In Season 3 of "I Dream of Jeannie",for the show adding Jeannie's jealous sister(also played by Barbara Eden)?Before,in the first and second season (especially the first season black and white)she never even mentioned she HAD a sister.Were the ratings sagging?Were Barbara Eden,Larry Hagman and the late Sidney Sheldon in favor of the idea?

None of the Above. Barbara Eden Just Wanted To Increase Her Salary, That's All.

I believe the idea was Jim Henerson's. He had been the writer who had come up with Bewitched's Samantha's evil sister, Serena. Sidney Sheldon had an evil sister set-up in one of his other shows, so he wasn't against the idea.

...of both Sidney's and James Henerson's. Keep in mind that Sidney had previously created two TV ideas featuring twins: "THE GINGER ROGERS SHOW", an unsold 1961 pilot for CBS, featuring her playing twin sisters; and "THE PATTY DUKE SHOW", in which he also originally envisioned Patty playing twin sisters- but William Asher, his co-creator, insisted they be cousins, instead [yes, Bill Asher was credited as "co-creator"]. Somewhere, during production of the third season of "BEWITCHED", he decided it would be fun for Elizabeth Montgomery (Mrs. Asher) to play twins herself in an episode....so "Cousin Serena" was introduced in "And Then There Were Three" [1/13/66], written by Bernard Slade. In the meantime, Sidney Sheldon, who claimed he turned down the producer's chair for "BEWITCHED" (after Danny Arnold, the first producer, left the series in mid-season), wrote a February 1967 episode of "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" {"There Goes the Best Genie I Ever Had"} where Jeannie briefly appears in a dark wig in an effort to try to convince "Master" not to send her away for good. This probably set Sheldon to thinking, if Patty Duke could look different by altering her appearance, Barbara Eden can, too...sure, why not introduce Jeannie's twin sister, who's a direct opposite of her, and has dark hair [and an attitude to match], in the third season? He gave Jim Henerson {who was also providing scripts to "BEWITCHED" at the time, until Bill Asher fired him in mid-season after noticing a stage direction in one of his scripts, "Samantha blinks"!} the assignment of writing the script that introduced Jeannie's sister, "Jeannie" [when Tony wonders why her sister shares the same name, Jeannie explains with a shrug, "We are all genies"]. Meanwhile, "Cousin Serena" turned up again (after a year and a half's absence), just one week after "Jeannie's" first appearance, in "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble" [9/28/67], which was filmed about the same time as the "JEANNIE" episode. Now, Bill Asher was already sore at Sheldon for doing the same kind of series he was {stopping short of declaring, "You stole my idea!"}, and here, Sidney was supposedly capitalizing on their original "PATTY DUKE SHOW" idea by introducing yet another set of "twin characters". This led to more episodes featuring "Serena" by early 1968, while Sidney, delighted with Barbara's approach to playing "opposites", featured "Jeannie {II}" several times every season for the rest of his series. Whether this was "competition" for both of them, I don't know. But it's interesting that, by late '68, "Serena" became more of a "flaky" hippie/counterculture figure, with a squeaky voice and an attitude to match...while Jeannie's sister stayed virtually the same.

Incidentally, Jeannie mentions her "baby sister" in the season two episode "My Master, the Rainmaker"...and the 1966 "I DREAM OF JEANNIE" paperback novel (which wasn't an "official" adaptation, as Sidney Sheldon's name appears nowhere in the book as creator or copyright holder), written by "Dennis Brewster" {whom I suspect was actually Al Hine, who wrote the "official" paperback adaptation of "BEWITCHED" for Dell in 1965}, features a slightly different version of Jeannie's origin, including a younger sister named "Nunz", who eventually comes to Cocoa Beach and becomes Roger Healy's [note the spelling] girlfriend {!!}. The entire novel is different from what you saw on TV during the first season...which lead me to believe "Brewster" was given a list of characters and situations through November 1965, and told to come up with an original story for the novel.
And that's enough about that!


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And a second question:In some early black and white episodes with the animated opening,it says Starring Barbara Eden ,Larry Hagman..with Philip Ober,Hayden Rorke,Karen Sharpe.How many episodes was this in?Was this NBC's idea,Sidney Sheldon's or both?

And a second question:In some early black and white episodes with the animated opening,it says Starring Barbara Eden ,Larry Hagman..with Philip Ober,Hayden Rorke,Karen Sharpe.How many episodes was this in?Was this NBC's idea,Sidney Sheldon's or both?

I believe originally these credits ONLY appeared in the pilot episode. Though I think it may be shown in more than that episode in syndication and perhaps on the DVDs (in other words - it's incorrect when shown other than on the pilot episode). Actually Philip Ober and Karen Sharpe were only on the pilot and one other episode, "Jeannie and the Marriage Caper," in which Capt. Nelson's marriage engagement is called off.

FYI: Phillip Ober who played Gen. Stone (and Tony's fiance' Melissa's father) was in real life married to Vivian Vance (Ethel from I Love Lucy)!

[QUOTE=TV Knowledge Fan]...of both Sidney's and James Henerson's. Keep in mind that Sidney had previously created two TV ideas featuring twins: "THE GINGER ROGERS SHOW", an unsold 1961 pilot for CBS, featuring her playing twin sisters; and "THE PATTY DUKE SHOW", in which he also originally envisioned Patty playing twin sisters- but William Asher, his co-creator, insisted they be cousins, instead [yes, Bill Asher was credited as "co-creator"].

Now, Bill Asher was already sore at Sheldon for doing the same kind of series he was {stopping short of declaring, "You stole my idea!"}, and here, Sidney was supposedly capitalizing on their original "PATTY DUKE SHOW" idea by introducing yet another set of "twin characters".

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I'm sure you are correct but I don't know how Asher could be sore at Sidney when it was Sidney's idea in the first place to use identical SISTERS for Patty Duke. ...and Asher was also capitalizing on "The Patty Duke Show" idea of twin cousins (as you point out above regarding Asher being ticked off at Sheldon on 'capitalizing' on it).

I LOVE "Bewitched" and Liz Montgomery but I must say it has been really disappointing to hear some of Bill Asher's statements (such as on "The E! True Hollywood Story of 'I Dream of Jeannie'") regarding Sidney Sheldon and "I Dream of Jeannie". On that he actually SAID Sheldon stole story lines from them (Sheldon denied taking ideas from them and stated to his knowledge they never took any ideas from "Jeannie" either). Meanwhile Asher doesn't mention Sidney Sheldon created "The Patty Duke Show" WITH IDENTICAL TWINS (although Sheldon DID envision sisters) - BEFORE SAMANTHA AND SERENA. Also, if William Asher felt that way I don't know why he agreed to work on the TV reunion movie, "I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later". Interestingly enough - after researching episode guides of both shows there are 15 examples in which BOTH shows could be accused of copying the other. For instance, in the first season of "I Dream of Jeannie," Tony gets supernatural help from Jeannie on the golf course in the episode 'Watch the Birdie' and in season three of "Bewitched," Darrin gets supernatural help on the golf course in the episode 'Birdies, Baxters and Bogies'. In the episode 'What House Across the Street?' in season one of "I Dream of Jeannie," Jeannie blinks up a house for herself across the street from Tony on a vaccant lot. In season three of "Bewitched" in the episode 'Mother Moves In For A Spell,' Endora zaps up a house for herself across the street from Darrin and Sam...on a vaccant lot! The exact same exterior house is even used on both episodes!! Though I truly do not believe that either did copy the other purposely but probably it was more likely due to some of the same writers and props being used on the same (Screen Gems) lot.

...Also - regarding any show being a 'copy' - both "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Bewitched" had movies done before them that served as some inspiration ("The Brass Bottle" for "I Dream of Jeannie" and "I Married a Witch" and "Bell, Book, and Candle" for "Bewitched"). It was Screen Gems who came to Sidney Sheldon and wanted him to create another supernatural hit for another network ("Bewitched" was #2 on ABC and "I Dream of Jeannie" aired the next season on NBC). "My Favorite Martian" aired one season before "Bewitched" premiered but I've never heard anyone say that because it was a supernatural sitcom that "Bewitched" even in any broad or vague sense copied it.

...were used ONLY in the first episode, when it was assumed that "General Stone" and "Melissa" would become regular characters in the series. However, Sidney Sheldon decided the "romantic triangle" he set up between Tony, Jeannie and Melissa in the pilot wasn't going to "pan out" in a weekly series, and wrote Ober and Stone out of the show in the fourth episode ["Jeannie and the Marriage Caper"], pushing Hayden Rorke's name to the closing credits.

However, in the current syndicated/cable edition of the first season episodes, SONY has substituted the "pilot" opening title for most of the extended "recap" openings and "standard" openings seen during the first 11 episodes.

Karen Sharpe (Melissa) virtually ended her acting career by marrying producer/director Stanley Kramer in 1966, raising a family and staying together until his death in 2001.

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...there was a slight reference, of sorts, to "BEWITCHED" in a third season episode of "MY FAVORITE MARTIAN", "Butterball" [2/13/66]. When Tim and Uncle Martin are tied up by enemy agents- and he can't use his "levitating finger" to get them loose- he remembers seeing a certain TV witch using something to activate her "magic"...he then twitches his nose, and they're free! At the end of the story, Martin tells Tim, "Remind me to send flowers to my favorite witch".

;)