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SHOW HISTORY


Original run

The series was created by Sidney Sheldon in response to the great success of rival network ABC 's '' Bewitched '' series, which had debuted in 1964 as the second most watched program in the United States. Sheldon claimed to have been inspired by the movie "The Brass Bottle", which starred Tony Randall , Burl Ives and Barbara Eden . Eden didn't play the genie in the movie; Burl Ives played the genie Fakrash Alamash. William Asher , the producer of '' Bewitched '', was called upon unofficially to comment on the final script for the pilot episode which Sheldon was hoping would capture the essential elements of ''Bewitched''. Interestingly, when casting was opened for the role of Jeannie, Sidney Sheldon had one very strict rule... NO BLONDES! He didn't want too obvious a connection with '' Bewitched ''. Yet, he let Barbara Eden audition, and the rest is history.

The premise of the two programs was very similar. Both featured beautiful women who were possessed of magical powers and who tried to integrate with the mortal world to please the men they loved. The comedy in both series was derived from her attempts at keeping her powers secret, while very often needing to use those powers to resolve situations. Both featured a rambunctious relative (Jeannie's sister, Samantha's cousin) played by the lead actress, with a black wig to mark her " Black Hat " status.

Jeannie was a Genie awakened from her two thousand year imprisonment when Astronaut Anthony Nelson, who worked at Cape Kennedy (as Cape Canaveral was called in the 1960s) in Florida , found a bottle washed up on a desert-island beach. By freeing her, he became her master. Following Tony home to Cocoa Beach, Florida , Jeannie was initially little more than a Servant , but as the series developed, so did their relationship, and eventually the couple was married. Sidney Sheldon and the cast fought against the wedding, feeling it would ruin the sexual tension between the two.

Despite the series finishing its fourth season in 26th place, NBC was going to cancel the program if Jeannie and Tony didn't wed. The network was probably planning to end the series after its fifth season and wanted to get as much PR out of it as possible. For the series fifth season (1969-70) NBC moved the series to a weak time period (Tuesday at 7:30pm where it had done so-so ratings during its third season (1967-68). Jeannie and Tony wed, NBC certainly got lots of press and then cancelled the series. In truth, had the series gone on after the marriage, what else could have been done except get Jeannie pregnant which would have been too much a carbon copy of Bewitched. One of the reasons ''I Dream of Jeannie'' endures is it has a solid beginning, middle and end. Unlike Bewitched's later years, Jeannie remained, as the show's lyrics say, "fresh as a daisy".

In most episodes, Barbara Eden wore little more than her revealing "Jeannie" costume. Strangely, the censors allowed her to be depicted living in a house with an unmarried man, but would not permit Eden's Navel to be seen. The makers of the series were also presented with the challenge of filming around Eden's real-life pregnancy, without writing it into the Jeannie storyline.


After the original run

''I Dream of Jeannie'' was a moderate success on NBC, but the show's popularity exploded when the series began playing in Syndication . Its reruns became one of the highest rated series during the 1970s (even more so following the success of Larry Hagman 's role as J.R. Ewing on '' Dallas ''), and the show continues to have a cult following today. Hanna-Barbera Productions produced an animated spin-off, '' Jeannie '', in September, 1973 , which featured Jeannie (voiced by Julie McWhirter ) and genie-in-training Babu (voiced by former Three Stooges star Joe Besser ) as the servants of Corry Anders, a high-school student (voiced by Mark Hamill ).

Most of the ''I Dream of Jeannie'' cast reunited for several television features, the most recent being '''' ( 1985 ) and '' I Still Dream Of Jeannie '' ( 1991 ), the former with Wayne Rogers replacing Larry Hagman in the role of Tony Nelson, the latter writing out the character completely. Rumors of a big screen treatment of ''I Dream of Jeannie'' have flown around Hollywood for years. One of the more interesting casting suggestions was Will Smith as Major Nelson and Halle Barry as Jeannie. According to many sources, Columbia Pictures is set to release a feature film version of ''I Dream of Jeannie'' in September, 2006 with Gurinder Chadha set to direct. Jessica Alba , Amanda Bynes , Jessica Simpson , Mandy Moore , Paris Hilton , Keira Knightley , Parminder Nagra , Jenna Elfman , and Lisa Kudrow have been considered for the part of Jeannie. However, Jennifer Garner , Kate Hudson , and Lindsay Lohan have emerged as the frontrunners for the role of Jeannie. The only name mentioned for the role of Major Tony Nelson is ex- Saturday Night Live actor Jimmy Fallon . Over the past ten years, merchandise based on the series has been produced including numerous dolls, ceramic pieces, lunchboxes, a board game and a series of Instant Scratchit cards. There is even an officially licensed slot machine with Jeannie sound effects, new animations and voice samples recorded specifically for the machine by Eden herself.

Recently, Cocoa Beach has been embracing the fame it garnered from ''Jeannie''. A street near the Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach is named "I Dream of Jeannie Lane." On September 15 , 2005 , they held the We Dream Of Jeannie Festival, during which were memories of the show and a Jeannie look-alike contest. There were plans for one in 2004 , but it was interrupted by Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Jeanne . They did, however, hold the Jeannie look-alike contest in 2004, with Bill Daily attending. None of the cast members went to the 2005 festival.

In 2006, the first season of the series was made available on DVD for the first time in both black and white and Colorized box sets. The color set outsold the black and white set by a substantial margin.


MAIN CAST



PLOT OUTLINE



Main story

Astronaut Captain Tony Nelson is on a space flight when his one-man capsule comes down far from the planned recovery area, near a deserted island. Tony notices a strange bottle that rolls by itself, and when he rubs it after removing the cork, smoke starts shooting out and Jeannie materializes. "I must have gone further into orbit than I thought!" he says. Eventually, Jeannie, who was locked up in her bottle 2,000 years prior by the Blue Djinn, "blinks" a recovery helicopter into the area to rescue Tony, who is so grateful for her help that he tells her she's free. But Jeannie, who falls in love with Tony at first sight, reenters her bottle and moves it into Tony's duffel bag so she can accompany him back home.

Tony at first keeps Jeannie in her bottle most of the time, but finally relents and allows her to develop a life of her own. The first thing Jeannie does is bust up Tony's engagement to the general's daughter.


Tony's efforts to cover up Jeannie's antics brings him to the attention of NASA's resident Psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Bellows. Dr. Bellows tries over and over to prove to his superiors that Tony's either crazy or hiding something, but somehow or other he's always foiled and Tony's job remains secure.

Tony's best friend and fellow astronaut Roger Healy doesn't know about Jeannie for several episodes - when he finds out, he steals her so he can become rich and live in luxury. It's not long though before Tony reclaims his status as Jeannie's master. Roger continues to demonstrate his desire to use Jeannie's powers for his own benefit, but for the most part he respects Tony's status as Jeannie's master. Both Tony and Roger are promoted to the rank of major early in the series.

Jeannie's sister, mentioned in a second season episode (and also named Jeannie), proves to have a mean streak starting in the third season, repeatedly trying to steal Tony for herself, with her as the master! One of her final efforts comes right after Tony and Jeannie get married.

Early in the fifth season, Jeannie is called upon by her Uncle Sully to become queen of Basenji, and she decides, for his birthday gift, to give Tony the country of Basenji and make him its king. However, NASA has assigned Tony to deal with the ambassador from Kajsa, Basenji's neighbour and enemy, to secure finkilium, a mineral needed for the space program. Sully causes Tony to unwittingly and repeatedly threaten Kajsa's ambassador, harming America's friendship with Kajsa. When Roger warns Tony about Sully, Tony tries to trap Sully and tells him he won't marry Jeannie. Jeannie had gotten Sully to leave and she was waiting to talk to Tony, so he alienated her. She leaves to become queen, while Tony and Roger are exiled to a remote post in Alaska. NASA finds another source of finkilium, and sends a dispatch that recalls Tony and Roger to Cocoa Beach. However, the newspaper came with the message, mentioning the new queen of Basenji. The boys fly to Basenji (somewhere near Russia) where Tony reconciles with Jeannie. They arrive back at NASA and Tony introduces Jeannie as his fiancée. The two were wed before the end of the season.


Multi-arc stories

In a four-part episode, it is established that Jeannie did not know her birthday, and her family members couldn't agree when it was, either. Tony and Roger use NASA's powerful new computer, and horoscopic guidance based on Jeannie's traits, to calculate it, but Roger wants to make a game out of revealng it. Jeannie finally forces it out of him in the fourth episode: April 1, 64 B.C. (See Trivia, below)

In another four-part episode, Jeannie is locked in a safe bound for the moon, and any attempt to force the safe or use the wrong combination will destroy the safe with an explosive. Jeannie is in there so long, four weeks, that whoever opens the safe will become her master. The episodes spread out over a month, during which a national contest was held to guess the safe's combination. This explains why Larry Hagman is never seen actually saying the combination out loud... his face is turned away from the camera, or the shot is on Jeannie when he says it. The actual combination wasn't decided until right before airing, and Hagman's voice was dubbed in. Over the closing credits, Barbara Eden announced and congratulated the contest winner. The combination: 4-9-7. {Link without Title}


THE ''JEANNIE'' THEME


The first season Jeannie theme was an instrumental jazz/waltz written by Richard Wess . From the second season on, however, a new theme, titled ''Jeannie'', was written by Hugo Montenegro , with lyrics by Buddy Kaye . The lyrics were never used in the show, but here they are:

Jeannie, fresh as a daisy
Just look how she obeys me
Does things that just amaze me so
One blink, presto, the rain goes
One smile, out pops a rainbow
Cars stop, even the train goes slow
When she walks by
She brings sunshine on every rafter
Sprinkles the air with laughter
We're closer than quarter after three
There's no one like Jeannie
I'd introduce you to her
But it's no use, sir
Cause my Jeannie's in love with me
She's in love with me!

Songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carol King wrote a spec theme, called ''Jeannie'', for Sidney Sheldon before the series started, but it was rejected.


THE BOTTLE


  • Jeannie's famous bottle was not created for the show. It was actually a 1964 Jim Beam liquor decanter containing 'Beam's Choice' Scotch Whiskey .


  • The studio prop department painted the bottle to look like an antique. For years it was said that Sidney Sheldon received one as a gift and thought it would be a perfect design for the series. Several people in the Screen Gems art department also take credit for finding the bottle. There is strong evidence, however, that it was first season director, Gene Nelson who saw one in a liquor store and bought it, bringing it to Sidney Sheldon .


  • The first season bottle had a clear glass stopper that Tony took from a 1956 Old Grand Dad Bourbon bottle in his home, as the original stopper was left behind on the beach where Tony found Jeannie. The color seasons (and the movies) used the original bottle stopper, painted to match the bottle. (During some close-ups, you can still see the plastic rings that hold the cork part of the stopper in place!) Jeannie's bottle was painted mainly in pinks and purples, while Jeannie's sisters bottle, with a similar paint job, mainly in greens. The movies again used Jim Beam bottles, but with a new, more drastic paint job. The evil Blue Djinn's bottle was also a Jim Beam bottle, but left plain, with no paint.


  • Jeannie's bottle was left its original dark, smoke-green color with a gold leaf pattern during the first season. In the first episode, it also looked quite rough and weathered. Since the show was originally filmed in black and white, a lot of colors and patterns were not necessary. When the show switched to color, the prop people came up with a brightly colored bottle to replace the original. Larry Hagman received one of the original bottles after the series wrapped; Barbara Eden got to keep one of the color models. Several of each season bottles were made, as they did occasionally get broken during production. In the DVD release of the first season, during the first episode commentary, Bill Daily also claims to own an original bottle.


  • The bottle itself was designed in 1964 by Jack Becker for the Wheaton Bottle Company.


  • No one knows exactly how many bottles were made during the show, but members of the production have estimated that from six to eight bottles were painted and used during the run of the series. One was specifically designed to fly and blow smoke.



TRIVIA


Inconsistencies

  • Early on, Jeannie's budding movie career ended when she discovered that genies cannot be photographed, but in the middle of the series run, Jeannie was successfully photographed. The original premise is reasserted for the actual wedding episode.


  • In a four-part episode, it was determined that Jeannie's birthday was April 1, 64 BC (which was a Thursday, according to the Proleptic Gregorian Calendar ). However, in the fifth episode of the first season, "G.I. Jeannie", she stated that her birthday was July 1, 21 BC (a Tuesday).


  • The end credits of the pilot episode list Larry Hagman as Capt. Anthony WILSON! (This error was corrected on the DVD release)


  • In the pilot, when rescued Jeannie speaks Persian , (NOT Arabic as is often stated), and can only speak English when Tony wishes her to. Yet, whenever anyone from Jeannie's family show up, or she visits them, etc., they speak perfect English.


  • In the second episode, we meet Jeannie's mother and father, neither of whom are genies. Yet, later Barbara Eden played her own mother, who WAS a genie! And her father was never again to be seen.


  • It was stated that Jeannie became a genie when she refused to marry the Evil Blue Djinn, and as punishment he imprisoned her in a bottle. Yet, later, all of her relatives are genies.


  • Jeannie was supposedly held captive in her bottle for two thousand years, yet has had relationships with famous people throughout the ages. Strange...


  • One episode asserts that genies are forbidden to marry mortals, while another claims that genies who marry mortals will lose their powers. However, when Tony and Jeannie's marriage actually takes place there are no objections amongst her kind nor any loss of her powers afterwards.


  • A fortune telling machine also shows a possible future: of the two children they have, the boy is mortal but the girl is a genie. In the movie made in 1985, they have one child, Tony Jr., who turns out to be a Djinn (a male genie). However, in the 1991 movie, Tony Jr's powers are inexplicably absent.



Miscellany

  • Actor Larry Hagman was notoriously difficult to work with, to the point where the producers seriously considered getting rid of him and replacing him with another actor. Darren McGavin was at the top of the list for Hagman's replacement. They even worked out a story where Tony lost Jeannie and McGavin found her, but the studio execs loved Hagman and wouldn't consider a change.


  • Actress Barbara Eden also played the black haired mischievous elder sister of Jeannie.



  • The idea that a Genie is female and Djinn is male is wrong, according to the original source material, the Arabian Nights stories. The magical creature is called a Djinn, regardless of gender. Djinn is singular, Djinni (or Genie )is plural.


  • According to the show, genies have both red and green blood Corpuscles .



Comparison to actual NASA astronauts


The NASA shown in the series appears to be launching a few more flights than real-life NASA, since Tony makes it into space at least three times during the series. But several real astronauts did make second and third flights.

The first season pilot uses footage from an actual launch of a Project Gemini spacecraft (identifiable by its LGM-25 Titan II booster with twin rocket engines), and this footage also appears in the opening title sequence for some early first season episodes. However, the pilot storyline has Tony as the only crewmember of the craft, which would imply it must have been a Project Mercury mission, since all crewed Gemini spacecraft were flown with two crewmembers. The cartoon spacecraft shown in the opening titles of later seasons appears to be a one-man spacecraft bearing some resemblance to Project Mercury (flown 1961-May 1963), but during the series' run, the two-man Project Gemini (Mar 1965-Nov 1966) and three-man Project Apollo (Feb 1967-Jul 1975) craft were flying, aside from the hiatus between Gemini 12 and Apollo 7. In fact, Tony was shown on the series to fly all three of these craft, as well as the Space Shuttle (if you count the TV movies).

The only real astronaut in history to fly one of each of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft was astronaut Wally Schirra. (Mercury Sigma 7 flight, Gemini 6, and Apollo 7 flights.) Charles Conrad, James Lovell, Thomas Stafford and John Young were the only astronauts to fly two Gemini missions; 15 astronauts made both Gemini and Apollo flights during the series six-year run, and Alan Shepard, finally cleared to fly again after Mercury 3, flew Apollo as well.

Since Tony seems to be comparable to James Lovell and Wally Schirra, he is probably, fictionally, one of NASA's earliest-chosen astronauts, healthy and skilled enough to be valuable for several flights.


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