Background The series was created and produced 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, inspired by the 1964 film
The Brass Bottle, conceived of the idea for a beautiful female genie. Both
I Dream of Jeannie and
Bewitched were
Screen Gems productions. When casting was opened for the role of Jeannie, producer Sidney Sheldon couldn't find an actress who could play the role the way he'd written it. He had one specific rule: he didn't want a blonde genie because that would make the character too similar to the
Bewitched lead character. However, after many unsuccessful auditions, he called Barbara Eden's agent. (Coincidentally, Eden had co-starred in
The Brass Bottle as Sylvia Kenton.) The show debuted on Saturday, September 18, 1965, at 8 pm on NBC. NBC began broadcasting most of its prime-time television lineup in color in the fall of
1965, which made
Jeannie one of two programs that remained in black and white; in
Jeannie's case, it was to facilitate the special photographic effects on magic sequences. By the second season, visual effects in color were possible. By
1966, all prime-time series in the United States were shot in color. Sheldon originally wanted to film season one in color, but NBC did not want to pay the extra expense; the network (and Screen Gems) believed the series would not make it to a second season. Sheldon offered to pay the extra $400 an episode needed for color filming at the beginning of the series, but Screen Gems executive Jerry Hyams advised him: "Sidney, don't throw your money away."
Opening sequence The first few episodes after the pilot (episodes two through eight) used a non-animated, expository opening narrated by
Paul Frees; the narration mentions that Nelson lived in "a mythical town" named "Cocoa Beach" in "a mythical state called 'Florida'". The remaining episodes of the first season featured an animated sequence that was redone and expanded in season two, at which point the show switched from black and white to color. This new sequence, used in seasons 2–5, featured an animated depiction of the initial meeting in the pilot episode, with Captain Nelson's space capsule splashing down on the beach, and Jeannie dancing out of her bottle (modified to reflect its new decoration) and then kissing Nelson before the bottle sucks her back in at the end. Both original versions of the show's animated opening sequence were created by animator
Friz Freleng.
Setting Although the series was set in and around what was then known as
Cape Kennedy, Florida, and Major Nelson lived at 1020 Palm Drive in nearby
Cocoa Beach, filming took place in California. The exterior of the building where Nelson and Major Healey had offices was actually the main building at the NASA Flight Research Center (renamed as the "NASA Dryden Flight Research Center" in March 1976 and as the "
Armstrong Flight Research Center" in 2014) at
Edwards Air Force Base, north of Los Angeles. "If you look at some of those old episodes, it's supposed to be shot in Cocoa Beach, but in the background you have mountains—the Hollywood Hills," Bill Daily said. In fact, the home used as Major Nelson's (also used as the Anderson house in
Father Knows Best, and then the home of Mr. Wilson in
Dennis the Menace) was located at the
Warner Bros. Ranch, in Burbank (on Blondie Street). Many exteriors were filmed at this facility. Interior filming was done at the
Sunset Gower Studios (the original
Columbia Pictures studio lot) in Hollywood. The cast and crew only made two visits to Florida's
Space Coast, both in 1969. On June 27, a parade in Cocoa Beach escorted Eden and the rest of the cast to Cocoa Beach City Hall, where she was greeted by fans and city officials. They were then taken to
LC-43 at Cape Canaveral, where Eden pressed a button to launch a
Loki-Dart weather rocket. They had dinner at Bernard's Surf, where Eden was given the State of Florida's Commodore Award for outstanding acting. Later, the entourage went to Lee Caron's Carnival Club, where Eden was showered with gifts and kissed astronaut
Buzz Aldrin on the cheek, just two weeks before the
Apollo 11 launch. Eden returned 27 years later, in July 1996, as a featured speaker for Space Days at the
Kennedy Space Center. Cocoa Beach Mayor Joe Morgan presented her with an "I Dream of Jeannie Lane" street sign, which was later installed on a short street off
Florida State Road A1A near Lori Wilson Park.
Jeannie's origin In the first season, the audience learns that Jeannie had originally been a mortal human, that she had been turned into a genie by "The Blue Djinn," and that her family is "just peasants from the old country". The topic is revisited in season two in the episode "How to be a Genie in 10 Easy Lessons", though nothing is made clear concerning her origin. In the third season, Jeannie's origin is
retconned, and the dialog implies she'd always been a genie. All her relatives are also depicted as genies, including, by the fourth season, her mother (also played by Barbara Eden beginning in Season 4, Episode 2 "Jeannie and the Wild Pipchicks"). This new narrative concerning her origins was retained for the rest of the series.
Theme music The first-season theme music was an instrumental jazz waltz written by Richard Wess. Sidney Sheldon became dissatisfied with Wess's theme and musical score. From the second season on, it was replaced by a new theme titled "Jeannie", composed by
Hugo Montenegro with lyrics by
Buddy Kaye. Episodes 20 and 25 used a rerecorded ending of "Jeannie" for the closing credits with new, longer drum breaks and a different closing riff. The lyrics were never used in the show. Songwriters
Gerry Goffin and
Carole King wrote a theme, called "Jeannie", for Sidney Sheldon before the series started, but it was not used. A popular cover version of the
Jeannie theme was released in 1985 in the compilation ''
Television's Greatest Hits: 65 TV Themes! From the 50's and 60's'' by
TVT Records. This recording was later sampled in several songs, such as
DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's debut single "
Girls Ain't Nothing but Trouble" (from their 1987 debut album
Rock the House), and also for the
Ben Liebrand 1990 re-release of American hip-hop artist
Dimples D.'s single, "
Sucker DJ".
DNA featuring
Suzanne Vega released "
Tom's Diner" in 1990. A compilation album called ''Tom's Album'' the following year included variations on the song; one of these was "Jeannie's Diner" by
Mark Jonathan Davis, which mashes up the Vega/DNA song with the Montenegro theme. This track was used by
Nick at Nite for promos of its
I Dream of Jeannie reruns.
The bottle , Ireland) Jeannie's iconic bottle was not created for the show. The actual bottle was a special Christmas 1964
Jim Beam liquor decanter containing "Beam's Choice"
bourbon whiskey. It was designed by Roy Kramer for the Wheaton Bottle Company. For years, Sidney Sheldon was said to have 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's strong evidence, however, that first-season director
Gene Nelson saw one in a liquor store, bought it, and brought it to Sheldon. Jeannie's bottle was a dark, smoke-green color, with a painted gold-leaf pattern (to make it look like an antique) during the first season. The plot description of the pilot episode in
TV Guide in September 1965 referred to it as a "green bottle". In that 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 show's art director came up with a brightly colored purple bottle to replace the original. The later-colorized version of the show's first season tried to make the smoked glass look of the original bottle look purple to match the look of the bottle used in the second through fifth seasons. The first-season bottle had a clear glass stopper that Tony took from a 1956 Old Grand-Dad Bourbon bottle in his home, since the original stopper was left behind on the beach where Tony found Jeannie. In the first color episode, Jeannie returns to the beach, and her bottle is seen to have its original stopper (painted to match the bottle), presumably retrieved by her upon her return there. The rest of the TV series (and the films) used the original bottle stopper. (During some close-ups, one can still see the plastic rings that hold the cork part of the stopper in place.) During the first (black and white) season, the smoke effect was usually a screen overlay of billowing smoke, sometimes combined with animation. Early color episodes used a purely animated smoke effect. Sometime later, a live smoke pack, lifted out of the bottle on a wire, was used. Jeannie's color-episodes bottle was painted mainly in pinks and purples, while the bottle for the Blue Djinn was a first-season design with a heavy green wash; Jeannie's sister's bottle was simply a plain, unpainted Jim Beam bottle. No one knows exactly how many bottles were used during the show, but members of the production crew have estimated that around 12 bottles in all were painted and used. The stunt bottle, used mostly for the smoke effect, was broken frequently by the heat and chemicals used to produce Jeannie's smoke. In the pilot episode, several bottles were used for the opening scene on the beach; one was drilled through the bottom for smoke, and another was used to roll across the sand and slip into Tony's pack. Two bottles were used from promotional tours to kick off the first season, and one bottle was used for the first-season production. Barbara Eden got to keep the color stunt bottle used on the last day of filming the final episode of the series. It was given to her by her makeup woman after the show was canceled and while it was on hiatus. According to the DVD release of the first season, Bill Daily owned an original bottle, and according to the
Donny & Marie talk show, Larry Hagman also owned an original bottle. In the third-to-last episode, "Hurricane Jeannie", Nelson dreams that Dr. Bellows discovers Jeannie's secret, and that Jeannie's bottle is broken when dropped. A broken bottle is shown on camera. This was intended to be the series' final episode and is often shown that way in syndication. (October 7, 1969)
Multi-part story arcs On several occasions, multipart story arcs were created to serve as backgrounds for national contests. During the second season, in a story that is the focus of a two-part episode and a peripheral plot of two further episodes (the "Guess Jeannie's Birthday" contest began with the opening two-part episode on November 14, 1966, concluding with the name of the winner revealed after the end of the fourth episode, "My Master, the Great Caruso", on December 5), it was established that Jeannie did not know her birthday, and her family members could not 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. The year is quickly established as 64 BC, but only Roger is privy to the exact date, and he decides to make a game out of revealing it. This date became the basis of the contest. Jeannie finally forces it out of him at the end of the fourth episode: April 1. In a third-season four-part episode ("Genie, Genie, Who's Got the Genie?" January 16 – February 6, 1968), Jeannie is locked in a safe bound for the Moon. Any attempt to force the safe or use the wrong combination will destroy it with an explosive. Jeannie is in there so long that whoever opens the safe will become her master. The episodes spread out over four weeks, during which a contest was held to guess the safe's combination. This explains why Larry Hagman is never seen saying the combination out loud: His mouth is hidden behind the safe, or the shot is on Jeannie when he says it. The combination was not decided until just before the episode aired, with Hagman's voice dubbed in. Over the closing credits, Barbara Eden announced and congratulated the contest winner, with 4–9–7 as the winning combination. In the fourth season, a two-part episode, "The Case of My Vanishing Master" (January 6–13, 1969), concerned Tony's being taken to a secret location somewhere in the world while a perfect double takes his place at home. A contest was held to guess the location to which Tony had been taken. Unlike in earlier contests, the answer was not revealed in an episode. At the end of "Invisible House For Sale" (February 3, 1969), a special "contest epilogue" had Jeannie and Tony reveal the "secret location",
Puerto Rico, followed by the name of the "Grand Prize Winner". == Release ==