Beth Broderick was an "inch" away from being bitten by an alligator filming an episode of 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch'

The crew didn't feel the alligator was "moving enough" and decided to poke it - but the animal went berserk.

Fortunately, it bit a sofa and not Beth.

She recalled to PEOPLE: "And the people didn't think the alligator was moving enough, and it didn't look real enough.

"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.

"I was like okay, that could be my leg. Okay, let's not poke the alligator anymore."

Turns out, it wasn't the only "crazy" incident involving an animal.

As well as a lion walking through an electric fence and running wild, the show's costumer had to tussle with a chicken to dress it in a tuxedo.

Beth recalled: "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.

"It was just the funniest thing I've ever seen. And I just thought to myself, who else goes to work and sees that?"

She added: "I mean, that is kind of a singular experience.

"And it ended up wearing that tuxedo, it did it. But I don't think he liked it."

These days, studios rely on technology such as CGI for these kinds of scenes, but Beth said they had more fun making "magic out of thin air".

She said: "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.

"That's the way the show was, you made magic out of mole hills ... made magic out of thin air."