I remember this sitcom. It was regular viewing when I was growing up. You forgot to mention Major Nelson's idiotic comic relief sidekick, whose name I fortunately forget.
The reason to keep everything about Jeannie secret was delved into some episodes down the line--astronauts who hallucinate beautiful supernatural women get grounded really fast and aren't candidates for landing on the moon someday. Astronauts who keep mysterious, unmarried, unreported foreign women in their homes are also violating lots of amusing security regulations, which will get them grounded and possibly demoted. Tony and his idiot buddy (who is in on the secret) don't want to be grounded. As it is, the usual comedic shenanigans that keeping a culturally-clueless foreign woman that lives in your house a secret leads to enough weird behavior on Tony's part that the Air Force doctor responsible for clearing Tony for flight status suspects something is not quite right about every other episode. (He's a regular foil for our morons).
My main problem with the show is that even as a child, I could never believe that real astronauts would be such inept morons, or so easily rattled.
You want a supernatural comedy from the period with some real questionable stuff? How about remaking "Bewitched"? I was thinking about that lately, and really wanted to go chew all the main cast out about how they gas-lighted their elderly neighbor into insanity. (Well, they certainly made everyone think Gladys was crazy, quite deliberately). I can forgive Endora for being a complete bitch-queen to Darrin--she's an immortal demigoddess whose immortal demigoddess daughter is marrying a mortal of dubious character (from her point-of-view--he's in advertising, for goodness sakes!) Shades of Elrond, Arwen and Aragorn--and Darrin is no Aragorn! However, Samantha and Darrin's abuse of nosy old lady Gladys Kravitz is inexcusable, even if she is the "looking for Reds under the bed" type.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2017-05-25 03:52 am (UTC)The reason to keep everything about Jeannie secret was delved into some episodes down the line--astronauts who hallucinate beautiful supernatural women get grounded really fast and aren't candidates for landing on the moon someday. Astronauts who keep mysterious, unmarried, unreported foreign women in their homes are also violating lots of amusing security regulations, which will get them grounded and possibly demoted. Tony and his idiot buddy (who is in on the secret) don't want to be grounded. As it is, the usual comedic shenanigans that keeping a culturally-clueless foreign woman that lives in your house a secret leads to enough weird behavior on Tony's part that the Air Force doctor responsible for clearing Tony for flight status suspects something is not quite right about every other episode. (He's a regular foil for our morons).
My main problem with the show is that even as a child, I could never believe that real astronauts would be such inept morons, or so easily rattled.
You want a supernatural comedy from the period with some real questionable stuff? How about remaking "Bewitched"? I was thinking about that lately, and really wanted to go chew all the main cast out about how they gas-lighted their elderly neighbor into insanity. (Well, they certainly made everyone think Gladys was crazy, quite deliberately). I can forgive Endora for being a complete bitch-queen to Darrin--she's an immortal demigoddess whose immortal demigoddess daughter is marrying a mortal of dubious character (from her point-of-view--he's in advertising, for goodness sakes!) Shades of Elrond, Arwen and Aragorn--and Darrin is no Aragorn! However, Samantha and Darrin's abuse of nosy old lady Gladys Kravitz is inexcusable, even if she is the "looking for Reds under the bed" type.