Description: Season 2, Episode 2
Air Date: October 7, 1960
Plot Summary: A couple, struggling financially, discovers that an ordinary glass bottle actually contains a genie.
Review: As I've mentioned numerous times, I am a sucker for genie tales, however, this episode is on the generic side. It's not that the story is bad, but it's predictable and follows a, mostly, cookie-cutter approach to genies and the outcomes that arise. I mean, from the moment the couple discovers the genie, you can quickly determine where this story will end up; this story would have benefited from TZ's classic twists to spice things up a bit.
So we meet an old couple, owners of an antique store, that are neck-deep in debt. Not quite sure where that much debt is coming from, but I guess we can go with it. A local woman comes begging the husband for money in exchange for an alleged family heirloom. Since this appears to be a common incident, the husband takes pity on the woman and offers her a buck for the heirloom which is a plain old, glass bottle. When the woman is walking out, she admits the bottle was just something she found in the trash. Even though she does apologize for this lie...what a bitch! The couple eventually starts to argue over this little transaction as the wife addresses the fact that they need every single dollar. The husband does her one better as he explains that this antique store is more of a burden than a business and has been slowly killing his family. Amidst the fit of rage, the husband knocks over the bottle and unleashes the genie inside. This genie is dressed like a sleazy salesman from the 1800s and looks just as creepy--not the trustworthy sort. I've never understood how genies always understand the logistics of the era they're in, but this one is no different. This genie also magically knows everything about the couple and their woes.
The couple is told they have 4 wishes as they quickly blow a wish with the infamous "prove you're a genie" routine; this leads to the genie fixing the broken glass on a display. From there, the couple wishes for a million dollars as the genie laughs sadistically. That probably should have been your cue not to trust this asshole. The first thing the couple does with their money is to give it to random neighborhood people they're friends with...I guess. This joy is short-lived, however, as some tax bitch shows up and claims they owe most of it in taxes. Uhh yeah, nice try. Assuming a tax bitch would instinctively show up the moment you had money, you would not owe 90% of what you had! Well, after the money that has been given to friends, the couple only has $5 to spare. The genie shows up and tells us the usual spiel about "be careful what you wish for" and so forth. The couple then makes a blatantly idiotic wish to be the ruler of a country, who can't be removed from power, in the last century. I'll give you one guess which country the husband becomes the leader of--you got it? It's nazi Germany! They even made the husband turn into Hitler. Come on, dude, you should have seen that outcome a mile away. This leads to the husband making the final wish to restore everything back to normal, and that's the end of their wishes. Fools. The couple then realizes you can't gain happiness through mere wishes as they look on the bright side with their fixed display. But because the universe hates them, the husband accidentally breaks the glass on the display again. In the end, the genie bottle is dumped in the trash where it supposedly won't open again for 101 years.
Overall, this is essentially the standard genie tale with a slightly more evil genie. We all know the morality behind the tale itself and most people understand the typical rules about needing to be specific toward the wishes. I wish they would have done more with the material, offered up a new angle to explore, or added a cool twist, but you can't get everything you want (hooray for lame puns). Despite this complaint, the episode is decent enough and respectable in its own right--it's simply middle of the road.
I found this episode kinda dumb, the couple weren't too bright. When the husband takes pity on the old lady, and then of course after he gives her the dollar, she has the nerve to say she lied. He should've then grabbed that dollar he gave her back out of her hand for obviously playing him and then rubbing it in his face when she was paid.
ReplyDeleteThen for the genie part, and the "test" wish with the broken glass being fixed (which was so similarly copied in "Bedazzled" when Brendan Frazier's test wish was a big Mac and coke).
With their wish for a million dollars, the couple was so stupid to just be handing their neighbors huge wads of money like that without even counting what they were giving away. Then, I really didn't want to hear the husband complain about how they now don't have money left to pay the bills that they were stressing so much about during the first part of this ep. Of course, there was no way of knowing that that tax bitch, as you called him, came and took almost 95% of it. It was obviously all the set up of that sleasy genie. I think that he looked more like a sleazy salesman from the 1930s, not the 1800s.
Anyway, their next wish when the husband started to wish for more money, why in the hell did the wife then say "No! No more money!" Why? All they had to do second time round was not hand gigantic wads of cash to 30 different people this time and pay those bills. There would've been enough to do that before that tax prick takes almost 95% of the million. I can't believe that their bills would be anywhere close to $50,000 in the early 1960s. No point questioning these moron's intelligence, when there was still the idiotic Hitler wish (which again "Bedazzled" copied when they made Brendan Frazier wish to be a great leader, and he became Lincoln right before he was shot. Pretty similar from here where the wish made him Hitler right before he died at the end of the war).
Also, the genie said that they had 4 wishes, where was the fourth one? The first was the glass, the second was the million bucks, and the third was Hitler. Uh..what about the fourth? Dumb episode.
I found this episode kinda dumb, the couple weren't too bright. When the husband takes pity on the old lady, and then of course after he gives her the dollar, she has the nerve to say she lied. He should've then grabbed that dollar he gave her back out of her hand for obviously playing him and then rubbing it in his face when she was paid.
ReplyDeleteThen for the genie part, and the "test" wish with the broken glass being fixed (which was so similarly copied in "Bedazzled" when Brendan Frazier's test wish was a big Mac and coke).
With their wish for a million dollars, the couple was so stupid to just be handing their neighbors huge wads of money like that without even counting what they were giving away. Then, I really didn't want to hear the husband complain about how they now don't have money left to pay the bills that they were stressing so much about during the first part of this ep. Of course, there was no way of knowing that that tax bitch, as you called him, came and took almost 95% of it. It was obviously all the set up of that sleasy genie. I think that he looked more like a sleazy salesman from the 1930s, not the 1800s.
Anyway, their next wish when the husband started to wish for more money, why in the hell did the wife then say "No! No more money!" Why? All they had to do second time round was not hand gigantic wads of cash to 30 different people this time and pay those bills. There would've been enough to do that before that tax prick takes almost 95% of the million. I can't believe that their bills would be anywhere close to $50,000 in the early 1960s. No point questioning these moron's intelligence, when there was still the idiotic Hitler wish (which again "Bedazzled" copied when they made Brendan Frazier wish to be a great leader, and he became Lincoln right before he was shot. Pretty similar from here where the wish made him Hitler right before he died at the end of the war).
Also, the genie said that they had 4 wishes, where was the fourth one? The first was the glass, the second was the million bucks, and the third was Hitler. Uh..what about the fourth? Dumb episode.
Fourth wish was used to turn back to normal from when he was Hitler. It was just a complete waste of a genie tale. Cliched wishes followed by even more cliched outcomes. Not one of TZ's more original or creative episodes if I do say so. It certainly doesn't help when you create characters so painfully stupid that the audience wants them to die.
DeleteThe only instance I can think of that messed with the genie formula was a mildly entertaining horror movie called "Wishcraft" where the main guy actually ended up getting everything he wanted by the end.