60 Fun Facts About I Dream of Jeannie

How many episodes of I Dream of Jeannie were made over its five-season run?

The show ran from September 1965 to May 1970 and was produced by Screen Gems, the same studio behind its rival Bewitched.

Tony Nelson holds what rank when the series begins?

He and Roger are both promoted to major late in the first season, which is why he is Major Nelson for most of the run.

Tony is an Air Force officer. Roger Healey serves in which branch?

Roger is girl-crazy and occasionally schemes to become Jeannie's master, though he generally respects her bond with Tony.

What is the name of the one-man capsule that comes down near Jeannie's island in the pilot?

The pilot, 'The Lady in the Bottle', has Tony free her out of gratitude, only for her to roll her bottle into his duffel bag.

How long had Jeannie been trapped in her bottle before Tony found her?

She speaks only Persian when she emerges, until Tony wishes she could speak English.

Colonel Alfred Bellows, played by Hayden Rorke, holds what job at NASA?

He is the only regular eyewitness to Jeannie's magic, and his attempts to prove Tony is crazy or hiding something always backfire.

What does Dr. Bellows proclaim after each of his attempts to expose Tony fails?

Rorke played Bellows in 129 of the episodes and returned for a brief appearance in the 1985 reunion film.

Under what circumstances does Jeannie lose her powers?

She cannot leave her bottle while it is corked, and sometimes the next person to pull the cork becomes her new master.

Jeannie's scheming sister, also played by Barbara Eden, is told apart on screen by what?

All female genies are named Jeannie, the show explains, and the sister keeps trying to steal Tony right up to after the wedding.

Which former child star played Jeannie's uncle Sully?

Coogan, Chaplin's co-star in The Kid and later Uncle Fester, has Sully summon Jeannie home to become queen.

What is the name of Jeannie's native country?

Its feud with neighboring Kasja is the plot engine that finally pushes Tony into proposing.

Sidney Sheldon created the show in response to the huge success of which rival ABC series?

He refused to cast a blonde genie for fear of copying that show's lead, until auditions failed and he called Barbara Eden's agent.

Which 1964 film co-starring Barbara Eden inspired Sheldon's idea of a beautiful female genie?

Eden played Sylvia Kenton in it, opposite Tony Randall and Burl Ives as the genie.

How much extra per episode did Sheldon offer to pay to shoot season one in colour?

An executive told him not to throw his money away, so season one stayed black and white, one of only two such shows left on NBC's schedule.

Which legendary Looney Tunes director created the show's animated opening sequences?

The season-two version, redone in color, shows the capsule splashing down and Jeannie dancing out of her bottle to kiss Nelson.

In which Florida town does Major Nelson live?

His address is 1020 Palm Drive; the early narrated opening called it 'a mythical town' in 'a mythical state called Florida'.

The building shown as Nelson and Healey's NASA offices was really a NASA center building at which California site?

Bill Daily liked to point out that the 'Florida' backgrounds had the Hollywood Hills in them.

The house used as Major Nelson's home had earlier been the family home on which sitcom?

The same Warner Bros. Ranch house on Blondie Street also served as Mr. Wilson's home in Dennis the Menace.

In June 1969 Barbara Eden kissed which astronaut on the cheek two weeks before his moon launch?

Earlier that day she pressed the button to launch a Loki-Dart weather rocket from Cape Canaveral.

Who cut the cake at the 1969 mock wedding of Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman staged for TV writers?

The stunt was timed to the December 2 broadcast of the nuptials episode.

When Eden returned to the Space Coast in 1996, the town honored the show with a street sign reading what?

It was installed on a short street off State Road A1A near Lori Wilson Park, where a roadside plaque followed in 2012.

According to the first season, who turned the once-mortal Jeannie into a genie?

Season three quietly retconned this so that she and all her relatives had always been genies.

Who composed the familiar 'Jeannie' theme used from the second season onward?

Buddy Kaye wrote lyrics for it that were never used on the show; the season-one theme had been a jazz waltz by Richard Wess.

Which famous songwriting duo wrote a theme called 'Jeannie' for the show that was never used?

Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote it for Sheldon before the series even started.

Nick at Nite's 1991 promo mash-up combined the theme with which Suzanne Vega song, itself a hit in a DNA remix?

A 1985 re-recording of the theme was also sampled on DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's debut single.

Jeannie's famous bottle was not built for the show. What was it originally?

It was a Christmas 1964 'Beam's Choice' decanter designed by Roy Kramer for the Wheaton Bottle Company.

When the show went to color, the smoky green bottle was replaced by one painted mainly in which colors?

The later colorized version of season one tried to tint the original smoked glass to match.

The clear stopper on Jeannie's season-one bottle came from which brand's bottle in Tony's home?

The original stopper had been left on the beach; Jeannie is seen retrieving it in the first color episode.

Roughly how many bottles do crew members estimate were painted and used over the run of the show?

The stunt bottle used for the smoke effect kept breaking from the heat and chemicals.

In 'Hurricane Jeannie', the intended finale, what happens to Jeannie's bottle in Nelson's dream?

Dr. Bellows also finally learns the secret in the dream; syndication often airs it as the last episode.

A 1966 viewer contest asked fans to guess Jeannie's birthday. What date was finally revealed?

Tony and Roger used NASA's new computer and horoscopes to work it out, and Roger made a game of keeping the date secret.

In which year, according to NASA's computer, was Jeannie born?

Her family could not agree on the date, which is why the astronauts had to calculate it.

What combination did contest winners guess for the moon-bound safe in the 1968 Jeannie four-parter 'Genie, Genie...'?

The numbers were not chosen until just before broadcast, so Larry Hagman's mouth is always hidden when he says them and his voice was dubbed in.

In 1969's 'The Case of My Vanishing Master', where was Tony's secret location revealed to be?

Unlike earlier contests, the answer came in a special epilogue after another episode rather than in the story itself.

When reruns debuted on New York's WPIX, the show made ratings history as the first what?

It pulled a 13 rating and 23 share, beating the network stations in prime time.

The show was never a huge hit; what was its best-ever Nielsen season ranking?

That came in the fourth season, the year of the vanishing-master contest.

Who played Colonel Nelson in 1985's I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later?

Rogers, Trapper John from M*A*S*H, later co-starred with Eden on stage in Same Time, Next Year.

What was the title of the 1991 second reunion movie?

Ken Kercheval, Hagman's later co-star, essentially filled the role of Jeannie's master; a third film was planned but never made.

Which future Star Wars actor voiced surfer Corey Anders in the 1973 cartoon Jeannie?

Julie McWhirter voiced Jeannie, and the show ran for a single 16-episode season on CBS.

Which former member of the Three Stooges voiced genie-in-training Babu in the animated series?

Besser had replaced Shemp in the Stooges' final Columbia shorts of the late 1950s.

Which company published an I Dream of Jeannie tie-in board game in the show's first year?

Dell Comics followed with two comic-book issues in 1966, and Trendmasters made PC games in the mid-1990s.

After the show ended, creator Sidney Sheldon found even greater fame as what?

He wrote all but two dozen of the scripts himself, and his 18 novels went on to sell over 300 million copies.

While writing Jeannie scripts, Sheldon was simultaneously writing for which other sitcom he had created?

He hid the workload behind three pseudonyms: Mark Rowane, Allan Devon and Christopher Golato.

After Roger Healey, Bill Daily played sitcom neighbor Howard Borden on which 1970s series?

Borden was an airline navigator living across the hall from Bob Hartley; Daily returned to stand-up after it ended.

Larry Hagman went on to his most famous role, oil baron J.R. Ewing, on which series?

Eden later joined him for a five-episode arc in its final season, and Hagman reprised J.R. in the 2012 revival.

Larry Hagman was the son of which Broadway musical star?

He was born in Fort Worth in 1931, the same year as Barbara Eden, and later survived a 1995 liver transplant.

Barbara Eden played single mother Stella Johnson in a 1978 film and series based on which country hit?

In one episode Stella dressed in a genie costume, and in her final episode she admitted her maiden name was Nelson.

Before Jeannie, Barbara Eden co-starred opposite Elvis Presley in which 1960 western?

She was born Barbara Jean Morehead in Tucson, Arizona.

For how many episodes is Roger unaware that Jeannie is a genie?

When he finds out he steals her bottle and briefly becomes her master; later seasons retconned him as having known from the start.

Early in season one, Jeannie breaks up Tony's engagement to Melissa, who is whose daughter?

Melissa and the general were never seen or mentioned again, because Sheldon felt the love triangle would not play.

In Italy the series aired on Rai 1 under a title that translates to what?

'Strega per amore' ran from 1977 to 1980; India got a 2012 remake called Jeannie Aur Juju.

In which season do Tony and Jeannie finally marry?

After the wedding the premise flipped: the aim became hiding Jeannie's powers rather than her existence.

Which studio produced I Dream of Jeannie?

Interiors were shot at its Sunset Gower lot in Hollywood, the original Columbia Pictures studio.

What one rule did Sidney Sheldon set when casting Jeannie, to avoid copying Bewitched?

After many failed auditions he called Barbara Eden's agent anyway; she had, coincidentally, co-starred in The Brass Bottle.

Besides the genie and her evil sister, which relative did Barbara Eden also play from season four?

Two earlier actresses had played the mother in season one before the third season retconned all of Jeannie's relatives as genies.

Which actress played Amanda Bellows, the colonel's wife, from season two onward?

She appeared in 34 episodes; Barton MacLane's General Peterson turned up in 35 across the first four seasons.

What style of music was Richard Wess's first-season theme, later replaced by Sheldon?

Sheldon grew unhappy with Wess's score and brought in Hugo Montenegro's 'Jeannie' from season two.

What was Major Nelson's street address in Cocoa Beach?

Despite the Florida setting, filming took place in California, with a NASA building at Edwards Air Force Base standing in for the offices.

Who narrated the non-animated opening used in episodes two through eight of the first season?

That narration called Cocoa Beach 'a mythical town' in 'a mythical state called Florida' before the animated opening took over.

Which actor played Major Biff Jellico and King Kamehameha, and directed a season-five episode?

He directed 'One Jeannie Beats Four of a Kind'; Sofaer played Haji, master of all the genies.