"I Dream of Jeannie" Interesting Facts Quiz

Answer: Two thousand years

We are introduced to Jeannie (Barbara Eden) in the pilot episode of this show after US astronaut Tony Nelson (Larry Hagman) has landed back on earth, far from his destination point, ending up on a beach on a deserted island instead. There, while he is waiting to be rescued, he notices a strange bottle in the sand.

He removes the stopper and Jeannie emerges in her swirls of smoke. She does not know her true age, and her family back in Persia cannot remember it either by that time, but it is revealed in later episodes, with the aid of NASA's powerful new computer, that she was born in 64 BC.

Answer: For refusing to marry the Blue Djinn

Jeannie wasn't always a genie, and neither were the members of her family initially. Instead, she was a beautiful young mortal woman who was turned into a genie by the powerful Blue Djinn (played by Barbara's real life husband, Michael Ansara) for refusing to marry him.

This disobedience and her long imprisonment in the bottle was the result. We learn this in the first season. However, in later seasons, the producers had this altered retroactively so that Jeannie and her family had always been genies, but her rejection of the Blue Djinn and subsequent punishment remained the same.

Answer: Cape Kennedy in Florida

The setting for this entertaining series is supposedly at Cape Kennedy, Florida, with Tony and Jeannie living at Cocoa Beach, but in reality, it was almost entirely shot in Los Angeles, with the Hollywood Hills often appearing in the background of some scenes.

The exterior of the office buildings pictured were of the Dryden Flight Research Centre at the Air Force base there, while Tony's house was filmed at Blondie Street (how appropriate is that?) at Burbank.

Answer: Buzz Aldrin

The cast and crew of "I Dream of Jeannie" only visited Florida twice during the filming of this series. One was for a mock wedding function of Jeannie and Tony held at Patrick Air Force Base. That was timed to be held at the same time the filmed version of the wedding was shown on air. Florida governor's attended on that night and cut the wedding cake with due solemnity amid all the laughter.

The other visit to Florida (both were in 1969) was just two weeks before the famous flight to the moon of Apollo 11. This time, a parade of honour was held for the cast and crew of the hit series, following which they were taken to Cape Canaveral where Barbara in her Jeannie persona pressed a button to launch a weather rocket. They then attended an official dinner at which Barbara was awarded the Florida Commodore Medal for her acting, presented with many gifts, and where she later met astronaut Buzz Aldrin. This time she got to kiss an astronaut for real. Perhaps that kiss sent him to the moon as well.

Answer: I Dream of Jeannie Lane

In 1996, long after the series finished, Barbara Eden gladly accepted an invitation to be the featured speaker for the Kennedy Space Centre's Space Days celebrations. During the ceremony, the mayor of Cocoa Beach presented Barbara with a street sign that read "I Dream of Jeannie Lane".

This was afterwards placed on a street near the attractive Lori Wilson Park which overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.

Answer: Navel

Lord bless us, things sure have changed. The network censors insisted that, as part of her alluring costume, Jeannie's navel should be covered at all times. Apparently it was quite acceptable for Jeannie's ample cleavage and her naked waist to be displayed in that costume, but not the offending navel.

In the fourth year of the series when the producers of the hit comedy variety show "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in" let it be known they planned to reveal Jeannie's navel during a segment of their show, the network censors again stepped in and put a stop to that as well. Only a couple of times during the entire series do viewers catch a glimpse of Jeannie's belly button, but on each of those occasions, this evinced the wrath of the censors.

Answer: A Jim Beam liquor decanter

How disappointing. One would like to think it was a container based on a Persian design that was several thousands of years old, but alas no. It was just a tizzied up bottle of modern day plonk instead. There were several bottles used during the shooting of the series in fact, each one slightly different than the last, mainly because they had a tendency to get lost or broken during shooting. To achieve the smoke effect each time Jeannie "emerged" from her home, a hole was drilled in the bottom of one of the bottles, and smoke puffed through. Bill Daily (Roger Healey), Larry Hagman (Tony Nelson) and Barbara Eden (Jeannie) all had one of the original bottles by the time the series concluded.

Answer: Bill Daily

Roger, played by Bill Daily, is Tony's best friend and fellow astronaut in this series. He sees him through an amazing number of scrapes, some of which he directly causes himself. He is envious of Jeannie's abilities, longing to use them for himself, but for the most part, is supportive of the couple. Apart from the one time he stole Jeannie and her bottle, that is. That caused so much mayhem that he was more than happy to see her back in the hands of her indignant master, Tony, again.

Answer: On the lips

The introduction for the first few episodes of the series was non-animated, and saw the trapped Jeannie dancing out of her bottle and passionately kissing the shocked Tony full on the lips. This was quickly changed to the animated version with which viewers were so familiar however, one in which the released Jeannie dances over and kisses Tony decorously on the cheek instead. One wonders if the censors had anything to do with that as well.

Answer: The network insisted on it

In spite of Barbara Eden's strong opposition to this marriage (she felt it moved the storyline away from its original direction), the network insisted on it (to the delight of most viewers) because they had already decided to cancel the show either at the end of that season or the next.

It ran for a total of five seasons and 139 episodes in all, before we all sadly blinked goodbye to a lovely, entertaining, clean, funny and very happy series.