Halloween classic ‘Hocus Pocus’ celebrates 25th anniversary

Talk about Halloween nostalgia!

If you were a 90’s kid, you no-doubt grew up watching Disney’s “Hocus Pocus” during the Halloween season. It’s not a question of if you’ve seen the iconic film, but rather: ‘how many times?’

On Friday, two of the stars of the movie dropped by the Fox 11 Morning Show to promote the film’s 25th anniversary.

If you’ve seen the film, you’ll definitely recognize actors Tobias Jelinek and Larry Bagby. The co-stars portrayed the hilarious bullies Jay and Ernie (err…”Ice”) responsible for stealing Max’s (Omri Katz) sneakers, and then later getting caged by the Sanderson sisters (played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy).

Jelinek tells Danny Max “Hocus Pocus” was his first audition after he was scouted by Disney while doing community theater as kid growing up in Santa Barbara.

Babgy, a Thousand Oaks native, said “Hocus Pocus” was his biggest role up until that point his career.

“I get recognized for that role more than anything else,” Bagby said who remains close friends with Jelinek. “And when we’re together it’s a trip.”

“I’m still trying to get him (Bagby) to shave ‘I-C-E’ into the back of his head,” Jelinek joked.

The actors revealed much of the dialogue in their scenes were heavily improvised and credit the film’s director, Kenny Ortega for working well with young actors.

“A lot of that we developed off-camera in our hotel room in Salem,” said Jelinek. “And then we brought it to Kenny Ortega and we didn’t know if he’d go for it…and he did.”

“He (Ortega) had such a great sense of what he was looking for and when we got out there he let us play,” said Bagby.

Today, both actors are keeping busy on the big and small screen. You can catch Jelinek in the first season of “Stranger Things”, and the most recent season of “American Woman” while Bagby has been on several television series including “Jag,” and “Young & the Restless” in addition to having a busy music career.

But if you are looking to get into the Halloween spirit, there’s no better time to watch (or re-watch) “Hocus Pocus” which is airing daily on Freeform and available for streaming on iTunes, Amazon Prime, and Google Play and will also be playing at theaters nationwide this Halloween.