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Arts & Entertainment

Melissa Joan Hart, Actress

Jen Carlson

Published Mar 9, 2011

Modified Mar 9, 2011

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Jen Carlson

Published Mar 9, 2011

Modified Mar 9, 2011

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Yesterday Melissa Joan Hart (better known to some of you as Sabrina or Clarissa) was at Grand Central Terminal sharing some breakfast with kids, which she tells us about below. She declined to give any advice to Charlie Sheen, or discuss her thoughts on a Shake Shack coming to her town of Westport, CT... but she does reveal the Clarissa Explains It All connection with They Might Be Giants! She also gives us some dirt on Salem the Cat, and talks about the recently unearthed Clarissa Now pilot.

Can you tell us a little about your involvement with National Breakfast Day? I am working with Kellogg to tell people about the Share Your Breakfast program that we celebrated on National Breakfast Day. I spent the morning sharing breakfast with a group of kids at Grand Central Terminal and talked about the importance of school breakfast and why it’s important to participate in the Share Your Breakfast program that encourages Americans to help share breakfast with children who might otherwise go without.

Participating is as easy as snap-text-tweet. For every breakfast photo or description uploaded to www.shareyourbreakfast.com or sent via text with the word SHARE to 21534, from now until July 31st, Kellogg will make a donation to help get school breakfast to kids in need. The goal is to help share one million breakfasts during the next school year. I am personally tweeting about this too to get the word out using #shareURbreakfast.

Since we're a NYC-centric website, can you tell us your favorite place to get breakfast in the city—or what you would recommend for New Yorkers on-the-go? When I am on the go, I love the spinach-feta wrap from Starbucks because it’s such a quick and easy option. In NYC, I love the Coffee Shop on Union Square.

You attended NYU briefly, have you ever considered going back? What would you study? I may be that 80 year-old you see at graduation one day. I would probably study Italian or art, or Italian art, specifically Renaissance-era Italian art.

We need to know: are you really a They Might Be Giants fan? How did their poster end up in Clarissa's room? I actually got the job for “Clarissa Explains It All” because of They Might Be Giants. The producer asked me about music, and I told them I liked TMBG (instead of popular bands like New Kids on the Block). He loved it, I got the job and then they worked TMBG into the show by putting the poster in the room.

Do you play their kids songs for your children? Yes! Hot Dog is one of our favorite songs.

It's an exciting time at ABC Family. Has the success of Melissa & Joey surprised you? What other ABC Family shows do you watch? The success of “Melissa & Joey” has been a great reward for our hard work. Joey and I both felt it would be popular among our peer group because there was a lack of sitcoms on air and wanted to see us return to traditional comedy.

Do people come up to you and say "Hey, Clarissa!"? What would Clarissa be doing now? Do you keep in touch with Ferguson? Yes, I still get called “Clarissa” all the time! Now? I think Clarissa would either be working for an indie rock label or writing for Rolling Stone Magazine.

The pilot for Clarissa Now has been making the rounds lately, have you ever considered trying to revisit the Clarissa character again? I have never seen the pilot for “Clarissa Now,” but I will check it out. I happen to think that Clarissa is best left in people’s memories, but if people want to revisit it you can watch I, Carly.

Do your kids watch reruns of you shows? Do you have a cat named Salem? My kids have no idea what I do, so no, we don’t watch re-runs. I could never have a cat named Salem, because the old one was so mean to me!

Do you make it to NYC often? What's your ideal day here? I try to come to NYC as often as I can. My ideal day would be taking the boys to the Intrepid, shopping a bit on 5th Avenue and meeting my sister for dinner and drinks at the Library Hotel.

Tagged

breakfast

Clarissa Explains It All

Clarissa Now

interview

Melissa Joan Hart

Sabrina The Teenage Witch

Jen Carlson

Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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