It must have been challenging to live the secrets, fantasies, and magic of classic sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Mister Ed, My Mother The Car, and My Favorite Martian.
How do you explain something like a genie in a bottle, a talking horse, a Martian turned uncle, a wife with magical powers, or a mother reincarnated as a 1928 Porter automobile?
How does anyone explain what cannot be explained logically? Of course, these popular sitcoms were all about fantasy, raw imagination, and to some degree – sexual tension, while trying not to look insane. These sitcoms were nothing new at the time. This type of fantasy had been done before on the big screen. If I think hard enough, it was probably done in the 1950s on the small screen.
The movie Harvey, which was rolled out in 1950 starring James Stewart and Josephine Hull, was a comedy based on Mary Chase’s 1944 play of the same title. This post-war flick focused on a character named Elwood P. Dowd whose best friend was an invisible, imaginary six-foot tall bunny rabbit, which put his sister in the position of having him committed to a mental institution. As you might imagine, Elwood took his imaginary friend around to the bars and other public venues introducing “Harvey” to nearly everyone who eventually accepts Harvey’s presence.
The difference between Harvey and these popular network sitcoms was Elwood hung “Harvey” out there for everyone to see what no one could see. Harvey wasn’t a secret. In I Dream of Jeannie, only two characters knew about the main character – Jeannie (actress Barbara Eden). Two young NASA astronauts, Tony Nelson (Larry Hagman) and Roger Healy (Bill Daily), knew about Jeannie after Nelson captured her bottle on a deserted island after the splashdown of Stardust One.
This successful NBC/Screen Gems television series began with Astronaut Tony spotting a colorful bottle rolling across the beach sand to meet him. Tony popped the top, rubbed the bottle, and out came Barbara Eden (Jeannie), changing Nelson’s life significantly.
I Dream of Jeannie was a dreamy magical sitcom birthed by writer and author Sidney Sheldon, with Barbara Eden as a stunning 2,000-year-old genie along with fictional astronaut Larry Hagman she fell in love with and ultimately married in the final season. She gave him a kiss, which undoubtedly drove men crazy from coast to coast who desired a piece of the action. Astronaut Roger Healey, being Tony’s best friend, was the only other character who knew about Jeannie. The two kept a bizarre secret for five seasons and 139 episodes.
“A horse is a horse, of course-of course…” has to be one of the funniest sitcoms in television history. It began with the immortal words, “It’s been a long time since I was a pony…” in Episode 1 of Mister Ed in 1961 followed by “I talk only to you…” to his new owner, Wilbur Post, in the five seasons to follow. Wilbur found himself in a variety of awkward situations, some quite embarrassing, in which he could not explain who he was talking to as friends would walk up.
It would be easy to wonder where the concept of a talking horse would have come from. Like a number of television shows and movies, Mister Ed came from a collection of short stories known as “The Talking Horse” by Walter R. Brooks written for children in the 1930s. It took a producer like Arthur Lubin to bring “The Talking Horse” to television some three decades later. Mister Ed never caved on his commitment to speaking only to Wilbur, which kept audiences laughing for five seasons. My favorite part was the Studebaker Lark coupe in an age when new Studebaker automobiles were fading away. The long-standing car company would be gone by 1966, timed with the wrap-up of Mister Ed.
Bewitched was yet another fantasy sitcom in a decade of weird, bizarre sitcoms that kept American audiences laughing for eight seasons. Like Jeannie, Bewitched was a series where only one mortal knew who she was along with a cast of witch-in-law types who kept the show endlessly entertaining. Talents like Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Fox, Alice Ghostly, Marion Lorne, Paul Lynde, Maurice Evans, and a host of others kept us transfixed to the screen. Did you know Hanna-Barbera produced Bewitched’s opening and closing animation?
Bewitched ran from 1964 to 1972 before it wrapped up in a new decade when viewers were longing for something fresh. Bewitched never really ended any more than other fiercely popular sitcoms did. These shows have remained in syndication in the decades since. Nostalgia networks like TVLand, MeTV, RetroTV, Cozi TV, and Antenna TV and others have kept the spirit alive for Boomers who want to retreat from today’s chaotic and troubling news broadcasts and relive the magic of television from more than a half century ago.
Boomer Journey... 