Actor-Inspired Element: It was Barbara Eden's idea for Jeannie's costume to be pink. It was also her idea to give Jeannie's bottle its purple trim.
Actor-Shared Background: Like Major Nelson, Larry Hagman met his future wife while serving in the Air Force. Both served in the Korean war, too. Bill Daily had been in the US Army as well.
California Doubling: The series takes place in Cocoa Beach, Florida, however the production never filmed at the actual location. Most exteriors were filmed at the Warner Ranch in Burbank, California, while interiors were shot at the Columbia Pictures studio lot in Hollywood. The Edwards Air Force Base, located north of Los Angeles was used to depict Cape Kennedy.
Barbara Eden does a singing routine in one episode.
Major Healy plays the double bass in "How to Be a Genie in 10 Easy Lessons" and "The Mod Party". Bill Daily was a professional bass player before becoming an actor.
Defictionalization: The stain-resistant liquid coating from "The Greatest Invention in the World" has become an actual product.
Descended Creator: Director Hal Cooper appears as Milton Berle's chauffeur / sidekick in "The Second Greatest Con Artist in the World" (directed by the other series director, Claudio Guzman). When the actor originally hired for the part became unavailable, Cooper - who was on location in Hawaii, prepping for the next episode - volunteered to fill the role as a last-minute replacement.
Died During Production: Barton MacLane, who played the recurring role of General Peterson, contracted pneumonia and died on January 1, 1969, partway through season four. His character was replaced by General Schaeffer, played by Vinton Hayworth (uncle of Rita). Oddly enough, Hayworth himself also died while on the role in 1970, but it happened only five days before the series' final episode was broadcast, so a recasting wasn't necessary in his case.
Episodes are edited for time (to allow more time for commercials, as became common in the '70s or '80s). Common edits include:
Pre-titles scenes showing the origin of whatever mess Jeannie's magic has created are dropped, replaced with the first post-titles scene that briefly summarizes the mess.
Different seasons originally had slightly different opening titles. In syndication, the episodes for the color seasons (2-5) often use the season 3 opening titles (including Sidney Sheldon's creator credit, which had been absent from the second season). Earlier reruns of the black-and-white season 1 sometimes used the color opening titles shown monochrome.
In "Tony's Wife", Tony traps Jeannie's sister inside a perfume bottle. Filming for it involved an oversized mock-up of the bottle, which Barbara Eden couldn't get out of without help. In order to get a realistic performance from her for the scene where Jeannie II bangs on the glass and cries for help, the director had everyone on the set leave for lunch and pretend they had forgotten Eden was in the bottle, while a camera was actually still rolling. The result is in the final cut of the episode.
Larry Hagman was genuinely terrified of the pet lion Jeannie blinked up in "The Americanization of Jeannie". Barbara Eden, who has worked with lions previously, told him how to make himself familiar to the lion, so it would recognize his smell and would act restrained around him, but Hagman refused.
Network executives were obsessed about Barbara Eden's costume, terrified that it could be seen as obscene by more conservative parts of the country. They mandated that Jeannie's navel must never be seen on camera, leading to the creation of the high-waisted harem pants that Jeannie wears. Barbara Eden, in retrospectives, said that her navel peeked out all the time and no one seemed to care.
Tony and Jeannie's wedding was mandated by NBC executives, as a last drastic measure to boost falling ratings. Even though the production staff gave in, this didn't help the series (which had to compete against The Mod Squad), and Jeannie was cancelled at the end of the fifth season.
The first season aired in black and white because the network was unwilling to pay extra for color film, on a project they weren't sure would even succeed.
Fake Russian: Arlene Martel and Richard Gilden in "Russian Roulette". Noam Pitlik in "Never Put a Genie on a Budget".
Hide Your Pregnancy: Barbara Eden was pregnant during the first episodes and this was hidden behind Jeannie's veil. In one of these episodes, "Whatever Happened to Baby Custer?", Eden's pregnant belly is clearly visible when Jeannie is wearing a one-piece swimsuit.
I Am Not Spock: Pretty much how many viewers see Barbara Eden, and one of the two ways they see Larry Hagman. Barbara Eden has said, however, that if people are going to remember her for one role, she's glad that Jeannie is that one role.
Jeannie's mother was played by two different actresses in different episodes during the first season. In the fourth season Barbara Eden took over the role for the rest of her appearances.
Pen Name: During the third and fourth seasons, series creator Sidney Sheldon stopped taking screen credit for his scripts and was credited under various pen names, including Christopher Golato, Allan Devon and Mark Rowane.
The Blue Djinn, whom Jeannie had scorned 2000 years ago, was played by Michael Ansara, Barbara Eden's husband. He also played two other characters, including one whom Jeannie II "makes love" to (in the milder sense; but still, who better to play such scenes with than your real-life husband, eh). Ansara also directed episodes of the series.
Jeannie's nephew Abdullah was played by Barbara Eden's real life infant son Matthew.
Efforts were made to hide Eden's pregnancy early in the series, which is why she wears that body-enveloping veil in the earliest episodes.
Larry Hagman's work on Dallas led to the recasting of Tony in the first reunion movie, and the character's outright absence in the second. Part of the reason for Hagman's absence in the second film was also due to a general disdain for the script.note Hagman outright refused while Bill Daily only agreed because the film was shot in Vancouver, which he saw as a paid vacation for only a few days of work.
Technology Marches On: Modern viewers may be completely unfamiliar with the typewriters, slide rules, and other 1960s technology that appears in the show.
Troubled Production: Larry Hagman had issues with alcohol and drugs that caused problems behind the scenes. Hagman, already an alcoholic, was introduced to marijuana by Jack Nicholson in an attempt to get him off alcohol. Instead he did both, usually in his dressing room between filming. Doctors prescribed him medications to help with anxiety, only they gave him amphetamines which worsened his issues. This, coupled with his frustration over script quality and what he saw as Barbara Eden taking much of the spotlight (while he never regretted working with her, Hagman felt as if sharing billing was slowing his own career), only further complicated what he was going through. At one point Hagman admitted that the alcohol, drugs and stress combined would leave him in a state of vomiting, crying and defecating himself in his dressing room. His attitude on set often upset guest stars (according to Eden, Sammy Davis Jr threatened to punch Hagman). Hagman later went to a psychiatrist and was able to deal with his drug problems. Despite all the issues mentioned, Hagman has said in interviews that he largely enjoyed working on the show and looked back on it fondly.
Vacation, Dear Boy: Bill Daily only agreed to do the second TV movie because the film was shot in Vancouver, which he saw as a paid vacation for only a few days of work.
One of several attempts at a potential movie remake that failed before they even began would have cast Lindsay Lohan and Jimmy Fallon as Jeannie and Tony, respectively.
The creators wanted Jeannie to be a brunette to contrast Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched, only after being dissatisfied with the brunette actresses that auditioned they cast naturally blonde Barbara Eden instead.
Robert Conrad tested for the role of Major Tony Nelson, and was seriously considered. Larry Hagman has said in interviews that George Peppard was also a strong candidate before he was hired.
The episode "My Son, the Genie" was originally written as a vehicle for Jerry Lewis, however, Lewis was busy on another project, and was replaced by Bob Denver.
Jeannie was supposed to speak Arabic in the first episode, but they were unable to find anyone fluent in Arabic to instruct Barbara Eden in time for filming. In the finished episode she speaks Farsi as it was the only language they could obtain an expert for.
According to Eden, the casting director had considered several Middle Eastern women for the role before she auditioned. Ultimately the writers opted to handwave a reason that Jeannie did not look Arabic.
Michael Ansara appeared three times in the series: as the Djinn who trapped Jeannie in her bottle 2000 years ago, as King Kamehameha himself, and as an astronaut whom Jeannie's sister seduces to make it look like Jeannie is having an affair.
Emmaline Henry appeared in a first-season episode as a magician's assistant before taking on the role of Amanda Bellows the following season.
Paul Lynde made numerous guest appearances, playing a wide range of different one-shot characters, from an IRS agent auditing Tony, to a flustered Hollywood movie director making a documentary about NASA and Tony's and Roger's lives.
