Info:
DVD Release Date: July 11, 2006 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Color/1966-67
MSRP: $39.95
Number of Discs: 4
Number of Episodes: 31
Running Time: 680 minutes
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English,
Spanish, and Portuguese; Spanish and Portuguese subtitles;
closed-captioned
Special Features: None
Introduction:
With the blink of an eye, I Dream of Jeannie is back
for another season on DVD! The hit sitcom that was one
(of many) supernatural sitcoms of the 60s returns with
31 uncut episodes, on a four disc set from Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment!
The second season of the show has a few minor changes
from the first, the biggest being that this season was
shot in color rather than black and white--so there is
only one set available this time, the original color
version! Also, this season is the first season to use
the familiar tune that we all associate with the
show... one of the greatest instrumental theme songs
of all television shows! But the important things are
still the same: Jeannie is still living with Major
Anthony Nelson in Cocoa Beach, with Major Healy
constantly stopping by, and Dr. Bellows, as always,
concerned that something isn't quite right with Major
Nelson, and he is usually right, but Jeannie always
fixes things before he can prove is something wrong.
It's classic 60s comedy!
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
Jeannie thinks that Tony has been working too hard on
"Always on Sunday," so she decides to make a little
change in the calendar to make him more rested... make
it Sunday, seven days a week! Paul Lynde plays a man
that comes into Tony's house and comments on his bad
taste in decorating, so Jeannie decides to blink in
some expensive home furnishings, including a vault
that is loaded with cash--only problem is, the man
works with the IRS and now is investigating Tony! Tony
loves watching his westerns, so Jeannie decides to let
him be part of a western in "Fastest Gun in the East."
In "The Girl Who Never Had a Birthday," Jeannie
realizes she doesn't know her own birthday and begins
to fade away--can Tony and Roger find out her birthday
before she fades away completely?? It is a two-parter,
anything can happen, although the fact that there were
still about 100 episodes after it should give you an
idea of what actually happens. Jeannie blinks up a new
boyfriend to make Tony jealous, a man named Tony
Millionaire, in "How Do You Beat Superman?" In
"Jeannie Breaks the Bank," Jeannie realizes that Tony
doesn't make a whole lot of money, so what does she do
to solve his financial woes? She places three million
dollars in his bank account!
Butch Patrick guest stars in "My Master, the Author."
And Groucho Marx guest stars in "The Greatest
Invention in the World," where Jeannie creates a suit
for Tony that is totally indestructible--and Dr.
Bellows is sure that he knows the secret formula that
made it indestructible, and keeps attempting to prove
it to General Peterson by putting the formula on his
shirt and showing what happens when he tries to
destroy it! Jeannie decides to take Tony's car for a
spin in "You Can't Arrest Me, I Don't Have a Driver's
License," but quickly learns that driving a car is
nothing like driving a camel. Sammy Davis Jr. guest
stars in "The Greatest Entertainer in the World."
In "A Secretary is Not a Toy," Jeannie becomes General
Peterson's new secretary, hoping to get Tony a
promotion to general, but when she has lunch with Dr.
Bellows and tells him her stories about growing up in
the mountain region of Chicago, in the state of
Oh-Wa-Ho, he immediately begins to suspect she is a
spy!
The following is a breakdown of all of the episodes on
the set, including the running times:
Disc 1:
1. Happy Anniversary (24:55)
2. Always on Sunday (25:19)
3. My Master, the Rich Tycoon (25:17)
4. My Master, the Rainmaker (25:18)
5. My Wild-Eyed Master (25:15)
6. What's New, Poodle Dog? (25:13)
7. Fastest Gun in the East (25:20)
Disc 2:
8. How to Be a Genie in 10 Easy Lessons (25:18)
9. Who Needs a Green-Eyed Genie? (25:17)
10. The Girl Who Never Had a Birthday - Part 1 (25:05)
11. The Girl Who Never Had a Birthday - Part 2 (25:07)
12. How Do You Beat Superman? (25:16)
13. My Master, the Great Caruso (25:06)
14. The Greatest Lover in the World (25:19)
15. Jeannie Breaks the Bank (25:13)
Disc 3:
16. My Master, the Author (25:16)
17. The Greatest Invention in the World (25:05)
18. My Master, the Spy (24:55)
19. You Can't Arrest Me, I Don't Have a Driver's
License (25:11)
20. One of Our Bottles is Missing (25:12)
21. My Poor Master, the Civilian (25:22)
22. There Goes the Best Genie I Ever Had (25:17)
23. The Greatest Entertainer in the World (25:14)
Disc 4:
24. My Incredible Shrinking Master (25:16)
25. My Master, the Pirate (24:48)
26. A Secretary is Not a Toy (25:18)
27. There Goes the Bride (25:17)
28. My Master, Napoleon's Buddy (25:17)
29. The Birds and the Bees Bit (25:18)
30. My Master, the Swinging Bachelor (25:18)
31. The Mod Party (25:05)
Packaging:
The packaging isn't all that much different from the
packaging for the first season. The front of the box
has a picture of Jeannie, and on the back of the box
has a picture of Jeannie and Tony along with basic
info about the set. Not much to be too excited about,
but it does look nice.
They have elected to once again use the double slim
case design, which I think is a good choice. There are
two of them, each one holding two discs. The slim case
that holds Discs 1 and 2 has another picture of
Jeannie on it, while the slim case that holds Discs 3
and 4 has a picture of Jeannie and a not-so-happy
looking Tony. The back of each slim case includes
episodes for the discs, as well as short descriptions
for the episodes. It seems that Sony is using better
double slim cases now, which is good. The older ones
had a tendency to not hold the discs in securely,
these do that job much better.
The disc artwork is very simple, just a bottle with
smoke coming out of it. On Discs 1 and 3, the bottle
is blue, and on Discs 2 and 4, it is pink. Disc 1
contains 7 episodes, while the other three discs
contain 8 episodes each.
Menu Design and Navigation:
This is exactly the same as the first season, which is
good for consistency. As soon as you get to the main
menu, you'll once again hear the theme music playing
(the version that was actually used for the second
season), with Jeannie's bottle on the beach. The
options are Play All Episodes, Episode Selection,
Audio, Subtitles, and (only on Disc 1) Previews.
Episode Selections takes you inside of Jeannie's
bottle--just like season one--where you can select the
episode. There are no scene selection menus (as usual
with Sony sets), but there are chapters at every place
where a commercial break would be, INCLUDING
immediately after the opening credits (although you
wouldn't really want to skip directly to there since
every episode starts BEFORE the opening credits).
Audio takes you into Tony's living room, where you
select the language (English, Spanish, or Portuguese),
and Subtitles takes you to an office at NASA where you
can select any subtitles you'd want (Spanish or
Portuguese). These aren't real pictures of course,
they are just drawings.
Video and Audio Quality:
The video and audio quality generally is pretty good,
but there seem to be some minor grain problems here
and there, and the audio (which is in mono) can be a
tad bit low at times. There are other things on that
show that one might perceive as video problems, but
really, they aren't--it is just that some of the
special effects on the show aren't exactly done
perfectly. For example, the picture may seem to jump
around right when Jeannie blinks and makes something
disappear, but that isn't a problem with the set, that
is just due to the fact that when they made the show,
they didn't have all of the available technology that
they would have today. The episodes are
closed-captioned, and if you want to have some real
fun, you can watch the episodes in Spanish or
Portuguese, or with subtitles of these languages. But
forget about Portuguese audio tracks on episodes 2, 7,
24, and 26. For some reason, those are missing that
audio track (the outer box indicates this).
The episodes all look to be unedited, running around
25:15, but I keep hearing these weird stories lately
about Sony editing like one line from an episode of
certain shows (I haven't heard any about this show
though) for unexplainable reasons, so it is impossible
to definitely say whether or not these are truly
unedited--but I think they are unedited. Also, Sony
usually has a tendency to include syndicated episodes
on multipart episodes or sometimes remove opening
teasers--they did NOT do that on this set on the
two-part episode "The Girl Who Never Had a Birthday,"
and it appears to be completely unedited.
Also, even though TV Land included it (and there was
even one episode in the season 1 set that had it), the
original Screen Gems logo is nowhere to be found on
this set.
Special Features:
This is a huge letdown!!! They did a HALFWAY decent
job last time with the interviews and commentaries,
but did nothing for this set! More commentaries would
be nice.
Final Comments:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like
Bewitched a little bit more than this show. But still,
this show is a GREAT show! It is a refreshing change
to watch episodes of this show from time to time.
Plus, this show just isn't Bewitched. Some people
obsess and spend way too much time comparing the
shows, there are plenty of differences between the
shows (in fact the only real similarity is that the
main character has magical powers!). Sony did a good
job with this set, EXCEPT on the special features end.
The episodes look fine for the most part and it
doesn't look like anything has been edited from this
set at all.
The I Dream of Jeannie movie should be coming out
within a few months (unless there is some kind of
delay, I haven't heard much about it lately), so
hopefully we'll see season 3 by then... and then when
the movie gets released on DVD, maybe we'll see season
4. The show only had five seasons; I have confidence
that we may very well see the entire series released
by the end of next year! But hopefully, Sony can give
us more special features on any upcoming sets!
Blink this set into your DVD collection today!
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 4.5/5
Special Features: 0/5
Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5
Overall: 4/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 06/27/06
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