Info:
DVD Release Date: March 14, 2006 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Color/1965-66
MSRP: $39.95
Number of Discs: 4
Number of Episodes: 30
Running Time: 537 minutes
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning (black and
white): English; closed-captioned.
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning (colorized):
English, Spanish,
and Portuguese; Spanish and Portuguese subtitles;
closed-captioned
Special Features: Commentary on "The Lady in the
Bottle;" "I Dream of
Jeannie - Out of the Bottle" featurette
Introduction:
"Once upon a time, in a mythical place called Cape
Kennedy, an astronaut named Tony Nelson went up on a
space mission. The missile went up but something went
wrong and they had to bring it down.
Captain Nelson landed on an island in the South
Pacific where he found a bottle--at least it looked
like a bottle. But it didn't ACT like a bottle...
because in it was a genie."
It was those words that started out many of the very
early episodes of the 1960s hit series I Dream of
Jeannie. Inspired by other supernatural shows of the
time (particularly Bewitched, but also shows such as
My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, and others), this
was yet another (and perhaps one of the most
successful, with only Bewitched surpassing it in
success) of this specific sitcom genre.
The plot of the show is simple--as the show
introduction stated, Tony
Nelson (Larry Hagman) is an astronaut that finds a
bottle, and inside the bottle is a genie, named
(conveniently) Jeannie (Barbara Eden).
While he at first rejects Jeannie, he quickly finds it
necessary to have her around the house, and does
everything he can to hide the fact that she even
exists. When that fails, his next goal is to simply
hide the fact that she is a genie. This is where the
show really distinguishes itself from Bewitched. While
Bewitched got all of the major plot details that it
was ever going to get out in the first episode, I
Dream of Jeannie developed its plot over a period of
five seasons.
The four-disc set that is to be released by Sony
contains all 30 episodes from the first season of the
show, and much like rival show
Bewitched (which was also released by Sony), there are
two different versions available: black and white, and
colorized. Unfortunately, the studio only made the
black and white version available to Sitcoms
Online, so some parts of this review only reflect the
black and version.
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
The set begins with (what else?) "The Lady in the
Bottle," where (as the story in the introduction
indicates), Major Nelson lands on an island in the
South Pacific and finds a girl in a bottle... who
happens to be a genie. He tries to get away from here,
but considering that the show lasted for five seasons,
it is obvious who won that battle. Major Nelson is
going to the moon--and so is Jeannie—in "Guess What
Happened on the Way to the Moon?" Tony's fiancée,
Melissa, wants to move their wedding date up, but is
that what Jeannie wants? Find out in "Jeannie and the
Marriage Caper." Jeannie wants to be closer to Tony
and decides that the best way to do this is to join
the Air Force in "G.I. Jeannie." Disaster ensues when
Jeannie is spotted on a yacht with Tony and she
suddenly disappears... which makes several witnesses
believe she was murdered... in "The Yacht Murder
Case." Dabney Coleman guest stars in "Anybody Here
Seen Jeannie?" Jeannie decides to become the
all-American woman in "The Americanization of
Jeannie," but can Tony handle this?
Jeannie has her dreams set on becoming a movie star,
but there is one thing preventing her from doing that
in "The Moving Finger." Jeannie creates a fake house
and parents to get Roger to propose to her (in order
to make Tony jealous) in "What House Across the
Street?" Jamie Farr guest stars in "Get Me to Mecca on
Time," where Jeannie must take a trip to Mecca to
regain her fading powers.
Roger finally discovered the truth about Jeannie--and
wants to use the truth for his own greedy purposes in
"The Richest Astronaut in the Whole Wide World."
Bernard Fox guest stars in "Is There an Extra Jeannie
in the House?," which continues the plot from the
previous episode. Tony tells Jeannie that his
childhood dream was to become a surgeon--and she
grants the wish, just in time for Roger's appendectomy
in "My Master, the Doctor." Maureen McCormick guest
stars. Roger has the perfect plan for winning in
Reno--a little help from Jeannie--in "How Lucky Can
You Get?" Tony becomes an excellent golfer, but is the
talent real? Find out in "Watch the Birdie."
Tony paints a copy of a Rembrandt painting for a
charity auction in "My Master, the Great Rembrandt,"
but is a copy good enough for Jeannie? Jeannie sees a
pair of slippers in a museum that she believes is her
own from 2000 years ago, and decides to take them back
in "My Master, the Thief." Vic Tayback guest stars in
"This is Murder." In "My Master, the Magician," where
Jeannie's magic forces Tony to tell Dr. Bellows that
he is an amateur magician. Finally, in "I'll Never
Forget What's Her Name," Tony comes down with amnesia
and falls in love with the first person he sees and
even wants to marry her... but can Roger stop this?
The following is a breakdown of all of the episodes on
the set, including the running times:
Disc 1:
1. The Lady in the Bottle (25:35)
2. My Hero? (25:30)
3. Guess What Happened on the Way to the Moon? (25:36)
4. Jeannie and the Marriage Caper (25:38)
5. G.I. Jeannie (25:41)
6. The Yacht Murder Case (25:39)
7. Anybody Here Seen Jeannie? (25:35)
8. The Americanization of Jeannie (25:39)
Disc 2:
9. The Moving Finger (25:41)
10. Djinn & Water (25:29)
11. Whatever Became of Baby Custer? (25:23)
12. Where'd you Go-Go? (25:31)
13. Russian Roulette (25:34)
14. What House Across the Street? (25:32)
15. Too Many Tonys (25:29)
16. Get Me to Mecca on Time (25:20)
Disc 3:
17. The Richest Astronaut in the Whole Wide World
(25:39)
18. Is There an Extra Jeannie in the House? (25:39)
19. Never Try to Outsmart a Genie (25:38)
20. My Master, the Doctor (25:20)
21. Jeannie and the Kidnap Caper (25:29)
22. How Lucky Can You Get? (25:42)
23. Watch the Birdie (25:40)
24. The Permanent House Guest (25:29)
Disc 4:
25. Bigger than a Bread Box and Better than a Genie
(25:38)
26. My Master, the Great Rembrandt (25:41)
27. My Master, the Thief (25:41)
28. This Is Murder (25:30)
29. My Master, the Magician (25:30)
20. I'll Never Forget What's Her Name (25:42)
Packaging:
The interesting thing I noticed about this set (and I
noticed it in the menu design and navigation as well,
you'll see more about that in the next section) is how
similar this set is to the Bewitched DVD sets that
were released, yet at the same time, neither seems to
resemble a typical Sony DVD set. It seems as if Sony
has a separate set of (higher) standards for DVD sets
of these shows than they do for their other shows.
The packaging, of course, is of the same standard. The
front of the box has various pictures of Jeannie on it
(the pictures are in black and white on the black and
white version and in color on the colorized version).
On the back of the box, there is some basic
information about the first season. The box is all in
a blue and pink color scheme.
Inside the box, much like Bewitched, there are two
double slim cases, with one contains Discs 1 and 2 and
the other containing Discs 3 and 4. The artwork on the
slim cases has pictures similar to those on the cover;
with the pictures in black and white on the black and
white set (presumably the colorized version has color
pictures on it). The back of each slim case has
episode descriptions for the episodes within, and the
descriptions that are included are very good
descriptions, and more detailed than the ones that
were on the Bewitched sets. The only things missing
are guest stars and original airdates.
The artwork on the discs is very nice and colorful (it
appears to be some sort of Persian style geometric
design on each disc), with a picture of Jeannie on
Disc 1, Major Nelson on Disc 2, Major Healy on Disc 3,
and Dr. Bellows on Disc 4. The disc breakdown is as
follows: episodes 1-8 on Disc 1, 9-16 on Disc 2, 17-24
on Disc 3, and 25-30 on Disc 4.
Menu Design and Navigation:
The menus are very nicely done. The first thing that
you'll notice on each disc, after the Sony logo, is
that there is music playing, and the music that is
playing is the I Dream of Jeannie theme song that we
are all familiar with... which is NOT the version that
was used in the first season! Perhaps this is a good
indication that other seasons are on the way,
though... and also, I think using this theme for the
background music on the main menu is a good idea
because the theme song used that is used on the color
episodes define the series much better than the
version from the first season. The music is actually a
much shortened version of the theme song though, and
it loops forever, so you will get tired of hearing it
after about 60 seconds. The main menu is animated too,
like Bewitched, with Jeannie going into her bottle and
the main menu options coming up, with the bottle on
the beach. The options included on the main menu are
Play All Episodes and Episode Selection, though Disc 1
has an option to play the first episode with
commentary on the main menu, and Disc 4 has an option
for the interview featurette and the obligatory bonus
previews.
Selecting Episode Selections takes you to a menu where
you, well, select episodes. The menu is designed to
appear like it is inside of Jeannie's bottle, and you
move around from pillow to pillow to select the
episode--yes, I know that sounds odd, but basically,
pictures from each episode are on pillows (with titles
below the pictures of course), and you select the
episode you want in that way. Once you select the
episode, it plays right away, although there is an FBI
warning before the first episode you watch each time
you put a different disc in the player (this time it
can't be fast forwarded through, Sony is very
inconsistent about how they handle the FBI warnings).
There are no scene selection menus, but there are
chapters. The chapters are placed appropriately
throughout the episodes, though there isn't one
immediately after the opening credits.
Video and Audio Quality:
I was very impressed here. This show is 40 years old,
and it doesn't even look nearly that old on the DVD
set. The picture quality on the black and white
version is very clean and there are no flaws that
could be found. In fact, a common problem with these
older shows is grain, yet I couldn't find much grain
at ALL within the set (the only exceptions being on
stock footage such as when the outside of a building
is shown). The audio quality on the set is equally
superb, with no flaws being noted at all. The show is
40 years old, so obviously, the audio is presented in
mono. I've found that often times, when a studio uses
the word "remastered" on DVD sets; the term loses its
meaning because there are no obvious signs that it is
any better than what we are used to, but the episodes
on these DVDs are definitely remastered, and it shows
in the video and audio quality. The black and white
version is closed-captioned for the hearing impaired.
Each episode runs at around 25:30 minutes; exact times
are shown in the episodes section. One thing I can't
figure out is why the Screen Gems logo is missing from
the episode. It is fully intact on TV Land, why would
it be gone on the DVDs? Sony doesn't exactly have a
track record one way or the other on including
original closing logos, but they DID include the
Embassy logo on 227 and Who's the Boss?, so why not
Screen Gems on this and Bewitched? Also, there is one
strange thing I noticed about the episodes. When they
fade to black for the commercial breaks on some
episodes, there is often a longer than usual pause
there, sometimes like 6 seconds. Usually these pauses
aren't that long on DVDs! It isn't really an issue
that affects the set, however.
The studio did not make the colorized version of this
set available to Sitcoms Online, therefore we don't
really know what that is like. However, it is probably
safe to assume that this version is very similar to
the colorized versions of Bewitched that Sony released
last year, since the colorization was done at the same
as the Bewitched colorization, by the same people, and
since the episodes were produced within the same
studio in the exact same time era. The colorized set
also includes some language features that are not
available on the black and white set; in addition to
the closed-captioning, it includes Spanish and
Portuguese audio tracks, as well as Spanish and
Portuguese subtitles.
Special Features:
The special features aren't plentiful, but the ones
that are included are rather nice. The first one is a
commentary track on the first episode, "The Lady in
the Bottle." Basically, it has the three major stars
of the show (Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman, and Bill
Daily) commenting on the show, and particularly the
first episode. It is interesting to see, though, that
they don't even seem to really REMEMBER the first
episode too well. They often seem surprised at things
that happen in the episode, and sometimes comment that
they never remember seeing particular parts. Of
course, I guess after 40 years, it isn't possible to
remember EVERYTHING, and they say that stars don't
really watch their own shows anyway. The commentary is
not one of those dull commentaries either, as the
stars tend to talk almost all the time throughout it.
They present a lot of interesting trivia in the
commentary too, such as how Barbara Eden had to learn
how to speak phrases in Farsi with a professor from
UCLA for the first episode.
The other special feature can be found on Disc 4, and
it is entitled "I Dream of Jeannie - Out of the
Bottle" (14:24). This is an interviews special
feature, with Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman, and Bill
Daily discussing the show in general in the same
studio. In addition, there are some interview segments
with Sidney Sheldon in a separate studio. They talk
about a variety of things regarding the show, and of
course, the belly button controversy comes up in the
interview.
While the special features on the set were good, I
wish that there were more... for example, why didn't
they do more commentaries? Why couldn't they make the
interviews longer? With Sony's track record, I'm not
expecting improvements on future seasons; in fact, I'm
expecting fewer special features on future releases.
But it would still be nice to have a little bit more.
Of course, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining
about the special features on here--I just want more
of what I (and other DVD fans) crave.
Final Comments:
This is such a fun show to watch. Personally, I've
always had a SLIGHT preference for Bewitched over this
show, but this is a great show, too. This show often
seems fresher than Bewitched too, since Bewitched has
typically received more airtime in syndication than I
Dream of Jeannie, so sometimes you can be watching an
episode of I Dream of Jeannie and it feels like a
brand new episode. And this set is a good set too...
there could have been more special features, but
considering how the studio (Sony) has a reputation of
releasing sets that have almost no special features,
this was a decent effort.
There will be an I Dream of Jeannie feature film
released sometime this year (September 2006 according
to IMDb, but that is always subject to change) with
Kate Hudson as Jeannie and Jimmy Fallon as Major
Nelson, so I don't see any danger of Sony abandoning
the series with the first season. Instead, I'd expect
the second season to be released around the time of
the theatrical release of the movie, and perhaps the
third season when the movie is released on DVD &
video, and then there will only be two remaining
seasons left to get through to complete the series. Of
course, those aren't Sony's official plans or
anything, they are just my guesses.
So unless you happen to have your own genie that can
blink up a copy of this DVD set, you'll want to go out
and buy this set--in your choice of either black and
white or color... or maybe even both.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)
Video Quality: 4.5/5
Audio Quality: 4.5/5
Special Features: 2.5/5
Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 03/06/06
To purchase the Black & White DVD, click below and help support SitcomsOnline.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000E33VZ4/ref=nosim/happydaysonline4-20
To purchase the Colorized DVD, click below and help support SitcomsOnline.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000E33VZ4/ref=nosim/happydaysonline4-20
