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The 1960s saw some very good to classic shows. One doesn't have to have been born then or before to feel that way, speaking as someone born in the 1990s but has always been fascinated by older shows. 'I Dream of Jeannie' is one such show, has much enjoyment still and perhaps deserves more credit.

'I Dream of Jeannie', with the unique (then and even now) concept of the pairing of a genie and an astronaut, is a dream to watch when at its best and is still watchable when it isn't quite. Like 'Bewitched', a show that is often compared with 'I Dream of Jeannie' (put them about equal myself), the early seasons fare better than the later ones, where the stories do start to lack freshness and the sexual tension is stronger in the earlier seasons.

Also, 'I Dream of Jeannie' can have some sloppy continuity errors and can fall into silliness, like going back in time in Persia.

On the other hand, 'I Dream of Jeannie' is particularly noteworthy for the very likable and memorable assortment of characters, the regulars are not easy to forget and the supporting/secondary cast are really good fun, and a great cast.

Barbara Eden is beautiful, charming and sensual, you would be hard pressed to find genies portrayed in this way. Larry Hagman's mannerisms are a true joy and Hagman has wonderful comic timing and endearment that is deserving of more credit. His chemistry with Eden is one of a kind, one of television's finest ever chemistries and a huge part of the show's appeal.

There has probably never been a funnier doctor in television than the hilariously prissy one portrayed by Hayden Rorke. Bill Daily's Healey doesn't develop as much, or as much as could, but Daily clearly has fun with the character and makes it his own.

Production values were clearly made with love and affection, with beautiful use of both black and white and colour, and the slick photography complements them well. For the 60s, the show does still look pretty good. Like with 'Bewitched', the effects are not always special (particularly early on) and there could have been more of them but most of the time they are hardly slapdash and have real charm. The bottle is famous for good reason.

Music is dynamic and groovy, with all the theme music tunes being noteworthy. The animated opening sequence is both beautiful and lively and is utilised cleverly. The expository narration of the first few episodes, up to episode 8, delivered by Paul Frees was not used as much and not as striking as the animated sequence, but nonetheless was interesting and made its mark.

Writing is funny, snappy, charming and thoughtful, while the stories have magic, sexual tension, charm and immense likability on the most part, though the earlier seasons have more freshness.

Overall, a dream to watch. 8/10 Bethany Cox

In my view, this is one of the top 10 or 15 sitcoms ever, and it certainly is one of my personal favorites. Its misfortune was to be produced during an era full of silly, mostly non-topical comedies (Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, My Favorite Martian and so on) and I think it's been underrated because of that.

But sit down sometime and take a good look. You'll see a spirited ensemble performance from the actors, with standout work from Larry Hagman and Hayden Rorke. I don't think Hagman ever got enough credit for the wonderfully manic and nervous mannerisms that made Major Nelson so damn funny and endearing. And Rorke's prissy and arrogant Dr. Bellows was a terrific comic foil -- cartoonish in the best sense of that word.

Bill Daily did a good comic turn as Major Healy, although I think his character never was allowed to develop as much as Hagman's and Rorke's. (His finest comic hour was to come, on "The Bob Newhart Show.") And of course, there was the gorgeous Barbara Eden as Jeannie, sprightly and innocent and an excellent counterpoint to Hagman's world-weary astronaut. The romantic chemistry between Jeannie and Tony was one of the strongest in TV history.

The show was fast-paced, rarely sappy, full of pleasant "NBC Peacock" colors, and a showcase for fine comic timing and physical slapstick.

Much as "The Addams Family" had to be compared to "The Munsters," "I Dream of Jeannie" will perpetually be held up to scrutiny against "Bewitched" as two 1960s sitcoms with similar appearing concepts. In this case, a magical woman complicates the life of a mortal man, even as she tries to help him through his problems.

But let's stay on topic. NASA Astronaut Captain Anthony Nelson (Larry Hagman), on a space mission, went up, but something went wrong and they had to bring him down. His capsule came to earth on a tiny desert island where he discovers a bottle; he opens it and in a puff of smoke a genie (Barbara Eden) appears. She explains that because he freed her, she is his, forever, then blinks and a rescue helicopter appears.

When she follows him home, things instantly become complicated. His best friend, Captain Roger Healey (Bill Daily) gets in on the secret in short order, and helps Tony with his fiancé, who happens to be the General's daughter! Eventually, that engagement got broken off, leaving Tony free to play the field, and Jeannie to get angry about his other women. And the two buddies get promotions from Captains to Majors.

Lots more complications, like Jeannie's Sister, an evil, raven haired twin who was out to enslave Nelson for her boy toy, The Blue Djinn turns up (played by Eden's husband at the time, Michael Ansara), who first put Jeannie into the bottle, and even her dog Djinn Djinn (didn't the writers know any other Arabic words?) who had a penchant for disappearing and then tearing any uniform he saw to shreds... not a good thing on an Air Force Base!

The charm of the show was in Hagman's incredible ability to go from deadpan to fully reactionary on a dime (something he was required to do in nearly every episode), and Eden's brilliance at playing the petulant brat still learning about the 20th Century World, and with whom no one could be angry for very long. Daily was a great foil for both of them, (though I never understood why his uniform was GREEN) and of course, there was Dr. Bellows (the incomparable Hayden Roarke), intrepid base psychiatrist, who always knew something funny was going on, but could never quite prove it to anyone. Certainly part of the show's success was in his slow burns after whatever he was going to prove to whichever General was in command didn't pan out!

Though one has to wonder how they managed to do a contemporary mid 1960s program on and around a Military installation without so much as a passing reference to Vietnam! Yes, it's NASA, but still! Air Force Generals were on duty! Of course, in the end, it turned out to be for the best, as not referencing the war was likely part of the reason a diversionary program like this was on the air in the first place: all part of the magical, mystical lineup of comedy programs all of the networks were airing during the 1960s through the 1970s, designed to divert audiences from the newscasts of the day.

The irony of the censors not permitting Eden's belly button to be shown was that on the same network (NBC) and during the same hour (8pm, before "Jeannie" moved to 7:30 in its final seasons), "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" had Bikini clad Goldie Hawn fully exposed and dancing in body paint!

Despite the stock footage of Atlas rockets and Gemini missions, there is a certain timeless quality to the series and an obvious charm and sweetness that won't soon wane. It's certainly one of the best "special effects" sitcoms of all time, and is genuinely one of the funniest.

This show still makes me laugh after all these years. In fact, I prefer it to some of the rubbish that's on TV now. It was clean fun, despite the fact that Barbara Eden was half-exposed.

I was never a fan of "Bewitched" and still cannot understand the popularity of that show compared with "Jeannie". I always thought "Jeannie" was much, much funnier than "Bewitched".

I read some other posts where people are waxing philosophic about the the deeper meaning of "Jeannie"--having something to do with appealing to our prurient instincts. The fact is that the show was extremely funny and still is. The main reason for the success was the two leads in Eden and Hagman. Both were fine comic actors. Hagman's ability to employ slapstick humor made him funny. Barbara Eden was just as talented: her genius is exemplified when she plays her sister. You can barely tell it's the same person. She was every man's dream not just for her looks, but her bubbly personality.

A classic show that will hold up for years to come.

To tell you the truth, I was never a fan of "I Dream of Jeannie" but I did see the reruns as a child when they showed reruns on local stations. I love Barbara Eden as Jeannie and Larry Hagman as her master. Although now several years later, I felt the show degrades Jeannie in the power of a man. I don't think it was ever meant to be sexist since it was over forty years ago. Still, the marvelous Sidney Sheldon did a fantastic job in writing the series which only lasted five years maybe it was because of the women's liberation movement. Regardless, I did enjoy the on screen chemistry between Hagman and Eden. Nobody could ever fill Eden's shoes as Jeannie. While there is production for an updated movie version, nobody could fill Jeannie's shoes like Barbara Eden.

I had the honor to chat with Sidney Sheldon and one question I had was how did he get this show past the censors during the 1960's? Of course, there was the controversy over whether or not Barbara Eden's navel could be seen on television (which was addressed on another network during her appearance on the Smothers Brothers comedy hour).

As competition against ABC's Bewitched, Jeannie had the advantage of heightened sexual tension as the blonde beauty Barbara Eden ran around half naked begging to serve Larry Hagman. Only the quintessential comic male of the 1960's could exist in a scenario like that and milk it for so many years.

I only wish Barbara's other series (How to Marry a Millionaire) had airtime on TV Land...

Ironically due to the nature of the censorship on television rulings Barbara Eden was unable to display her belly button at the time, so accordingly her costume was suitably adjusted. The later made for television movie where she wore a white costume, (and still looked great)... was the first time Genie was allowed to show off her belly button, my how television has changed. It is hard to believe that Hagman would go on to play the Texas badman in "Dallas", Yet Barbara Eden was unheard of again in New Zealand until "Harper Valley PTA" I still get goosebumps when I hear that music. Even today the influence of the programme can be seen in the likes of "Charmed", and even in the 3d cartoon series "Bratz" my niece was watching the other day, it really was a magic show.

Of course this belongs to an era when producers took the silliest of ideas and treated them like the lost works of Shakespeare (a premise that could arguably be made for today's shows as well). But in fact this entry is not "typical" for the era, to the contrary, it set the bar and defined how this formula could be done (then) and would be done (now). First, if you want to have some fun, follow the IMDb link for Sidney Sheldon, the creator. His body of work is so prolific and contains so many well-know names, you will for a moment think you are in someone's Playlist of classic hits. This was a man who knew how to work a concept. Next, the casting. Larry Hagman became known as one of the most bankable TV stars of all time and -- get this -- here he was playing straight man to the real star, Barbara Eden. TV historians will tell you that Eden was considered too "old" for the part (indeed, too old to play a sexy temptress) and keep in mind that this was an era in Hollywood when, generally, actresses were considered over the hill at 35 (Look how old Anne Bancroft was in the Graduate -- not old at all, yet cast as the "mother" role). Eden got the part anyway and the rest is history. The chemistry between Hagman and Eden was so strong (not to mention the subliminal pitch to millions of male viewers that it was possible to control the fairer sex by, er, rubbing a lamp) that the series was not only a hit, but Eden (like Elizabeth Montgomery) became a TV icon, and would continue doing popular "movies of the week" for decades to come.

Debuting about the time that our space program started catching up with the Soviets, this series had astronaut Larry Hagman crash landing somewhere in the Arabian sea and finding on a deserted island an old bottle. Inside said bottle was a genie named Jeannie and she was delightfully and naively played by Barbara Eden.

Somehow Hagman got the bottle back home to Florida where he lived the better to be near his work at Cape Kennedy. Eden lived in the bottle which was now in Hagman's home.

It was when she was trying to do something to please her Master and was seen doing same that questions of morality and propriety soon emerged. In the case of fellow astronaut and neighbor Bill Daily it was curiosity turning to envy.

But when the chief physician of NASA Hayden Rorke was asking them it became sticky just about every episode. He was relentlessly curious about the strange doings in the Hagman household, remained so for the entire series run.

Larry Hagman's astronaut Tony Nelson was about as different as J.R. Ewing you can get. He was an All American hero type, nice guy, could be a bit of a klutz. Bill Daily was goofy and fun as fellow astronaut Roger Healey. No one was ever more officious than Hayden Rorke as Dr. Bellows.

Still the red blooded American male always hoped that he would find a bottle with a genie and it would look like Barbara Eden. Answering his every beck and call.

I'm truly by horrified by just how terrible this show is. When I was a child watching it in reruns, I thought it was funny. As an adult, Jeannie makes me see red. I cannot get over how immature, silly, child-like, petulant, and impulsive she is. I still love Tony, Roger and Dr. Bellows but I can't watch anymore.

I would say that "I Dream of Jeannie," "Bewitched" and "The Flying Nun" constitute the trifecta of ultimate 1960's TV shows. That is, they were all fantasies and had very loony premises. In all three cases, a new kind of person enters the scene and upsets the status quo.

In Jeannie's case, when Maj. Nelson brings her home, she turns Cocoa Beach, Florida, upside down. The whole city goes from being a drab, old-order bastion, to a wacky, hippie-like enclave. In that sense, Jeannie's colorful outfit is a great contrast to Maj. Nelson's monochromatic uniform.

On a given episode, Maj. Nelson can expect Jeannie to do something like put an elephant in his house or repaint his office like an Arabian palace. Her antics always catch the attention of psychiatrist Dr. Bellows, who reports it to the general. But, as is always the case in silly comedy, she fixes it before Dr. Bellows can show the general, and Dr. Bellows ends up looking like an imbecile.

Maj. Nelson's hopeless romantic friend, Maj. Healey, hilariously has the worst luck of all. Every time he asks Jeannie for help, it always gets him in trouble.

One of the funniest aspects of this show is the fact that even people who do not know that Jeannie exists get affected by her magic. Dr. and Mrs. Bellows suffer the most, but even guest characters see their lives turned crazy when some misused magic messes something up.

So that's "IDOJ." This is one show that I never miss a chance to watch on TVLand. One thing that would have been really neat would have been if Jeannie and Samantha ("Bewitched") could have teamed up. Knowing what each woman did individually, just imagine what they could have done if they had combined their magic!

In conclusion, I will always dream of Jeannie.

...mainly for Barbara Eden. She was, and always will be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Ever since I was a kid and first saw her as Jeannie, I was hooked. The show was corny but funny and I still watch it to this day. But there isn't one actress in Hollywood today that could compare to her beauty. Even today, she's gorgeous.

If there is a TV show that has aired on Television for multiple generation and remained as fresh as when it first came out, it has got to be I dream of Jeannie. It is funny as hell, it uplifts your spirits whenever your feeling down. Everything about it is designed to bring a smile on your face. Quite possibly my favorite show from the 60s, and even in 2021, I still watch it and laugh as hard as I do when I watch some of the funniest show of today's generation. A feel good show that is hardly forgetable, and that has marked generations.

A chilled show. It had some great production, stories, oldies comedy and characters. Jeanie should still be relevant today. She's an iCON without the support of the "you know what agenda". I dream of Jeanie held her own really well in a time of growth in the tv world.

Verdict: If I had 3 wishes I'd wish for my own genie.

She was age 35 when it finished. Can you believe it? What male viewer didn't believe that Tony and Jennie were "sexually active"? Such jokes as Tony suggesting she watch TV or rest in her bottle? Come on now... No belly button, just like Yul Brenner in The 10 Commandments! How silly! Barbara Eden was quite beautiful and had a terrific figure. She knew it, of course. Before "Jeannie" she made quite a few bad and a few good movies under contract to 20th Century Fox. She plays a shy librarian that finds her sexuality in "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao". Also quite bad in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" movie Jeannie never appeared to be stupid and was often mischievous and humorous. She was a very under-rated actress. At first her character was quite naive until she figured out how modern life worked.. Pretty good efx considering it was the mid 1960's. I rate it "9" because it's Barbara Eden. What a knockout! (Jeannieisms such as: "A camel is still a more reliable means of transportation, Master.") Like the original series of "Star Trek", many good, clever and terrible episodes over 5 seasons. I think that getting married was an intentional finish to the series. 139 episodes is an awful lot of film. I am sure her genie costume needed repair!

I guess I'm just a "Bewitched" kinda guy. While I watched IDOJ (during it's original run-yikes!) I always felt she was a poor step-sister to Samatha and the gang. Jeanne was very child-like, throwing tantrums, getting jealous, and if not getting her way she would do some Jeanne maneuver to screw up the situation. While I liked Tony and his cool bachelor pad of season one, I never liked Major Bellows or the Admiral. The secondary characters were always the same, Bellows always thinks he has Tony caught in his trap, only to find in the end that his scheme didn't pan out.

Of course, I can't dismiss the show totally. Jeanne's evil sister and the occasional appearance of the Blue Gin added much needed momentum to a show that relied heavily on mayhem and mischief from Jeanne. Larry Hagman, as Major Nelson, turned out to be a comedic genius during the show, who would have known? Once Jeanne and Tony married, the show went from a situation comedy to essentially a drama about married life. A true death knell for any show, think "Get Smart." On a parting thought, I will admit that Jeanne's bottle was way cool and I have a Jim Beam bottle on my coffee table as a reminder of the show, but alas, no circular couch inside.

For those born on another planet or under the age of 40, Eden played a genie discovered and released by astronauts Hagman and Dailey, bound to permanently serve Hagman. In my book, Barbara Eden is the most attractive female actress ever, period. You could have tough competition for second, maybe Julie Christie, Deborah Paget or Kim Novak could fight it out. Eden's on-screen personality certainly enhances her looks, particularly as the please-at-all-costs, devoted but perpetually flaky Jeannie. Just the concept with a stunner like Eden in the lead role makes this hard to dismiss, as it was there was Hagman and Dailey, both accomplished comedic actors, along for the ride. They pretty much exhausted the ways to confuse Dr. Bellows, but who the heck cares? I still try and watch an episode of this (from WGN), haven't tired of it yet. Wouldn't work today because they would never have the discipline to play this plot out with the essential innocence intact, but for me this is in the top ten TV sitcoms of all time.

This entertaining sitcom from the 1960's is a fun little bit of fluff. It's sort of in the same league league with Bewitched and Gilligan's Island, though not quite as masterful as the crazy Beverly Hillbillies. To this day when I come across Jeannie in re runs, I still often tune in.

The series chronicles the assorted adventures of a NASA astronaut, Major Tony Nelson, who discovers on a beach a bottle containing a genie. He releases the beautiful blonde named Jeannie, who had been trapped inside 2000 years earlier in Babylon. Jeannie can materialize objects or alter situations, using her determined crossing of the arms maneuver and blinking her eyes. Always far too eager to please, she uses her powers to serve her new master, Major Nelson, even when he would rather not be served! Only Tony's friend, Major Roger Healey, is aware of his pal's new genie companion.

The acting is stellar in this tale. Barbara Eden makes a beautiful, zany, and quite endearing Jeannie who is typically clad in harem pants. Larry Hagman, in his pre Dallas days, portrays convincingly the beleaguered and ultimately enamoured astronaut, Major Nelson, who is usually quite distraught while trying to undo or cover up Jeannie's latest magic tricks. By the way, he closes the lid on her bottle to contain her whenever she grows too out of hand!

Jeannie's antics in Cocoa Beach, Florida make for some hilarious scenarios. She has, for example, blinked an elephant into Tony's house or spirited him back to ancient Persia. Jeannie develops quite a determined affection for her poor, hapless master. At first they are just friends but eventually, against his better judgment, Tony is compelled to respond in kind to this gorgeous and totally devoted female. Meanwhile, she is quite jealous of any potential love interest her master might have and constantly doing her little "pranks" to make HIM jealous, sometimes with her friend, the womanizing Major Healey, in cahoots.

They must keep Jeannie's identity secret from the Air Force psychiatrist, Colonel Bellowes, who frequently suspects something is amiss but comes up short in finding convincing evidence for others who question his tall stories. Whenever he reports the strange goings on with this astronaut, between Tony, Roger, and Jeannie herself, they manage to get the problem fixed up so that the poor Colonel comes across as a total idiot.

All in all, it's a cute and harmless show, quite entertaining escapist drivel that we could actually use more of these days. The sort of silly nonsense you might like to watch with your feet up when you get home from work and would like to turn your brain completely off for half an hour.

The airwaves are littered with the rotting corpses of Jeannie-wannabes (USA's "Weird Science", "You Wish", "Just Our Luck", et al.) trying -- and failing -- to capture the magic of the original.

Jeannie had something Samantha lacked: ATTITUDE. Jeannie is one character that, IMO, will never go out of date; she was nowhere near as domesticated as Samantha. Jeannie had charm, spunk, nerve, and guts -- qualities that were sorely lacking in many of her her pretenders. This is to say nothing of the great Barbara Eden filling her harem pants.

Jeannie is a classic character who will never go out of style.

The principal flaw of most alleged comedies is that they turn on audience enjoyment of the weakness -- including but not restricted to out-and-out stupidity -- of some or all of the characters.

The principal flaw of most series or movies about characters of awesome power is that the writers don't know how to write real challenges for such characters, and thus must write such characters so that they are too stupid to easily overcome otherwise undaunting challenges.

I Dream of Jeannie was a sitcom about a character of awesome power. Unsurprisingly, it portrays a world filled exclusively with fools.

Major Nelson's challenge in each episode is to conceal the fact that he is bonded to a genie. He has unlimited wishes, and his genie is sufficiently power to eliminate all evidence, including human memory. But somehow the challenge takes him a full episode to meet, each episode.

Of course, with the hero being such a fool, all of the antagonists too are fools, so that they don't overcome him (either within the story, or as potential objects of viewer affection).

Indeed, the audience is presumed to be so fond of watching fools that Major Healey, a fool amongst fools, is introduced to increase the presumed amusement.

Intelligent and humane viewers, however, will regard as intolerable this mindless fare exploiting the perverse appeal that some find in the ridicule or humiliation of others.

I Dream of Jeannie, starring Barbara Eden as the blithe, beautiful two thousand year old blonde genie named Jeannie and Larry Hagman the perpetually befuddled astronaut Anthony Nelson.

The series starts when U.S. Air Force Captain (later promoted to Major) Anthony Nelson's space shuttle launch experiences a third stage rocket malfunction causing NASA to scrub the mission. Where upon his Mercury style capsule splashes down of the coast of an uncharted South Pacific island.

After washing ashore Nelson constructs an S.O.S. signal from debris on the shoreline. In this debris is an ancient sand caked bottle of Arabic origin. After noticing the bottle won't seem to stay in one spot, Tony picks it up to examine it. After pulling out the cork, and dusting it off a cloud of smoke gushes forth. The mystical fog then takes the form of a beautiful blonde girl dressed in an Arabic harem costume. After her appearance she kneels before Tony and exclaims in Arabic/Farsee "Your wish is my command master."

After wishing her to speak English Jeannie summons a rescue helicopter. But when Tony realizes that he could never explain her to his superiors, his nosy doctor, Dr. Bellows or the outside world he tries to set her free.

After believing she has left, Tony boards the helicopter.

Little does he know that Jeannie has snuck along with him inside her bottle. Her love for her now ex-master is so strong she can not bear to be away from him. There for Jeannie freely remains as Tony's genie.

From September 18th, 1965 to September 7th, 1970 through 139 half hour episodes, the series depicts the wacky situations Jeannie gets her 'master' and his goofy best friend "Major Roger Healey" (Bill Daily) into, and out of. From showing Tony he truly did not love his first fiancée, to finally marrying him in 1970. As well as unintentionally driving a very sane Dr. Bellows out of his mind with her wacky, misguided magic.

Along the way appearances are made by Jeannie's mother, her crazy uncles, her magical and usually invisible dog Djinn-Djinn and her unforgetable, worldwide infamous, wicked, raven haired twin sister also named Jeannie. Not to mention a long line of celebrity guest stars from Sammy Davis Jr. to Groucho Marx.

I Dream of Jeannie is a classic show with eternal appeal. Each generation will enjoy this classic sitcom. I'm sure two thousand years from now our descendants will be watching the girl in the bottle play 'spin the astronaut!'