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STUDIO: SONY
MSRP: $39.95
RATING: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 654 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Previews for other SONY TV on DVD releases
THE PITCH
THE HUMANS
Larry Hagman, Barbara Eden, Bill Daily, Hayden Rorke and Barton MacLane
THE NUTSHELL
I Dream of Jeannie is one of those pop culture touchstones that dotted the television landscape in the 1960s. The show tells the tale of Captain Anthony Nelson and his fateful discovery of a bottle containing a genie. He rubs the bottle and out pops the only fair-haired Djinn in the known world. Together they spend the time bumbling Air Force business and getting into hi-jinks with the biggest gallery of studio day-players this side of Petticoat Junction.
Larry Hagman really wanted to play Arnim Zola in the worst way. But, Favreau wasn’t going to add him to the Iron Man movie.
THE LOWDOWN
I Dream of Jeannie was never one of those shows that I made time to watch on Nick at Nite. I hate to say that I always stayed within the realms of 70s/80s sitcom reruns, but nobody challenges Alex P. Keaton for my television viewing dollar.
But, I was pulled into the world of 1960s sitcoms and hour long dramas by my parents. Between marathon sessions of The Andy Griffith Show and their favorite thing ever M*A*S*H, I feel that I’ve developed a special place in the pit of my heart for these laugh tracked filled glimpses of another era.
Major Nelson’s sphincter tightened as Jeannie got ready to blink her third Anal Intruder into existence.
Season Four of I Dream of Jeannie opens with very little development to the tried and true formula that had kept the show afloat for years. Jeannie gets into trouble and Major Nelson has to sort it out, while trying to keep his employers from knowing any better. The only major difference to the pattern of formulaic episodes is that Major Healy gets to crowd in on the Nelson and Jeannie hi-jinks for a huge chunk of this season’s episodes.
That’s really the problem with the sitcoms of that era. It’s not to say that the problems were strictly relegated to the infancy period of the Television medium. You can find it all the way up to hour long dramas attempt to break the serious nature of other entertainment mediums to primetime. After all, how many times did you see an episode about William Daniels getting into mischief with a new puppy on St. Elsewhere? That’s right; you didn’t see that crap go down with Dr. Mark Craig. You had to wait to see him slum it on Boy Meets World to get a taste of the puppy lovin’.
The presentation quality on this set is top-notch for a show of its age. But, that’s to be expected as the show has been Digitally Remastered and trimmed here and there for the benefit of worldwide syndication. If you’re a fan of the show, I recommend picking it up on the first week release sales via Amazon. But, if you’re just casually invested, there’s not enough material here to make you take the plunge.
That’s the real death knell of this set. It does a great job of bringing the complete fourth season of the show to DVD, but when you look at it really hard, you wonder if all the work was really necessary. But, this is keeping from a guy that owns the complete run of She Spies and What’s Happening on two different formats.
Jeannie: Fucking the sight back into Master since 1965.
THE PACKAGE
It’s almost becoming a uniform decision by the major studios to release their TV on DVD sets in slipcovers housing slimline cases. That’s not to say that I don’t like this move, as I’ve got thick Deadwood and Rome cases that make shifting around DVDs to be a pain in the ass. Smaller cases are appreciated since they allow for easier storage.
You might wonder why I’m paying so much attention to the actual package itself. Well, when you don’t include any special features with a show…sometimes, I sit in awe of DVD packaging. Not really, I’m just trying to call attention to the fact that Sony could’ve put a little something on here for the customers.
I don’t care if it’s an Electronic Press Kit, a photo gallery or even a montage dedicated to Barbara Eden’s navel. Something beats nothing and the I Dream of Jeannie fan got the short end of the stick. Which if you’re actually an obsessive fan of the show, you should take the stick and jab your eyes out with it. You don’t deserve eyes for obsessing over what’s an easily forgettable bit of Cold War Pop Culture fluff.
Larry Hagman always liked to take the Bobby Kennedy Memorial route through the Hotel Kitchen.