In October, we
reported that Larry Hagman himself was saying that
I Dream of Jeannie would head to DVD soon. Sony has now made it official, with today's announcement that
The Complete 1st Season will arrive on store shelves this
March 14th.
It won't be the same
Jeannie that most of us remember, though, because the first season had some significant differences from the 2nd through 5th seasons. The story of an Air Force astronaut (Hagman's "Tony Nelson") who comes back to Earth off-target and finds a genie's bottle filled with Barbara Eden's "Jeannie" began in black and white for the first season. Those 30 episodes are not always seen in syndication, although sometimes they are (usually colorized). For that first season, Nelson and his Army friend Roger Healey (Bill Daily) start off as Captains, and then are each promoted to the rank of Major as the season progresses. The well-known theme music and pop background music isn't present, either, and the music that IS used is more of a jazz style instead.
We mentioned colorization, and for folks who just can't stand the thought of getting the original black-and-white versions of the episodes, a version of the DVD set will be made available to you with
I Dream of Jeannie - The Complete 1st Season: In Color. All 30 episodes will be the artificially colored versions. True fans, though, will be happy to know that they can get the original versions of all 30 episodes instead, with Sony's simultaneous release of
I Dream Of Jeannie - The Complete 1st Season: Black & White. Yay!
That's similar in the execution of the first two seasons of
Bewitched on DVD, as we're sure most of you know. Speaking of which, if the exterior of the house of Nelson's nemesis, Dr. Bellows (Hayden Rorke), looks familiar, that's because it's the same building on the Columbia Pictures back lot that is used as the house for Samantha and Darrin Stephens! The 2nd season of
Jeannie went to being produced in color, as did the 3rd season of
Bewitched the same year. Fans of the latter will be happy to know that Sony is preparing to announce that third season very soon now, so hang on. The second season of
Jeannie will likely be timed for release around the planned September debut of the new remake film with
SNL's Jimmy Fallon playing Tony Nelson.
While we wait for that, though, there's plenty to re-discover about the original season of the original show! There are going to be extras on this release, including commentaries on the pilot episode by Hagman, Eden, and Daily. They will also be interviewed in a brand-new featurette exclusive to these two 1st Season releases. The 4-DVD sets run 780 minutes and each will go for $39.95 SRP. The video is in the original full-frame, and audio will be in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. Language support continues with subtitles for Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese as well.
In case you're thinking of skipping the first season due to the differences we mentioned above...well, don't. It's a great deal of fun and well worth getting. And you won't want to miss out on Tony and Jeannie's adventures that involve great guest stars like Richard Kiel, Mako, Alice Pearce, Dabney Coleman, Billy Mumy, Elizabeth MacRae, Jamie Farr, Bernard Fox, Maureen McCormick, Vic Tayback, and a real-life Air Force hero, Chuck Yeager (the first man to fly at Mach speed!). It's also worth reminding everyone that this show was Created, Produced, and sometimes written by thriller novelist Sidney Sheldon, who also created
The Patty Duke Show and
Hart To Hart.
We have an early shot of the box art to look at, and it goes without saying that it is still subject to change. It's only for the colorized version of the release, but we'll bring you the art for the original black-and-white edition of this season just as soon as Sony provides it. Stay tuned!
