Millennial Memory Lane with Melissa Joan Hart

Hey fam, Hello Sunshine.

Today on the bright Side, everyone's favorite teenage witch, Melissa Joan Hart joins us on the show. We're digging into her decades long career as an actress and director, her new foray into stand up comedy, and why she stayed down to Earth through it all.

It's Tuesday, May fourteenth.

I'm Danielle Robe, I'm Simone Boyce, and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, Simone.

We have one of our nineties teenage heart throb idols on the show.

Melissa Joan Hart preteen. Simone is just screaming, literally shaking right now. I mean, this is a this is a dream come true.

You love all the nineties nostalgia. I know this is a moment for you. I can't help but think of her not as Melissa joan Hart, but as her iconic characters, like I want to call her Sabrina, I want to call her Clarissa.

It's hard to just say Melissa joan Hart.

It really is.

And I think that's a testament to the longevity that she had. I mean, she in Clarsa explains it all. She did sixty five episodes from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety four, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was just an institution as well. She was one of the hardest working stars of that time.

I'm gonna tell you one of my biggest takeaways from our conversation that I want everybody to keep an eye out for as they listen. She was an actress. She was a teen actress, but she and her mom were such bosses. They took such control of her career and their lives.

Yeah, it's a story I haven't heard from many teen actors. It was really impressive.

She was an ever present force through a lot of the defining moments of the nineties of pop culture back then. I mean I forgot she was in the Drive Me Crazy video with Britney spears.

Well.

Talking with Melissa Joanhart got me thinking about all the nineties rama behind the scenes all the other actors' TV shows. We may be able to get the inside scoop on who she hung out with, who she dated, like, what really happened behind the scenes in the nineties.

Oh yeah, we're gonna put our best investigative journalism to the test right here with Melissa. You know what's been fun for me recently Danielle. I discovered that the entire Nickelodeon Nineties library is available for you to stream on Paramount Plus. So I have sat my two boys in front of the television and I'm now forcing them to watch the shows that I grew up with, and surprise, surprise, they love the slime.

They just want to watch more slime.

I remember, Simone.

One of my first red carpets was the Kid's Choice Awards, and all I could think was like, please let me get slimed.

Please let me get slimed. It was so iconic for us.

It was such a thing back then.

And I actually have wait, hold on, I have to show you something. So I in Florida at this time, like peak nineties pop culture, right, and so we were only a road trip away from Disney and Universal Studios, so we would go there quite a bit and I made my parents take me there. And I still have this relic. This is my original super sloppy doubledare souvenir shirt that's a.

Size like it's a cute baby.

It's a baby te now, but it's red and it has like the slime on it. I love that and I wanted to get slimed so bad, and it was the demand to get slimed was out of control. You had to you had to like probably get tickets ahead of time, wait in line. And now my kids are asking me, did you ever get slimed? And I'm like, no, sweetie, mom, we didn't get slimmed, but I did get this cool T shirt.

What's it like watching all of the nineties shows back with your kids now?

It's honestly so fulfilling. I can barely describe it. I mean, we've been watching Guts and Salute your Shorts and Family Double there, and it's this really surreal, full circle moment where it brings back all these core memories that you can actually like feel in your body, like I can really remember what it was like watching these shows as a kid, and then to share it with your kids.

It's honestly one of the most fun parts of parenting.

What do you think are the nineties shows that stick out for you? Like I was a full house fiend, even Doug, Like I would wake up on Saturday mornings and watch all those cartoons from like eight am to eleven am, and my brother and I would fight over the remote.

Yes, did you have any characters or actors that you really idolized at that time.

Yeah, totally. I loved watching Tapega on Boy Meets Worlds. I thought she was the prettiest, coolest girl I had ever seen. Yeah, and she was kind of a badass on the show. She never let anyone push her around. I mean Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sarah Michelle Geller.

Yes, was just it for me. Did you watch with your brother? Did you watch alone? Who'd you watch with?

I made my brother Blake watch with me.

And so it's actually so funny you asked that because to this day he knows all the characters of Charmed and his guy friends are like, what are you talking about? But he knows all the shows that all the girls wanted to watch.

He had an older sister. That's how it happens.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, we're taking a quick break, but we are continuing to go down millennial memory Lane with Melissa Jonehart.

Don't miss it.

We're back and today Danielle and I are leaning into our witchiness a bit with actor, comedian, director, and America's favorite teenage witch.

It's Melissa Joonhart.

Melissa was the Queen of the tgif lineup?

How could I forget?

Well?

Since then, she's appeared in dozens of films and TV shows. She has an upcoming project for Lifetime called The Bad Guardian, and get this, she's taking the stage as a stand up comedian with our other favorite witch, Caroline Ray.

Welcome to the bright Side, Melissa.

Thank you so excited to be here on the bright side with you guys talk about all bright side.

Things, Melissa. I hope it's okay if we fan girl a little bit here. Do you ever get sick of talking about the iconic roles that you've played?

Do you ever get sick of it? Or do you still have fun?

Meta now?

So, like, I appreciate that everyone well first of all, has like a different project of mine that they like. And I've been doing a little stand up recently, and I've been saying that, like the greatest thing you can hear is I love your work. Because who gets to hear that, you know, the toll booth operator doesn't get to hear that. You know, teachers don't really get to

That's such a nice way of looking at it. I actually really want to get into your stand up because you and at Hilda aka Caroline Ray are doing stand up together and this show is called I Identify as a Witch, which I love because back in the day, I feel like it was just women with amazing opinions that were called a witch.

But so now I lean into the word. How did this come about?

Back in like October, we did a show ord around Halloween, we did a show together in Huntsville, Alabeba. And I was freaking out. I was only supposed to do like ten or fifteen minutes. I ended up doing twenty and I loved it, and I was like, let's do that again.

So she and I decided we do a little tour.

So we're getting a few in just to see, just to try my hand at it and see how it goes.

It's really fun. I feel really natural on stage. It's funny.

It's like standing up on stage for like twenty minutes and telling some stories and then like for me to get to entertain and like bring a smile, which is always my goal.

Is like literally we.

Say a prayer before you a free show when we do live shows and say, you know, bring someone a laugh today who needs it. And so getting to go up on stage and do that for twenty minutes in different cities feels so much more authentic to who I am as like an entertainer and like wanting to bring a smile. And so it's been really, really fun and I'm really enjoying it.

Like the first thing I said when I got stations, like I can do something at charity shows.

Now I can go on a USO tour and do something, because I always felt like I can't go on a us SO tour and entertain the troops.

I have nothing to entertain with. I can't sing. I can do this. So it's so exciting. It's like feels like this whole world has been open to me.

When I look back at all your roles across networks and film and TV, so many of them are rooted in humor. Why was being funny always important to you?

I can't say where it exactly came from. I think what's weird is like I was always in Goofball.

I guess you know.

My family, we were all actors, but some weren't as like Rizal Dazzle as I was. I was very much like I'll say that these Lifesavers are the best thing I've ever had. I don't care, you know, like, but it's funny because, like, you know, everything I did, even this one play that turned out to be super dramatic, my part wasn't. My part was silly. The play was

So it's weird. It was like I was a commercial girl.

I was known as the Rice Crispies girl in the second grade because I was on the Risk Crispies commercial.

And I do remember that.

I kind of ran the gamut between like soap operas, commercials. In nineteen eighty six, I was on seraout Live three times and some skits, you know, just sort of being around funny people, being around talented people, exploring all these different worlds.

And then with Clarissa, I became a sitcom girl. And my family will still to this day.

Say why did they pay you to be funny?

You're not funny.

So it's interesting that I have made this career for my My kids say the same thing.

Now.

My family always said it. My dad always said it to me, like, you're not funny. I don't get it. I actually stopped telling him when I was on talk shows because he would just bash me after Oh.

My god, you are so funny, Melissa.

I could find, like millions of other millennials who would debate that you brought so much joy to so many children in the nineties, in the early aughts. I mean, I was raised on Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon was like my religion. It was so empowering to watch. But I'm curious, like, did you feel pressure to look a certain way or adhere to a certain aesthetic?

Back then, I was told a few times I could be a big movie if I would lose some weight, which I thought was insane because I was like one hundred and three pounds and like had a flat stomach, so I couldn't. I don't know what else I could have done except grow five inches. But I would get all like pissy about it and then be like, screw it. I don't I'm not going to, so it doesn't matter.

I'm so glad you didn't. I'm so glad that you had such wisdom at such a young age. It's not worth it. Like my goal is to be a working actress. My goal is to keep working and providing for my family. And you know, even when I was younger, before I had a family or a husband or anyone, I would always use my younger siblings as a barometer for what

So I was always sort of thinking ahead in that way.

And I was always saving, and I was always a vesting and I think I was one of the few. But Ello cool J gave me some great advice on the set of probably some Nickelodeon thing we were doing in like ninety seven. Maybe he hit all these gold chains and I was like, wow, look at all these diamonds, and he goes, don't do this, don't do this. He said something to the effect of, don't waste your money on something like this buy a house, or like he gave me like solid investment advice, where I was like,

I love that you mentioned Sabrina because it was my favorite show as a kid. I used to fake sick from school to watch that show. And there were three female main characters, which was kind of an anomaly on TV in the nineties.

Yeah, and they were.

Smart and witty and totally unapologetic about their opinions. And Sabrina was not really sexualized the way I'd seen other female leads of that time, not really at all.

I feel like, you know, I definitely wore my share of crop tops and low cut, but I didn't even go that low. Like, I didn't the Brittany and Christina Aguilera thing like, I didn't get that much stomach in there.

Did it feel unique when you were making it or just in hindsight, No, it.

Didn't at all.

Actually, because I was a big fan of watching when I was growing up in like the eighties, when Cable started Nickelodeon after like eight pm became nick at Night, and it was all my mom's generation shows, So it was Brady Bunch and all this stuff. So watching Bewitched and I dream a Janie. When I was doing Sabrina, I was like, this is very much like one of these shows. It's just it hasn't been done in a while, you know, so I felt a little bit copycat in a way.

Melissa, I just learned that your mom is the one who pitched Sabrina the Teenage Witch to network execs and you became an executive producer alongside her at such a young age. You even directed episodes back then too. What did you gain from that experience.

I'm so thankful to her for doing that. I mean, she was my manager all through my childhood. And then you know, when Clarissa ended, she was like, you have a fan base that likes you. Let's not do let's not put you in all these sexy, sexy roles. Let's find something for that fan base that you've built that trusts you. And so my mom found the comic book some well someone handed to her on a playground, So this'd be a great role for Melissa. We made it a Showtime movie that a lot of people know what

She was like, that's the one I'm going with. We're gonna be on ABC. She's like, pack your bags. I'm like, yeah, right, I'm still gonna go to college.

Good luck.

I don't think this is going to happen. So I go to college and she's like, Nope, you got to leave. We got to go to LA.

And that's the first time we actually worked to move to LA. When I was twenty, so I was never a teenager playing the teenage witch.

I moved to LA and she was the producer, so she was executive producing this thing. I mean, she's hiring the writers, and she's hiring the cast, and she's in the ending bay and she's part of the music choices, and I mean that show is her design.

And everyone was so sick of me being bossy.

I've been bossy since forever, Like especially like Clarissa.

I would always.

Mess around with the lighting board and the cameras and like want to learn everything and be in everybody's business and tell everybody how to do it. And I learned a lot from the directors on that show too. We were doing it as if it was a live show. They would have a switcher and they'd switch cameras depending on what shot they wanted, and they'd edit it in camera, and so I learned to direct that way. And then it came about that. I think it was first or

Your mom was such a boss, I.

Know, thank God, a truly audacious woman.

It sounds like, Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with Melissa Joan Hart.

We're back, and this is the bright side with Melissa Joan Hart.

Melissa, you had such an incredible work ethic from such a young age. But I have also learned that you were quite the responsible partier, that you liked to go out dancing, and I'm dying to hear some stories just about like what it was like going out during that time. Was there camaraderie between you and the other TV stars of the nineties.

Did you guys go out together?

Yeah, it was a big group of us.

Mainly the cast that we would hang out with was the that seventies show cast.

We would hang out a lot.

So there was this restaurant that I think is still there called La Poo Bell, and so you know, that would be the place to go if you had nothing else to do. But on different nights there were different promoters at different clubs. And my mom was a huge club queen. My mom starting to take me to clubs when I was sixteen. Wait what yeah, Oh, she was a huge.

Piece stories about your mom just keep getting better.

She was getting divorced for my dad, and she wanted to be like only around gay men, really, and so we would go to the gay clubs and have a blast and like just dance all night. And so she started taking me out just to dance. So when I got to LA, and I'm old enough now and I can go out anytime and get into a club. And it was only about for about two years, I was going out probably four or five days a week. And I mean we get started at ten, but in La, the club's close at one thirty. I would have to

Sleepy girl like you, Danielle. Danielle always talks about how she's doing.

It's a talent. It's a talent.

You guys like I slept leaning against a horse before on set, but or in a wedding dress, were like across four chairs at the back of a sofa and they were taking pictures of me all the time and documenting it all. That's how I kind of survived the club scene a little bit. I think was sleeping where I could.

You had a sweet friendship with Britney Spears for a period of time, and then you were also in the Crazy music video.

I mean, do you stay in touch with.

Her at all?

No? No, we we had to do a lot of press around driving Crazy. We did the video together, and then we did a ton of like TRL hosting this. We did something in Utah together, if things in New York. She came to the premiere and she was on Sabrina. It was very rare that we got private moments to hang out and get to know each other well.

You know.

It was more of that superficial relationship that everybody saw on camera, and I mean we'd be whispering to each other, you know.

But the cameras are there, or the bodyguards are there, or that.

You know.

We're on a red carpet at the American Music Awards and I'm hosting and she's performing, and we're having numerous costume changes, and it's like, Hi, Hi, Hi.

You know.

She was seventeen, I was twenty three, and I was looking at her, going wow, like she was on Sabrina and I wanted to take her to lunch.

I wanted her to join us. So I was like, a bunch of us are walking down the street to lunch. She's like can I can.

I to her whole team, and they like listed off all these things she had to do, and.

Her face just deflated.

She's like okay, and I don't remember what happened, but I think she started chasing us down the street.

One point. I was like, they let me come, They let me come, you know. So she went to lunch with us.

We had to have her back at this time and all that, And then I did sneak her out of her hotel one night because I wanted to take her out with some people her age. I was like, told her bodyguard we were going to my mom's house for lasagna. So I think that's the only time I've ever lied in my life. But it was too Big Rob. I llowed to Big Rob, and then you know, I'd take her to a club and everyone kind of clamped onto her and held on to her, and I was like,

And I left her there and I still feel guilty about it to this day.

Oh there's all sorts of things that happened that and especially for someone seventeen going through when she was going and I didn't have it like she did. First of all, I never reached that level of stardom, and second of all, mine was so snowball. Hers was so oh, kick you in the face, like quick, you're famous. Now everybody knows you and you can't be private anymore. Learn to live with it right now, you know, whereas mine was sort of like a trickle effect of like you're the Rice

You did a video.

We know who you are.

You're ours now, you know? And I couldn't understand her experience.

You know, you got famous more gradually, but you were only fifteen when you started playing Clarissa. Did you have any challenges transitioning into adulthood.

Well, I understand when some of these kids want to rebel and be seen as sexy and taken seriously, and I'm an adult that rebellious, like I'm not a kid, look at me.

You know, that kind of thing. It did happen with some of my peers and contemporaries, But for me, it was like, do I like what I'm doing? Am I getting paid fairly? We're good. It wasn't about being rich or famous.

It was about having the lifestyle I wanted to have, which was basically, I want to travel and I want to throw parties and I want some security. And I know that sounds like extremely like bullshit, level headed, but like that literally was my focus and everything else was bonus. Like I definitely went through rebellious phases. I mean, but I didn't need to show it necessarily. But it's so funny because I just remember this the other day that like I was getting this big bonus on Sabrina, which

I was like, nah, And at the end of the year, the.

Warder people will be like, you should probably go spend some of this money, and I'd be like, all right, Jimmy choos, which I still have like a collection of here. But I show up on the red carpet and like you can find me and a lot of pictures in these ugly brown quarter roy pants and like some weird little bra tops or backlists tops, which was a big thing at the time, like like almost like handkerchief tops.

I am.

It's good enough.

I mean, I feel like we all had our limited two moments.

But now that you're a parent to high schoolers and all of the nineties trends are back, what if you love seeing coming back?

And also what do you never want to see again? Because I have a whole list.

I really wish I had kept my combat boots.

I had such a collection of combat boots, and who knew those were gonna like it seemed like those were never going to come back. But I have to say I've been wearing some butterfly clips recently because I had them for a nineties party I went to, and they're so convenient when you need to like pull your hair back and just clip it. They're so strong. So I will rock the butterfly clips for sure. But like the crop tops I can't do. I don't have the body

Worth it?

But I'm in the life too short category. I'm gonna have an ice cream. Come with my son if he wants to go get ice cream, because what if I get hit by a bus tomorrow.

I didn't have that ice cream. I feel like an idiot.

Okay, so we talked about your stand up, but you also have a new movie coming out next week. It's a drama called Bad Guardian. What trew you to that role?

Yeah?

I thought it was a really interesting story. When I started reading the script, It's like, if a script can catch me past twenty pages, I'm in And this one was great, Like this guardianship business is, and of course we know it from like the Britney Spears Conservatorship, or we know it from the recent whe New Williams story of some guardianship's gone wrong in a celebrity younger person sort of way. But it tends to be a big senior citizen scam that happens. It's a two point nine

So I just felt like it was a great story to tell.

It was well written, and the director did a fantastic job, and I wasn't sure how my performance. I usually cringe when I watched my own stuff, but I watched this back and I was really really proud of it.

So I hope people will.

Love it, maybe learn a little something from it, just to protect yourself in the future. But if you've experienced this, it could be a little bit of a trigger warning. You know, like, it's a tough business and it's an interesting story to tell.

I love that you're so proud of it. Melissa, that's amazing.

We're gonna let you go, but before we do, how do you seek out the bright side of life?

It's a choice, I think every day.

It's a choice to wake up and thank God for the things we have. Like I literally only started praying in the morning. When I open my eyes, when my alarm goes off, the first thing I do is, like, the sun is up, my family is home safe, there's food in my stomach, there's a roof over my head, there's clothes on my back, the little things. You know, you don't have as many problems when you're thankful for

You just never know.

Melissa, thank you for joining us.

This has been fun. Thank you for having me. Keep up the colorful life.

Melissa Jonhart is an actor, comedian, director, and so much more. Her new movie Bad Guardian is out on May eighteenth.

That's it.

For today's show and tomorrow, Jessica Biel is joining us to talk about periods, parenting, and so many more peas.

You don't want to miss it.

Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

That was another pie.

I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro O b a y.

I'm Simone Voice.

You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok. See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.

See you tomorrow.