otheruses
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American
sitcom with a
fantasy premise. The show starred
Barbara Eden as a 2000-year-old female
genie, and
Larry Hagman as an
astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries. Produced by
Screen Gems, the show originally aired from September 1965 to May 1970 with new episodes, and through September 1970 with season repeats, on
NBC. The show ran for five seasons and produced 139 episodes. The first season consisted of 30 episodes filmed in black and white. The other 109 episodes were filmed in color. The show has continued to air in reruns ever since, currently airing in the
United States on
WGN America, on
GO! in Australia and on
Zee Cafe in
India.
Show history
Original run
The series was created and produced by
Sidney Sheldon in response to the great success of rival network
ABC's
Bewitched series, which had debuted in 1964 as the second most watched program in the United States. Sheldon, inspired by the movie
The Brass Bottle, which had starred
Tony Randall,
Barbara Eden, and
Burl Ives as the
genie Fakrash, came up with the idea for a beautiful female genie. Both
I Dream of Jeannie and
Bewitched were
Screen Gems productions. The show debuted at 8:00 pm (EDT), Saturday, September 18, 1965, on NBC.