Beth Broderick Almost Got Bit by a Gator on “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” — and“ ”That's Not Even Her Craziest Set Story (Exclusive)
"I was like okay, that could be my leg," Broderick tells PEOPLE. "Okay, let's not poke the alligator anymore."
Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times via Getty
Melissa Joan Hart (left) star of 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch,' with Beth Broderick in the late 1990sWhile filming Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Beth Broderick remembers she had close encounters with a number of live animals — including an alligator who nearly bit her!
Beginning in 1996, Broderick starred on the show for seven seasons alongside Caroline Rhea and Melissa Joan Hart. She and Rhea played otherworldly aunts Hilda and Zelda Spellman to Hart's teenage witch, Sabrina.
In a recent exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Broderick, 65, recounted appearing in one scene with "an alligator on a leash."
"And the people didn't think the alligator was moving enough, and it didn't look real enough," she remembered. "It was very real, and so they started poking it, and it got mad and it whipped around and missed me by an inch and bit the sofa and wouldn't let go."
She added: "I was like okay, that could be my leg. Okay, let's not poke the alligator anymore."
As strange a moment as it was, Broderick said that the cast "had crazy stuff like that happen on the show all the time."
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer??, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Bob D'Amico/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
Melissa Joan Hart (as Sabrina Spellman), with her aunts, Caroline Rhea (as Hilda) and Beth Broderick (as Zelda) in 1997Related: The Cast of Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Where Are They Now?
In a different incident, a lion on set walked through an electric fence and got loose — "he just walked through it and didn't care," Broderick shared.
But it was yet another moment — involving a tuxedo-clad chicken! — that Broderick said was her favorite story from her time on Sabrina.
"I was walking from my trailer to the set one day and I hear this crazy commotion in the costume room, and I look in, and our costumer Diane is trying to measure a chicken for a tuxedo, and that chicken did not want to wear a tuxedo," she said. "It was just the funniest thing I've ever seen. And I just thought to myself, who else goes to work and sees that?"
"I mean, that is kind of a singular experience," she added. "And it ended up wearing that tuxedo, it did it. But I don't think he liked it."
As Broderick explained, such moments were inevitable on a show about magic — in large part because the crew didn't rely on modern technology like CGI.
"It was a wild show. You had to shoot everything in real time and practical effects and stuff. It was quite an experience and one you can never forget," she said. "That’s the way the show was, you made magic out of mole hills … made magic out of thin air."