I Dream of Jeannie

I Dream of Jeannie (Live Action)
German Title: Bezaubernde Jeannie

Spanish Title: Mi bella genio

French Title: Jinny de mes rêves

Italian Title: Strega per amore

Portuguese Title: Jeannie é um Gênio

Plot
In the pilot episode, "The Lady in the Bottle", astronaut Captain Tony Nelson, US Air Force, is on a space flight when his one-man capsule Stardust One comes down far from the planned recovery area, near a deserted island in the South Pacific. On the beach, Tony notices a strange bottle that rolls by itself. When he rubs it after removing the stopper, smoke starts shooting out and a Persian-speaking female genie (wearing an enticing harem costume) materializes and kisses Tony on the lips with passion, shocking him. (In the second season's animated opening, it is a kiss on the cheek; and, Tony is happy to receive it.)

They cannot understand each other until Tony expresses his wish that Jeannie (a homophone of genie) could speak English, which she then does. Then, per his instructions, she "blinks" and causes a recovery helicopter to show up to rescue Tony, who is so grateful that he tells her she is free. But Jeannie, who has fallen in love with Tony at first sight after being trapped for 2,000 years, re-enters her bottle and rolls it into Tony's duffel bag so she can accompany him back home. One of the first things Jeannie does, in a subsequent episode, is break up Tony's engagement to his commanding general's daughter, who, along with that particular general, is never seen again. (This event reflects producer Sidney Sheldon's decision that the engagement depicted in the pilot episode would not be part of the series continuity; he realized the romantic triangle he created between Jeannie, "Master", and Melissa Stone wouldn't pan out in the long run.)

Tony at first keeps Jeannie in her bottle most of the time; but, he finally relents and allows her to enjoy a life of her own. However, her life is devoted mostly to his, and most of their problems stem from her love and affection towards Tony, and her desire to please him and fulfill her ancient heritage as a genie, especially when he doesn't want her to do so. His efforts to cover up Jeannie's antics, because of his fear that he would be dismissed from the space program if her existence were known, brings him to the attention of NASA's resident psychiatrist, US Air Force Colonel Dr. Alfred Bellows. In a running gag, Dr. Bellows tries over and over to prove to his superiors that Tony is either crazy or hiding something, but he is always foiled ("He's done it to me, again!") and Tony's job remains secure. A frequently used plot device is that Jeannie loses her powers when she is confined in a closed space. She is unable to leave her bottle when it is corked; and, under certain circumstances, the person who removed the cork would become her new master. A multi-episode story arc (see below) involves Jeannie (in miniature) becoming trapped in a safe when it is accidentally locked.

Tony's best friend and fellow astronaut, US Army Corps of Engineers Captain Roger Healey, does not know about Jeannie for several episodes; when he finds out (in the episode "The Richest Astronaut in the Whole Wide World" [January 15, 1966]), he steals her so he can live in luxury, but not for long before Tony reclaims his status as Jeannie's master. Roger is often shown to trying make a quick buck or girl-crazy, and hopes to claim Jeannie so he can use her to live a princely life or gain beautiful girlfriends, but overall he is respectful that Tony is Jeannie's master, and later her husband. Both Tony and Roger are promoted to the rank of major late in the first season. In later seasons, Roger's role is retconned in that he knew about Jeannie from the beginning as he was with Tony on the space flight that touched down, and thus saw Jeannie introduce herself to Tony.

Jeannie's sister, mentioned in a second-season episode (also named Jeannie and also portrayed by Barbara Eden [albeit in a brunette wig]), proves to have a mean streak starting in the third season (demonstrated in her initial appearance in "Jeannie or the Tiger?" [September 19, 1967]), repeatedly trying to steal Tony for herself, with her as the real "master". Her final attempt in the series comes right after Tony and Jeannie get married, with a ploy involving a man played by Barbara Eden's real-life husband at the time, Michael Ansara (in a kind of in-joke, while Jeannie's sister pretends to be attracted to him, she privately scoffs at him). Jeannie's sister wears a green costume, with a skirt rather than pantaloons.

Early in the fifth season [September 30, 1969], Jeannie is called upon by her Uncle Sully (Jackie Coogan) to become queen of their family's native country, Basenji. Tony inadvertently gives grave offense to Basenji national pride in their feud with neighboring Kasja. To regain favor, Tony is required by Sully to marry Jeannie and avenge Basenji's honor, by killing the ambassador from Kasja when he visits NASA. After Sully puts Tony through an ordeal of nearly killing the ambassador, Tony responds in a fit of anger that he is fed up with Sully and his cohorts and he would not marry Jeannie if she were "the last genie on earth". Hearing this, Jeannie bitterly leaves Tony and returns to Basenji. With Jeannie gone, Tony realizes how deeply he loves her. That outweighs all concerns he has had about Jeannie's threat to his career. He flies to Basenji to win Jeannie back. Upon their return to NASA, Tony introduces Jeannie as his fiancée, in which she attires herself as a modern American woman in public and it is easily accepted Tony found a girlfriend. This changed the show's premise in that instead of the avoidiance of Jeannie's exposure, it was to hide her magical abilities. This is contrary to the mythology created by Sidney Sheldon's own season two script for "The Birds and Bees Bit", in which it was claimed that, upon marriage, a genie loses all of her magical powers.

First Movie: I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later
Airdate: October 20, 1985

Jeannie has been a happily married housewife for 15 years to her astronaut husband Tony Nelson and has a teenage son, T.J. When Tony is promoted to Colonel and is about to retire from the NASA space program, Jeannie decides to give him a celebration party in their backyard. However, egged on by his colleagues to retire with a dramatic flair, Tony breaks his promise to Jeannie for one more space flight (aboard the shuttle), this time with a female astronaut, Captain Nelly Hunt.

Jeannie is furious, so she decides to separate from her husband temporarily to be a more independent modern woman. In the meantime, Jeannie's always-scheming evil sister, Jeannie II is determined to have Tony for herself and she teams up with Haji, the chief genie (operating a fitness gym in the United States), to break up her sister's marriage. Jeannie II traps her sister in a bottle with a special stopper, that nobody but another genie could open.

Meanwhile, Tony's space flight is in trouble; the engines won't fire and the shuttle is on a collision course with a meteoroid.

When T.J. comes home and hears his mother trapped in the bottle, he attempts to open the bottle. At first, the stopper would not move, but his mother encouraged him to blink, like she does to invoke her powers. Jeannie encourages her son to concentrate and to blink again, this time the stopper moves. T.J. discovers that he had inherited his mother's powers and is a genie, himself. (Earlier on, T.J. sees his mother using her powers and she explains to him about his heritage, and revealing that she is a genie, and how she became a genie. She also blinked T.J. with her back to the day when she first met Tony.) After blinking, and releasing his mother from her prison, Jeannie and T.J. go to Haji, explaining the trick. Rules must have changed since 1970, because Jeannie now needs special dispensation from the chief of genies in order to do something major, like saving a human life.

Haji will give Jeannie that special dispensation... if she agrees to end her relationship with Tony. T.J. tells his mother that they'll lose dad either way, so they might as well do it so Tony lives. Jeannie invokes her magic, saving the shuttle from certain doom, and it is able to return to the ground. However, Jeannie got Haji to agree to one final night together for her and Tony, allowing Jeannie to say farewell to Tony in her heart. Jeannie then alters the bedroom and then the house to what it might look like if Tony was a bachelor; doubtless, Haji arranged for everyone to forget about Jeannie.

With T.J., Jeannie moves on with her life. The final scene shows Jeannie and Tony passing each other on the street, and Jeannie magically gets Tony's attention, indicating that they will in fact find each other again. Before the movie ends, Jeannie says "Haji made me agree to an ending. He never said there couldn't be a new beginning." The movie ends with Tony following Jeannie down the street.

Second Movie: I Still Dream of Jeannie


Airdate: October 20, 1991

Colonel Tony Nelson is on a top-secret space mission for NASA and Jeannie does not know of his whereabouts or when he'll be returning home to hear their son Tony Jr.'s academic presentation speech. When Jeannie goes to NASA to question General Wescott about her husband's mission, he refuses to cooperate. To make matters worse, her jealous and mischievous twin sister Jeannie II reminds Sham-Ir (the chief genie) that Jeannie cannot remain in the plane of reality for more than three months without an earthly master, and Tony has been away for a long time. Sham-Ir gives Jeannie two weeks to either find her husband or a new master (a single male only) or else she must return to Mesopotamia forever. So Jeannie begins her desperate search for a temporary master which leads her to a singles bar and other misadventures.

Plot
The animated series features the eponymous 2,000-year-old genie character (voiced by Julie McWhirter) with her master and love interest Corey Anders (voiced by Mark Hamill), a high school student, and his best friend Henry Glopp (voiced by Bob Hastings).

Many of Corey and Henry's misadventures often involved run-ins with their rival, S. Melvin Farthinghill (voiced by Tommy Cook), a snooty rich kid and the series' antagonist whom Henry often addressed as "Smellvin" or "Smelly." S. Melvin was often a competitor with Corey when it came to girls, undermining his efforts at every turn. Comedian and former Three Stooges star Joe Besser voiced Babu, a cowardly, bumbling, immature genie-in-training under Jeannie's charge. His typical magic words are "Yapple Dapple!" which usually gets everyone around him into a pickle, even himself. Babu normally annoyed almost everyone he met because he gets so nervous, he could never control his powers. Jeannie would always try to help Corey with his problems, using magic. She was also in love with him and whenever some other girl tried to get with him, she'd sabotage everything.

Unlike the blonde character from I Dream of Jeannie (portrayed by Barbara Eden), the animated Jeannie was a ponytailed redhead. Jeannie could use her magical powers by crossing her arms and whipping her ponytail instead of blinking her eyes. On September 15, 1973, Jeannie and Babu made one guest appearance on The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Four years later, Babu alone appeared on Laff-A-Lympics. The early art of the production for the Laff-a-Lympics showed Jeannie as well as Josie and the Pussycats as members of the "Scooby Doobies" team, but legal problems with Columbia Pictures Television, Screen Gems' successor, prevented it (Hanna-Barbera owned Babu, but Columbia controlled all rights to Jeannie's image). In 1977, episodes of Jeannie were serialized on the syndicated weekday series Fred Flintstone and Friends.

Due to this series' connection with I Dream of Jeannie, this is one of only two Hanna-Barbera produced series since Hanna-Barbera's 1967 sale to Taft Broadcasting that are owned outright by Sony Pictures Television, whose predecessor Screen Gems once had a partnership with Hanna-Barbera; the other is Partridge Family 2200 A.D., because of its ties to The Partridge Family (the copyrights to both animated series are currently held by SPT).

Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the show contained a laugh track created by the studio.