I Dream of Jeannie: Inconsistencies Discovered, History Gone Wild (1 Viewer)

[FrancisP]

Larry Hagman was the perfect straight man. The expressions on his face when there was chaos going on was priceless. A goodexample of agman and Daily's talents were in Invisibe House For Sale. When Hagman finds Jeannie has made his house inisible, he and Bill Daily do a pantomine like there was a house there. They pulled it off beautifully.

For example, Hagman acts like he's opening and slamming the door shut. Bill Daily acts like the door was slammed in his face.


I have to agree. The movies were weak. The reworked plots never worked. Not having Larry Hagman didn't help. Apparently money was the issue in the first one and his schedule was in the second one. What was interesting was that Eden says she took the Dallas role as a favor to Hagman and she was trying very hard to get Hagman to do the second moie but Hagman was on acation between seasons. Also the trouble is that slapstick humor is out of favor. That was what made the series work. My favorite is the episode with the pipchicks.

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by calypso

My favorite is the episode with the pipchicks.

Yes, two more great eps that I always enjoy.

 

[calypso]

I have to say that Larry Hagman was perfect as a comedian. His reactions to every situation were as if Jeannie was a real person. I just think that his talent was wasted on Dallas. While it was a serious role, not many fans of his appreciate his work on Dallas as they do with I Dream of Jeannie. The thing was that I always thought of him as a straight man in IDoJ simply because he always tried to portray Tony Nelson as a serious character. Roger Healy, the character, always tried too hard to muck things up and I never really liked that character anyway.


I think, with the exception of Bill Daily (Roger Nealy), and the antics of Jeannie, that the majority of the cast always played their roles with a serious side to them.


The problem is that Bewitched also suffered from the same thing, story-wise. In my opinion, the series started going downhill when Dick York was forced to leave the series due to his back problems. Add to that problem that Dick Sargent wasn't all that convincing as Darrin Stevens.


I Dream of Jeannie has always felt more free than Bewitched did. The problem is that Bewitched always took itself too seriously. I still love both shows and I think that if Bewitched didn't have Agnes Moorehead, that the series might not have lasted as long as it did. I Dream of Jeannie could have lasted, at least, another season or two ... it would have been hilarious to see how Tony and Jeannie's children would have figured into the series ... but, we never got the chance to see that.

 

[David*P]

Over the past year my friend and I have been having what we term "IDOJ Club"...sorta like Oprah's book club, but we watch an episode and then discuss it through email. We are now down to the last two episodes which we will watch next week, though we watched them in the order they were to air (according to "Diary of a Genie" by Richard D. Barnes) which means we watched "My Master, the Chili King" today and then we'll watch "One Jeannie Beats Four of a Kind" and then "Hurricane Jeannie".


Having watched the series all the way through I can say that when IDOJ was good it was really good but when it was bad, it was really bad. The Fourth Season has the majority of the worst episodes. I was really shocked but some of the writing and the special effects were truly horrible. The Fifth Season is all right and is one of my favorites but there are some true duds like the Chili King.


Regardless of the bad episodes, I LOVE IDOJ, and will continue to watch it. However, I do watch BW every day. I watch at least two episodes a day.

 

[calypso]

I hear you. I'm about to start watching the series again beginning with Season 1. This will be the third time in as many weeks that I've sat through and watched the series from beginning to end.

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by David*P


Having watched the series all the way through I can say that when IDOJ was good it was really good but when it was bad, it was really bad. The Fourth Season has the majority of the worst episodes. I was really shocked but some of the writing and the special effects were truly horrible. The Fifth Season is all right and is one of my favorites but there are some true duds like the Chili King.


Regardless of the bad episodes, I LOVE IDOJ, and will continue to watch it. However, I do watch BW every day. I watch at least two episodes a day.

So true! I need to count up the number of times they resorted to Jeannie getting knocked unconcious at a crucial moment. I don't think the writing or the directing holds up nearly as well as Bewitched, but it's still a sweet, fun show.