Today's WGN episode from season one black and white episode

[Rezny@gmail.com]

"The Permanent House Guest"was one of the better ones from season one-black and white .It was well written by the late Sidney Sheldon and well-directed by Hal Cooper,in which Tony,Jeannie,and Roger (in this one,as in the episode "The Richest Astronaut in the World",Roger(!)was Jeannie's master,briefly),worked together to get an ever so suspicious Dr.Bellows out of Tony's house(after seeing the elephant Jeannie blinked up at the beginning(and later,at Tony's request,blinked it out),when he moved in and became Tony's house guest,and drove Dr.Bellows out of the house.Which they did.It was also funny at the end,when Roger asked Tony,"But can I keep the maid?"Jeannie,smiling,blinks up a maid at Tony's request(but not the sexy maid that Roger had in mind,but a plain,ordinary,frumpy-type bossy maid).Both Tony and Jeannie laugh.Priceless.My score-8/10 good

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...was a good episode in the second half of season one. Nelson Riddle wrote the score [Sidney was "auditioning" other composers during this period to see if they could do a better job than Richard Wess, with whom he was dissatisfied with his approach towards scoring the series; Hugo Montenengro was the one Sheldon finally chose to write a new theme and score for season two]. There's an interesting story about the elephant- the trainer was apparently a mean one, as Sidney remembered that, in order to prepare him for his brief scene in front of the camera, the trainer beat the elephant several times until it shat. Then he told Sheldon, "Now he's good for two hours".

The closing gag was somewhat recycled by Sheldon in his 1967 script, "My Poor Master, the Civilian".

There was also some recycled footage from earlier episodes [Tony's "space walk" from "Anybody Here Seen Jeannie?"; Jeannie peeking out from a beer stein from 'Whatever Became of Baby Custer?"] to keep the series' budget in check....