Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Character Spotlight: Harvey Kinkle

Last week I showed you how Sabrina the Teenage Witch joined the Archie Universe, and today we'll continue along that path with the introduction of Sabrina's boyfriend, Harvey Kinkle!


I should point out that Harvey was not the first boyfriend Sabrina had, which makes him all the more interesting. Information online is scant about Tommy Baker, but I know he at least appeared in Archie's Madhouse #55 and #59 (June and December 1967, respectively) and he was Sabrina's boyfriend in both appearances. He also knew about Sabrina's powers.


When the time came for Sabrina to have her own show, she needed a supporting cast. Filmation brought over Hilda, Zelda, and Salem from the comics, liberally used the existing Archie cast, and then also introduced Sabrina's best friend, Ophelia; Ophelia's crush, Spencer; and Sabrina's boyfriend, Harvey Kinkle. Why didn't they use the already existing Tommy Baker? I'm not sure, but Sabrina seemed to interact with people sporadically in her stories (usually only one or two per story, from what I've seen), so it's possible the writers didn't know he existed. Regardless, Harvey took his place and first appeared in the first episode, "The Fairy Godmother", in September 1969.


Notably, Harvey doesn't know Sabrina is a witch, because he's dumb as a brick and can't piece together obvious clues, like in this episode when he sees her in the window on the second floor and then she's instantly sitting in his car behind him.

Anyway, ComicVine says he first appeared in comics in Archie's TV Laugh-Out #1 (October 1969), the same comic that integrated Sabrina into Archie's world. Unfortunately, I could not find photographic proof of that, so here he is in Archie's TV Laugh-Out #3 (December 1969). He appears in nearly every Sabrina story in this issue, so they were really pushing him as a major member of the cast.


Since then, Harvey has become a mainstay of the Sabrina brand, appearing in everything from the TGIF series with Melissa Joan Hart to Sabrina The Animated Series and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

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