I Dream of Genie

Description: Season 4, Episode 12

Air Date: March 21, 1963

Plot Summary: After unwittingly buying a magic lamp, a man contemplates what his one wish should be.

Review: I suppose this could be the inspiration for the show, "I Dream of Jeannie," but I don't know if that was a popular phrase once upon a time. Either way, the genie here certainly is no Barbara Eden! In fact, the genie is played by Jack Albertson--better known as Grandpa Joe from "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory." This is supposed to be a humorous episode, but there is one, reoccurring joke and it gets old quickly; that joke being that the main guy, George, is a little bitch-boy. The story was decent for what it was, and differentiates itself from "The Man in the Bottle" episode, but they lose momentum about halfway through.

You have George, in his full bitch-boy glory, at the start of the episode being coerced into buying the magic lamp. The lamp is actually intended to be a birthday gift for his co-worker, and crush, Ann. Ann is--well--the office skank. I love the massive levels of sexual harassment, inappropriate behavior, and sheer shenanigans at this office. Though, I'm sure the PC retards of today wouldn't be able to distinguish this amusing depiction of fiction from reality. Regardless, Ann appears to go for George's other co-worker, Roger, who gave Ann, what I'm guessing was, lingerie. Ehh...George could do better than this girl.

Wimping out on giving the gift, George goes home where he discovers the magic lamp's true power and the genie inside. Supposedly people were abusing the wishes of the past so they reduced the number of wishes down to one. Lame. George decides to take his time to consider what he wants as he imagines various scenarios unfolding based on possible wishes. Essentially, George's bitch-boy level is too high and makes every scenario go wrong. His first idea was to wish for Ann to be the most famous movie star and he as her husband. Whaaaaat?! You'd waste a magic wish--that could give you anything imagined in the universe--on merely becoming the husband to a bimbo? Wow...just wow. Even in George's fantasy Ann cheats on him! How apropos. George next imagines having money but growing bored of being able to have everything without effort. His final idea is to be powerful so he imagines being the president. That's a good one. Yes, the puppet in chief is soooo powerful. But this dream is shattered when aliens attack and he can't decide on a course of action. You're killing me here, Georgie! Realizing the truth--that he's a bitch-boy--George makes the best wish he could in his position: he goes the Jafar route and turns himself into a genie. The difference is that he intends to grant wishes to those in need and places his lamp in an area with homeless people. That's surprisingly a noble sentiment.

Overall, this is an interesting episode, as most genie-themed stories tend to be, but there needed to be an extra layer of humor beyond constantly beating it into the audience that George is a pushover; this episode did make me laugh a bit, but I started to get bored by the time he was imagining being rich. I'd probably rate this as an average episode that would have been more successful in the 30 minute format. Good ideas, without a doubt, but the execution was lacking in stretching out those ideas.