Melissa & Joey: Don’t Expect Sabrina or Blossom But…

One of the fun parts of seeing familiar TV stars in new shows is when they pay homage to their old series. Hot in Cleveland stars four actresses who’ve each had at least one successful sitcom and producers have hired several of their former co-stars.

There was a nod to Melissa Joan Hart’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch in the Halloween episode of ABC Family’s Melissa & Joey, and in the latest promos, Joey Lawrence can be seen channeling his character from Blossom by giving his trademark “Whoa.”

In a recent ABC Family-hosted interview, series star Melissa Joan Hart said that she and Lawrence probably won’t be doing many more references to their old shows but some familiar faces could pop up if the circumstances are right.

Question: At the end of the Halloween episode we saw a reference to Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I was wondering will we see more of those as well as Blossom references in the future.

Hart: Not really. I mean, we play towards it to let you know we know where we came from and what the audience knows of us. There will be one word out of Joey’s mouth that will remind everybody of Blossom. But other than that, no, we just each made a little play towards our previous character and that’s it.

Question: I know we’ve mentioned this a little bit before, but do you think there’s a chance of your Clarissa cast coming in to guest star?

Hart: Oh, no. We wouldn’t do like a reunion episode. We would do just like maybe some of the cast from Sabrina would come pop in here—like Soleil maybe or Alicia Donovan, I don’t know. Like maybe, if there was a role right for them and they were around and available probably they would pop in and do a little piece, but it wouldn’t be like as their roles that they played on Sabrina. We would want to reinvent it, completely.

Joey’s brothers come on the show but they’re different characters. One of them plays his brother but the other one is a schoolteacher for Ryder. So to do something like that would be really fun.

I always love — one of the benefits of producing is bringing in people you think are talented to help enhance your project and also just to have fun playing at work. I think it would be great. I actually have Leslie Grossman on the show, one of our last episodes of this season coming up. I ran into her in auditions. We have friends in common. We had dinner and she was fantastic and I was like, “She’s got to be on the show.” So when this role came up that I knew she’d be right for, I called her in and was like, “You’ve got to do this with me.” and we had a blast. So stuff like is always fun just to have familiar faces around — the people that you trust that you think are talented.

Melissa & Joey returns to ABC Family on Wednesday night. Here’s a promo:

What do you think? Which actors from their old shows would you like to see on Melissa & Joey?