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[[File:TheWorstWitchBook.jpg|frame]]
Suppose you're a kid attending wizard school, with classes in Potions and Broom Flying, in a stone castle surrounded by dark forests. It's hard for you, since you weren't raised by a magical family, but you make two best friends pretty quickly, and then spend the rest of the series getting into adventures with them -- usually of the out-of-bounds kind. Your chief rival, meanwhile, is the stuck-up scion of an old magical family... who, to make things worse, is blatantly the favorite of one of your most-hated professors, the sour-faced potions teacher. At least the kindly old head teacher is on your side...
''[[Harry Potter]]''? Whoever said anything about ''him?'' We're talking about ''The Worst Witch''.
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Incidentally, the movie features a young [[Fairuza Balk]] as Mildred, with Diana Rigg as Miss Hardbroom, Charlotte Rae as Miss Cackle and her [[Evil Twin]], and [[Tim Curry]] as a positively-creepy Grand Wizard.
# ''The Worst Witch''
# ''The Worst Witch Strikes Again''
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# ''The Worst Witch Saves The Day''
# ''The Worst Witch To The Rescue''
# ''The Worst Witch and the Wishing Star''
# ''First Prize for the Worst Witch''
* ''Weirdsister College: The Further Adventures of the Worst Witch'': Set at college in Cambridge, featuring Mildred settling into college life with Ethel for a roommate
* ''The New Worst Witch'': Chronicles the adventures of Mildred's cousin Henrietta 'Hettie' Hubble and her friends; Mona Hallow, who happens to be Ethel's youngest sister, and Crescentmoon 'Cressie' Winterchild, all of whom are tormented by evil witch Belladonna Bindweed.
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Accentuate the Negative]]: Used in the last episode of series 2 by the girls to prevent the school from being sold where they claim it's not just small, it's miniscule.
* [[Adaptational Villainy]]: Inverted completely. Miss Drill and Miss Bat's one appearances in the books have them appear to be strict and grumpy teachers but in the series they are much nicer and usually the ones that the girls can confide in. Similarly Drucilla is given much more depth in the series with several episodes showing her helping the girls out. She even does a [[Heel Face Turn]] at the end of the series.▼
* [[Adaptation Dye Job]]: Enid Nightshade went from being blonde in the books to having brown hair in the TV series. In the earlier television movie, Mildred (black hair) and Maud (blonde) both turned brunette.
* [[Adaptation Expansion]]: The series has gone through this several times over. The TV movie padded itself with sequences including a "scaring contest" and an early sequence with Punk Charlotte Rae, and the later series would pad the same adaptation by using the "Ethel's a pig" sequence as the basis for an entire episode (introducing a whole new character in Mr Blossom's nephew Charlie), while adding in a climactic chase through the school grounds. It's otherwise managed to incorporate adaptations of the next three books pretty much as-is (although ''The Worst Witch Strikes Again'' was made into two separate episodes).
▲* [[Adaptational Villainy]]: Inverted completely. Miss Drill and Miss Bat's one appearances in the books have them appear to be strict and grumpy teachers but in the series they are much nicer and usually the ones that the girls can confide in. Similarly Drucilla is given much more depth in the series with several episodes showing her helping the girls out. She even does a [[Heel Face Turn]] at the end of the series.
* [[All Girls Want Bad Boys]]: The first spin-off, ''Weirdsister College'', gives us recurring male characters, one of whom is the dark and mysterious Nick Hobbes, who both Millie and Ethel both get a crush on.
** In Millie's case, this turns to [[Single Woman Seeks Good Man]] as she does end up going for that nice boy at the cafe, Ben.
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* [[Banging for Help]]: In the episode where Miss Cackle gets tied up, gagged and left in the storage closet, when she sees Mildred and Enid flying in through the passage at the top of the closet, she starts making noise
* [[Boarding School]]
* [[Brother Chuck]]: No explanation is given (on-screen) as to where Miss Bat went after season 2 of the television series, although apparently CITV explained she went to live in Inner Mongolia.
** Arguably the students featured in ''The New Worst Witch'', which introduced a whole new cast of characters - including a previously unmentioned cousin of Mildred, and another sister for Ethel and Sybil - for no purpose other than returning to the magic (high) school format.
* [[Canon Discontinuity]]: Happens in show in season one, episode 11, ''Let Them Eat Cake'':
{{quote|
'''Miss Hardbroom:''' A holiday?
'''Miss Cackle:''' More than that. Tomorrow, we will forget that we were here together. An afternoon that never happened! }}
* [[Canis Latinicus]]: The show was using this to make spells sound cool before Harry Potter was a gleam in JK's eye
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* [[Completely Different Title]]: The series is known in France as Amandine Malabul (which is [[Dub Name Change|Mildred Hubble's name in French]]). All of the books were prefixed with her name, and a subtitle. For instance, the fourth book, ''The Worst Witch All At Sea'' became ''Amandine Malabul: La Sorciere a Peur de l'eau'' ("Mildred Hubble: The Witch with a Fear of Water").
** ''Weirdsister College'' became known as ''Eine Lausige Hexe in Cambridge'' ("The Worst Witch In Cambrige.")
* [[Cool School]]: Mainly the Miss. Cackle's Academy for Witches.
* [[Cultural Translation]]: Mildred is American in the movie even though it was a British production, filmed in Britain with a mostly British cast.
* [[Cute Witch]]: Mildred is an extremely [[Cute Clumsy Girl|clumsy]] one.
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* [[Evolving Credits]]: The opening titles to the first episode did not feature Mildred and her friends. Instead we saw the shots we usually see of all of the other witches (as well as one of a witch descending in front of the gate which didn't end up in the proper opening). The school song (used as the show's opening theme) was also not played and instead an instrumental BGM was. It was from the second episode onward we saw Mildred and her friends (bar Enid, who wasn't added until after her debut episode) flying on broomsticks and the school song was used as the opening theme.
* [[Face Heel Turn]]: Maud in "The Worst Witch Strikes Again". Carried over into the TV series in two episodes
* [[Fridge Brilliance]]: In the second season of the TV show, Ethel gives herself a "witch-over" so people won't know she's related to Sybil (she was played by Katy Allen for the rest of that series). In the
* [[Genre Savvy]]: Miss Crotchet gains this towards the end of season 3. In ''The Unfairground'', she says that even though she has only been at the school for a year, she knows how arguments go between the teachers. Miss Hardbroom will argue for a change in the treatment of the pupils, Miss Drill will argue in favor of the pupils, she will say something and get ignored, then Miss Cackle will enter the argument and everything will revert to status quo.
** However, things don't pan out like that in that episode.
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* [[Rapunzel Hair]]: Miss Hardbroom keeps her hair tied up in a really tight bun 24/7 except for the Halloween celebrations where the girls are amazed that it goes right down to her waist. Mildred remarks that she doesn't look half as frightening when her hair is down.
* [[Robe and Wizard Hat]]: Pointed hats and robes are FANCY/Formal dress. The student wear variations on their school colors of black even grey in their off hours. Including their pajamas.
* [[Sister Becky]]: The live action adaptations saw three such changes. The first one saw [[Felicity Jones]] replaced as Ethel Hallow by Katy Allen for seasons two and three, which was [[Lampshaded|explained away]] as a "witchover". Jones later returned for the role in ''Weirdsister College'', with no explanation given. Fenella Feverfew was played by Julia Malewski for the first season and Emily Stride for the third. The character of Miss Hardbroom was also played by two different actresses: Kate Duchene in the first three seasons, and Caroline O'Neill in ''The New Worst Witch''. In fact, only Georgina Sherrington, who played Mildred, has appeared in all three incarnations of the show.
* [[School Play]]: There's two... nearly. One episode featured the girls rehearsing for a production of The Selfish Giant, only for Enid to drop the scenery on Ethel. The production is never mentioned in after that episode though other episodes imply Miss Drill does them regularly. The Christmas Special the following year featured the characters in a pantomime of Cinderella.
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Miss Crotchet for Miss Bat in the third season of the television series. Also Mr. Blossom's brother.
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* [[Unnecessary Makeover]]: Mildred Hubble gives herself a radical makeover in the first episode of the spin-off ''Weirdsister College'' that involves cutting off her [[Girlish Pigtails]]. The other characters make a big fuss about how much better she looks except she gave herself an extremely frumpy hairstyle that made her look like she was in her 30s. She tidied herself up a bit towards the end of the series but most fans still preferred her with pigtails.
* [[Wizarding School]]: Cackle's Academy. Well, Witching School, obviously, but it's the same principle. Also pre-dates Hogwarts by 23 years. Another (boys') school for wizards had been mentioned since the early season, and finally appears in the episode "Better Dead Than Co-Ed".
* [[You Suck]]: Mildred Hubble is gangly, funny
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:The Worst Witch]]
[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Worst Witch, The}}
[[Category:TV Series]]
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