I Dream of Jeannie

I Dream of Jeannie was a popular American sitcom. Produced by Screen Gems, it aired from 1965 to 1970 on NBC.

Series outline

Captain Tony Nelson is on a space flight but his ship comes down far from the 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 space than I thought!" he says. Eventually, Jeannie, who was locked up in her bottle 2,000 years ago by the Blue Djinn, blinks a searching helicopter into the area to rescue Tony, who is so grateful he tells Jeannie that she's free. She reenters her bottle and moves it into Tony's duffel bag and accompanies him back home.

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Tony at first keeps Jeannie in her bottle most of the time, but finally lets up. Jeannie, however, manages to bust up Tony's engagement to the general's daughter.

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Roger, his friend, doesn't know about Jeannie for several episodes, but when he finds out, he takes Jeannie and uses her to make him rich and living in luxury. This is not the first time Roger demonstrates that he wants Jeannie for himself, but except when such opportunity arises, after this, he usually respects Tony's status as Jeannie's master. Tony is, not long after, promoted to major, as is Roger.

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Early in the fifth season, Jeannie is called upon by her Uncle Sully to be queen of Basenji, and she decides, for his birthday gift, to give Tony the country of Basenji, being 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 tell him he wouldn't marry Jeannie. Jeannie had gotten Sully to leave and she was waiting to talk to Tony, so now he's alienated himself from Jeannie, who 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 will try to reconcile with Jeannie. They arrive back at NASA where Tony introduces Jeannie as his fiancée.

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There were inconsistencies through the series. 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.

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In one episode, it is asserted that genies are forbidden to marry mortals, but when the actual event comes about, not only does Hajii not object, Jeannie's contrary cousins arrive to give Tony the once-over. A fortune 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.

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Genies have both red and green blood corpuscles.

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Jeannie's sister, mentioned in a first season episode, and also named Jeannie, turns a mean streak starting in the second season, repeatedly trying to have Tony for herself and be not a servant but a master! One of her final efforts comes right after Tony and Jeannie have been married.

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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 telling it. Jeannie finally forces it out of Roger in the fourth episode: April 1, 46 B.C.

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In a 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.

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