Personality

Salem has a rapier wit and is often the first character to come up with the one-liners or obvious puns in a scene. In addition to world domination, his ambitious plotting often includes attempts to become wealthy, achieve celebrity status, regain his magical powers, and return to his human form. He consistently gives bad advice to Sabrina, often involving using magic to solve a problem, which always ends up leaving Sabrina with even more problems than with which she began. His favorite pastimes include playing with yarn, lint spotting, surfing the internet, and reading Sabrina's diary. He loves Lizard Flakes, a snack for cats which is said to be fattening and full of cholesterol. In the show's pilot, he made the remark to Sabrina that he misses being able to dance. In some episodes, Salem acts more like a cat than a human, as if he was really one all along.

Despite his arrogance, greed, and sarcasm, he is shown in many episodes to genuinely care about the Spellmans, especially Sabrina. He also has a soft-spot for Harvey, to the point that he once expressed a wish that he would be best man at Harvey and Sabrina's wedding. Harvey learned Salem's true identity sometime around the end of high school, but prior to this Sabrina would occasionally use a 'Doctor Dolittle' spell that would allow Harvey to talk with Salem and believe there was nothing unusual about it when circumstances prompted Sabrina and her aunts to go away and Harvey was left in charge of Salem's care.

History

Salem was a witch, sentenced by the Witch's Council to spend 100 years as a cat with no magical powers. In the original comic (depending on the story), he retains limited powers via incantations, but requires Sabrina's magic finger to enact them. In the series, he retains no powers and was sentenced as punishment for his attempt to take over the world. In the film, he was cursed to spend a century as a cat because he had used his powers to impress a mortal. At the beginning of the television series, he had already served 25 years. Salem generally serves as some of the show's comic relief, with his quick-witted quips and deadpan delivery. Despite his megalomaniacal desires for world domination, he is genuinely a good person and protective guardian to Sabrina. In the series he would generally serve two roles: one as a mentor / "familiar" - commonly an animal that helps a young witch, for Sabrina, as she found it easier to talk with him about her problems, or the mischievous anti-hero in the episode, such as finding an illegal way to become human again without being punished. He has shown on multiple occasions to be very emotionally attached to Sabrina; in the fourth season, when Sabrina left to live with her father in Paris, Salem missed her so much he started a civil war on Pluto, in order to get her back to Westbridge.

The leaders of his attempted revolution were also turned into house pets. Newt, the pet of Hilda and Zelda's cousin Monty, was heavily involved with the scheme, for the promised reward of Denmark. Another follower, Duke (played by Dick Van Dyke), had a reduced sentence and was set free during the series, though Salem tried to use him to take over the world again. A talking guinea pig named Stonehenge ("Stony" for short) was introduced in the first made-for-television film, but whether or not he was ever human is unknown. Hilda was also one of Salem's followers; her punishment was to keep Salem free of worms during his period as a feline, although she was pardoned at the end of season five. During season one, Salem was visited by his parole officer, to whom he insisted that his transformation is under way, but he accidentally lets it slip that he still yearns for control of the planet. By the end of the series, Salem never did turn back into his human form, and a brief period where he was transferred into the body of one of Sabrina's classmates resulted in an extra fifty years being added to his sentence, even after he confessed to his mistakes when he realized that Sabrina was to be punished for his actions.

Family

Members of Salem's blood family include his daughter, Annabelle, whom Salem cares deeply for but is estranged from due to his shame about being a cat. Salem managed to make it to her wedding and performed all the duties of father of the bride. Salem is visited by his mother and initially dreads the impending visit as she is highly critical. Upon her learning he is a cat, she cannot help but be delighted by how cute his new form is and pampered him to the point Sabrina missed her own mother and went to visit her. It is revealed later in the episode that Salem's mother was unknowingly allergic to cats. Another member is Salem's grandfather, who is a hobo. According to Salem, Salem's grandmother claims he (Salem's grandfather) was lost at sea. He also mentioned having an uncle Goliath and Morty. In one episode, Salem mentions that his father's name was Gummo, implying that he died.

Salem often uses Yiddish words and mentioned his cousin Cheryl's Bat Mitzvah in "Sabrina in Wonderland".

Relatives

• Mrs. Saberhagen, Salem's mother. She was strict but well-meaning and did not know that Salem was a cat until she came to visit him. She pampered him and he loved it. But she found out that she was allergic to cats and had to leave early.
• Uncle Morty is Salem's uncle. He is rude and has no manners.
• Gummo is Salem's father. Mentioned.
• Annabelle is Salem's daughter.
• Punit Mistry is Salem's first cousin, twice removed.
• Uncle Goliath, Salem's uncle. Mentioned.
• Grandpa, Salem's grandfather, works the trains.
• Cheryl, Salem's cousin. Mentioned.
• Grandma, Salem's grandmother.

Awards and nominations

The sitcom model

The sitcom's creators were very supportive of animal rights, so Salem was often played by an animatronic model rather than one of the 4 actual cats who are used for the non-dialogue scenes (or at least used for scenes where Salem is moving and it was not required for the audience to actually see his lips move). The four trained cats portraying the character were named Elvis, Lucy, Salem, and Witch.^[3] This part was performed by three puppeteers and two different animatronic puppets. The mechanical Salems were originally made by Animal Makers,^[4] but in early 1998 they were fired, and their puppets were replaced with ones made by The Chiodo Brothers. The new mechanical Salem(s) were controlled by 3 puppeteers, who could manipulate Salem's body in more than 30 ways via rod, cables, and radio control.^[5] Animal Makers posted a video of some of the puppets highlights on its website.^[6]

In a few instances where his human form is shown in flashbacks, he is portrayed with his face in shadows, but with a body shape and military uniform similar to Fidel Castro (Castro himself is depicted as being a friend of Salem).

In the sitcom and Sabrina: The Animated Series, Salem was voiced by actor Nick Bakay^[7] In one sitcom episode titled "Jealousy", Salem says he needs to make a phone call to Bakay, saying, "I need to call in to Nick Bakay's sports show on ESPN radio. All he ever talks about is the Buffalo Bills, and his voice? LORD, is it annoying!"

Other appearances

The sitcom version of Salem also made a guest appearance on the Disney-ABC owned shows Boy Meets World, You Wish, and Teen Angel on November 7, 1997 and Disney's One Saturday Morning on Friday Night with Valarie Rae Miller on September 11, 1998.