I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70) vs Bewitched (1964-72)

...And Montgomery was an incomparably better actor than Eden, the writing was better...oh, yeah- IDOJ was a total rip-off of BW.

Samantha does not run around half naked squealing calling Darrin 'master .

And that was bad because???

> Samantha does not run around half naked squealing calling Darrin 'master.

Yeah, the Derwoods, neither of them, could be that lucky! ;-)

"and the plots were insufferably repetitive."

More repetitive than Bewitched plots? The standard Bewitched plot (especially in the later seasons) goes like this:

Someone casts a spell which seems to cause trouble for Darrin's job. At the end of the episode Larry Tate and the client come to Darrin's house (however unlikely that would be in real life) while the spell is still in effect. Samantha spins it to make it appear that the spell-induced weirdness was all part of Darrin's plan for a brilliant ad campaign, and Darrin plays along, improvving a slogan or whatever that goes along with the weirdness. Larry hates it; the client loves it; Larry then says he loves it too.

On top of that, there were a couple dozen later episodes that were direct remakes of earlier episodes.

Bewitched was actually the groovier show.

Darrin never got in trouble at work-As long as events could be 'spun' so the client liked whatever had happened, Larry accepted Darrin's explanation and he never tried to investigate further.

Darrin was 'different' but he was still very valuable to the company making lots of money bc of that same difference. The boss believing your side of things isn't depressing at all. Larry recognizes he brought in clients to benefit the company--and probably gave Darrin raises because of the stream of clients he was able to bring in liking those specific ideas.

Darrin and Samantha live quite well only on one salary. They end up having two kids and being able to take lots of trips even when Samantha doesn't zap them places. I'm sure a proper movie of Bewitched would have Larry and Louise finding out Samantha is a witch and Larry revealing he doesn't care as long as Darrin continues to make the company tons of money.

By contrast, Bellows is perpetually fixated on picking how/why things happened apart. And since civil service has less flexibility re pay compared to private sector, Tony would get paid the exact same. regardless of whatever happened. Bellows and his wife apparently have no kids (again why he has so much time to devote to analyzing Tony). He's the depressing one.


'Jeannie' took place on a military base and this was the Vietnam War era itself. "Military' was not supposed to be 'cool' during Vietnam w people protesting against it The military' is 'big brother watching' and harassing people.

They're constantly in their dress suits and using military titles. The 'Hidden figures' movie made clear that most people employed at NASA actually wore non-military work clothes at NASA on a daily basis. 'Jeannie' would have been so dorky back then. Yes the original astronauts came from the military but they did not constantly go around in their dress uniforms. They wore plain work clothes.

I'm sure that military's dress uniforms were only used for special occasions.