some sort of Demon Realm and ends up studying to be a witch.

Each “American Horror Story” season covers different ground (and gets different super-gross key art). Naturally, the show had to get into the whole witch thing, especially with Ryan Murphy’s affinity for actresses like Sarah Paulson and Jessica Lange. Set in New Orleans, the witch-focused season of this horror anthology is set in the present but also features flashbacks to the Salem Witch Trials. Also, a lot of other times. There were perhaps a few too many flashbacks in “Coven.”

This one is for the Brits and the anglophiles. Diana is a historian…and a witch who turned her back on magic. Matthew is a geneticist…and a vampire. Together, they set out to study, find, and dispatch all sorts of magical, mystical creatures. If you want to check out “A Discovery of Witches,” fortunately it is a classic British show in that it ran for three seasons and released 25 episodes.

What would happen if Aaron Spelling produced a show about witches? You’d get “Charmed.” It’s so airy you think it might float away, but “Charmed” is beloved by many and it was undeniably successful. The show begins focused on the Halliwell sisters, three powerful “good witches” who protect humans from magical baddies. When Shannen Doherty left, her Prue was replaced by Rose McGowan’s Paige, a convenient half-sister that allowed the show to continue another five seasons.

Well, we had to get a warlock in the mix, and who better than Merlin? He’s the most-famous warlock in all of fiction, and also conveniently a character in the public domain. A young Merlin arrives in Camelot and befriends then-Prince Arthur, but Arthur’s father King Uther has banned magic in Camelot. Thus, Merlin must hide his magical abilities while going on a series of adventures with Arthur. The vibe, and production quality, makes “Merlin” something of England’s answer to shows like “Hercules” and “Xena.”

Remember WGN’s brief attempt at getting into the original programming game? It didn’t really work out, so much so WGN no longer exists as a network. In addition to “Manhattan,” WGN had “Salem.” It was a show set during the Salem witch trials wherein a witch actually exists, and uses her power to stoke the hysteria in town for her benefit. However, she has to balance that with her romance with a human, naturally. “Salem” ran for three seasons, and was WGN’s most-successful show.

“The Witcher” is the kind of show where witches are called sorceresses, and yet the monster hunter main character is called “The Witcher.” Based on a popular book series, Netflix’s cash helped get Henry Cavill in the lead role…for a while. After three seasons, Cavill left the show, but fret not. He’s been replaced by Liam Hemsworth for the final two seasons.

Well, Buffy may be a vampire slayer, but there is more going on in Sunnydale than vampire hunting. It is on a Hellmouth, after all. One need not be a villain to be supernatural, either. “Buffy” makes this list because Willow, one of Buffy’s best friends, turns out to be a witch. In fact, Willow is the only character other than Buffy to appear in all 144 episodes of the show.

We’re going back to the earliest days of TV. Before there was the Muppets, there was “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie.” Produced in Chicago, the show ran from 1947 through 1957. Fran was Fran Allison, the human on the show. She would interact with a series of puppets, all performed by Burr Tillstrom. While Kukla was just a guy and Ollie was a dragon, Buelah Witch was also one of the characters. The show was one of the first examples of a show created for kids that ended up becoming a favorite of adults, perhaps adults enjoying certain types of substances. Also, wildly, the entire thing was improvised. Like, all the time.

AMC does more than “Walking Dead” spinoffs in the wake of “Mad Men” and the “Breaking Bad” universe ending. Taking some chances in different genres is wise, and “Mayfair Witches” goes the Gothic horror route. It’s based on a trilogy of books by Anne Rice, which should give you a sense of the tone. Alexandra Daddario plays a neurosurgeon who, yes, turns out to be the heiress to a witch dynasty. The first season aired in 2023, and a second season has been ordered.

Sabrina Spellman has been brought to TV a couple times. The Archie comics creation is decidedly in a different space in this one, though. While “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” is a sitcom, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is a horror drama from Netflix. Kiernan Shipka plays Sabrina, but this time around she is aware of her witchy future. Also, there is a lot more Satan and heavy-handed social commentary. Still, some cool horror storytelling to be found.

The world of “WandaVision” returns. In a (fairly obvious) twist, it turns out Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha is an evil witch that has been pulling the strings in Wanda’s created world. Bested in “WandaVision,” now Agatha is the protagonist in “Agatha All Along,” which is much more focused on all the witch stuff than “WandaVision” was.