Melissa Joan Hart

Melissa Joan Hart holds the trifecta when it comes to Hollywood. She is first and foremost an actress, but she has also spent plenty of time behind the camera as a director as well as calling the shots as the big boss, an executive producer. As a young actress, she made a name for herself on a popular TV show, one that has been on a hiatus for nearly 30 years and might possibly be getting a reboot.

She Starred In Clarissa Explains It All

As a youngster, Melissa Joan Hart started her career in commercials. Her very first commercial came when she was four years old for a bathtub doll named Splashy. By the time she was five years old, Hart had already been seen in 25 commercials.

Her first role on television came on an ABC Weekend Special episode titled Cindy. She then got time on TV shows such as Kane & Abel, and The Equalizer, and appeared in the TV movie, Christmas Snow. Hart also auditioned for the part of Jamie Lloyd in the horror film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers but lost that lead role to Danielle Harris. Producers may have done her a favor with that one.

Melissa Joan Hart landed the lead role as Clarissa Darling in 1991 and began her four-year run as a teenager experiencing everyday life situations. Clarissa Explains It All became a very popular show for Hart, leading to four consecutive Young Artist Award nominations of which she won three of them. While the show was immensely popular with young female teenagers, it was canceled after four seasons.

The popularity of the series, though, gave birth to a spin-off idea that would see Hart’s Clarissa in college. A half-hour pilot was even shot and shown on Nickelodeon, but the network eventually decided not to move forward with the new series.

Melissa Joan Hart Was Sabrina The Teenage Witch

Melissa Joan Hart didn’t have to wait long for her next big opportunity. She was first seen in a TV movie, Family Reunion: A Relative Nightmare, then appeared on an episode of Touched by an Angel. While it kept Hart working, her goal was to be in another big series. Then, Sabrina the Teenage Witch flew into her lap.

Melissa Joan Hart was studying at New York University when Sabrina dropped a magical spell on the actress. It was a TV movie first, which then turned into a long-lasting (seven seasons) TV series, first appearing on ABC, then eventually moving over to the WB.

Her Sabrina Spellman character comes from the Archie comic books. It told the story of a young witch named Sabrina who is sent to Riverdale to live with her eccentric aunts Hilda and Zelda, both witches, and their talking cat Salem, who is a witch himself.

The series’ location moved from Riverdale to Westbridge but the premise remained the same. 16-year-old Sabrina finds out, on her birthday, that she has special magical powers. This veers from the original comic as in the comics, Sabrina knew from an early age she had magical gifts.

This series was another big hit for Melissa Joan Hart as it premiered to over 17 million and lasted seven years. Not only did the series last, but Melissa Joan Hart’s character of Sabrina Spellman also made appearances on many TV shows and TV movies.

The TV shows Sabrina appeared on included Clueless, Boy Meets World, ABC TGIF, You Wish, Teen Angel, and The Wonderful World of Disney. She also appeared in the TV movies Sabrina Goes to Rome and Sabrina, Down Under.

An animated series, Sabrina the Animated Series, was also made and Melissa Joan Hart lent her voice to it. This time though, it was her sister Emily Hart who took on the voice of Sabrina while Melissa voiced the dual parts of Hilda and Zelda.

She Continued Working After Sabrina

Things began to slow down for Melissa Joan Hart after the end of her Sabrina run. She had a few TV appearances (Rent Control, North Shore, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and a few TV movies (Dirtbags, Holiday in Handcuffs, The Secrets of Pine Grove, My Fake Fiancé) but things didn’t begin to pick up for Hart until she found her next TV series – Melissa & Joey.

It was another hit series for Melissa Joan Hart. This time she was co-starring with Joey Lawrence and no longer was she a teenager; this time she was a mother. The series followed Hart’s Mel, a local politician dealing with a family scandal, who is left alone with her niece and nephew.

Instead of her dealing with the kids, she hires Lawrence as her nanny. The series lasted four seasons, solidifying the fact that Melissa Joan Hart still had some draw when it came to TV series. Following the end of Melissa & Joey, Melissa Joan Hart continued to work. She was in the feature Gods Not Dead 2 as well as TV movies A Very Merry Toy Store and A Very Nutty Christmas.

Melissa Joan Hart’s career is more than just a face on the TV screen. She has spent plenty of time behind the camera pulling down directing duties on two of her big series, Sabrina and Melissa & Joey. She has also found time to direct episodes of The Goldbergs, Young Sheldon, and Schooled. Her producer’s credits come on shows such as Sabrina, Melissa & Joey, as well as a number of TV movies.

Living In Lake Tahoe Lasted One Year

Obviously, as an actor, director, or producer, travel comes with the territory. Actors usually find themselves in various parts of the country, if not around the world. But when working on TV series, most of those take place on studio lots in Hollywood. This is where Melissa Joan Hart spends much of her time when working.

When she isn’t working though, she, her husband musician Mark Wilkerson, and their three kids decided in 2019 to make their Lake Tahoe, California vacation home their permanent address.

For it to happen for Hart, it meant a lot of driving. Melissa Joan Hart spoke to Architectural Digest about her affinity to be behind the wheel, “I’m a big driver. I’m one of these people that never lets anyone else drive. And right now, I drive from L.A., where I’m working, up to Lake Tahoe, where I live with my family.”

Melissa Joan Hart also spoke about basing herself out of Tahoe. “We have moved the family to our vacation home in Tahoe and have always wanted to live there and see what it was like to be full time there. We’ve always been locals, but we’ve been temporary locals. It’s a little difficult to transition a house that’s a vacation place to a place where people do homework, check the mail, and pay bills. They’ve been there while I’ve been traveling back and forth to L.A every week to work.”

Perhaps it was the nearly 450-mile one-way drive from Lake Tahoe to Los Angeles that finally caught up with Hart, because a year later, the entire family picked up and moved out to Nashville. So far, the family is happy and although Los Angeles is much further away, Melissa Joan Hart now tackles it by flying.

Melissa Joan Hart Rescued Children In The Nashville School Shooting

Perhaps there was a higher reason for Melissa Joan Hart to relocate her family to Nashville. The tragedy struck on March 27, 2023, when Audrey Hale entered the Covenant School heavily armed and began shooting. Three children and three adults were killed that day. Police say it could have been a lot worse if it hadn’t been for the quick reaction by local police.

For Melissa Joan Hart, her children attend school right next to Covenant School and she just happened to be present when the shots were fired. As she explained in her Instagram video, “My kids go to school right next to a school where there was a shooting today.”

She then detailed what happened next. “We helped a class of kindergartners across a busy highway that were climbing out of the woods, that were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school,” said Hart. “We helped all these tiny little … kids cross the road and get their teachers over there, and we helped a mom reunite with her children.”

Melissa Joan Hart Now

Melissa Joan Hart continues to find herself both in front and behind the camera. In front of the camera, Hart has been busy cranking out TV movies like Feliz NaviDAD, Dear Christmas, Mistletoe in Montana, and Dirty Little Secret. Behind the camera, Hart directed Feliz NaviDAD, a number of episodes of Young Sheldon, a couple of episodes of iCarly, and Santa Bootcamp.

For the longest time, though, fans were getting excited about a possible Clarissa Explains It All reboot. The new series was being set up at Nickelodeon, but as Melissa Joan Hart explains, the planned reboot is no longer.

“We tried that, actually. Nickelodeon got a new president, and they kind of squashed the whole thing,” Hart explained at a 2022 ‘90s Con. “So it was actually in the works and yeah, it just sort of disappeared. It took like a year to do the contracts, which was the hardest part, and then it just kind of fizzled out. So I don’t think [it will happen].”

Who knows? The way Hollywood loves a reboot, you can never say the reboot is completely dead. If any more information drops concerning the Clarissa reboot, we’ll be sure to pass it along.