TVSquad

Thirty-nine years ago today, May 26, 1970, NBC aired the very last episode of I Dream of Jeannie. The episode isn't available online, but here's the third-to-last episode from that season, "Hurricane Jeannie." I love how Jeannie is so powerful that she can control whether the phone works or not. They should cast Barbara Eden on Heroes, maybe as one of the original group of heroes with Angela and Hiro's dad.

Damn, I wish I had thought of this.

Artist and writer Dan Meth has created a series of cool pop culture charts at his web site, and the one on the right is a handy guide to sitcom homes. Sense a pattern? The shows in the top half all have kitchens on the left and living rooms on the right (how we see them via the camera angle), and the ones on the bottom have the living room on the left and the kitchen on the right.

I guess there are only so many things you can do on a sitcom, especially if it's filmed in front of an audience as many of these were.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Wow, this is quite a week for TV fans of all types. You can get the complete series sets for The Sopranos and I Dream of Jeannie, and anniversary sets for such TV classics as The Cosby Show and The Long Ranger. I even see a season 2 set for Mister Peepers! I didn't even know there was a season 1 set already released, so I'll have to look into that.

The Studio One anthology is a real gem, and I'll have a review of it later this week.

• 7th Heaven - Season 7
• Band of Brothers - Miniseries (Blu-Ray)
• Chuck - Season 1 (Blu-Ray)
• The Cosby Show - 25th Anniversary
• Father Knows Best - Season 2
• Firefly - Complete Series (Blu-Ray)
• I Dream of Jeannie - Complete Series
• Little House on the Prairie - Complete Series
• The Lone Ranger - 75th Anniversary
• M Squad - Complete Series

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Evelyn Keyes: Although she was best known for her movie work, including The Seven Year Itch, Gone with the Wind, The Jolson Story, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan, she also guest starred on many TV shows, including The Love Boat, several episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Amazing Stories, and Climax! She was once married to jazz legend Artie Shaw and directors John Huston and Charles Vidor. She died in Montecito, CA at age 91.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet - Best of Ricky and Dave
• The Batman - Season 5
• Batman: The Animated Series - Gotham Knight and Gotham Knight Special Edition
• Cannon - Season 1, Vol. 1
• The Dog Whisperer - Season 3, Canine Makeovers, and Stories of Hope and Inspiration
• Fastlane - Complete Series
• I Dream of Jeannie - Season 5
• Jake and the Fatman - Season 1, Vol. 1
• Monk - Season 6
• Psych - Season 2\
• Shaggy and Scooby-Doo: Get A Clue - Vol. 2
• Soul Food - Season 4
• Spider-Man - The Hobgoblin
• Stargate: Atlantis - Season 4
• Teen Titans - Season 5
• The X-Files - Revelations

The big screen adaptation of I Dream of Jeannie has been years in the making. Now a script writer is attached, so who knows, maybe we'll see it in theaters in the next few years (IMDB.com lists a release date of 2010). And something tells me we'll probably see a belly button or two.

Producer Sid Ganis is bringing Rita Hsiao, who scribed Mulan, on board to rewrite the script for a movie based on the 1960s series. Ganis is psyched for Hsiao's vision of the character -- a Jeannie who's smack in the middle of modern times.

In a Hollywood Reporter story, Ganis said of Hsiao's meeting with the producers, "She has a terrific, bright, fresh approach to Jeannie's story, with a twist and turn along the way. She captured all of our imaginations in the telling of it."

Remember Sony's Minisode Network? Basically Sony is sitting on a huge library of television episodes that don't see much airtime anymore. So the company decided to slice up classic TV shows like Charlie's Angels, and T.J. Hooker and create 5 minute "minisodes."

The interesting thing is that the cliff notes versions of these shows work surprisingly well, if you don't care about things like plot, character development, and dialog.

The minisodes were originally available online at MySpace. Now Sony is making the mini-shows available on Crackle, AOL, and Joost, as well as MySpace. Sony is also bringing more shows out of the vault including Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and The Jeffersons.

[via The New York Times]

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• The Addams Family - Vol. 3
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - Complete Book 2
• Bones - Season 2
• Charmed - Season 8
• Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends - Season 2
• Fraggle Rock - Season 3
• Goosebumps - Say Cheese and Die, It Came From Beneath The Sink, and Night of the Living Dummy
• Grey's Anatomy - Season 3 (Extended)
• I Dream of Jeannie - Season 4
• Jericho - Set 2
• Judge Judy - Justice Served
• Las Vegas - Season 4
• Masada - Complete Miniseries
• McHale's Navy - Season 2
• Prime Suspect - Prime Suspect 7
• The Starter Wife - Complete Miniseries
• Supernatural - Season 2
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Fast Forward, Vol. 2
• Tom and Jerry - Spotlight Collection, Vol. 3
• Two and a Half Men - Season 1

A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.

• Will Schaefer: He wrote background music for a number of TV shows over the years, including The Flintstones, I Dream of Jeannie, Hogan's Heroes, The Jetsons, The Tonight Show, Disneyland, The Super Friends, The Phil Silvers Show, Barnaby Jones, and The Flying Nun. He also did music for over 700 commercials (!). He died of cancer near Palm Springs, CA at age 78.

Hawaiian singer Don Ho, whose most famous song was "Tiny Bubbles," died yesterday morning in Honolulu of a heart attack. Ho had several heart problems in recent years, had a pacemaker installed, and had experimental surgery done in Thailand two years ago. He performed right up until the end, with his last show this past Thursday.

Ho hosted his own variety show, appropriately titled The Don Ho Show, on ABC in 1976-77. He made appearances on several TV shows, including McCloud and Hawaiian Eye, but most of the time he appeared as himself, in shows like The Brady Bunch, Charlie's Angels, One West Waikiki, Fantasy Island, Sanford and Son, The Fall Guy, Life Goes On, Batman, and I Dream of Jeannie.

I think it used to be a law that every TV show had to film at least one episode on location in Hawaii, and if they did, Ho guest starred.

He might be best remembered by television fans as the creator and writer of such shows as I Dream of Jeannie and The Patty Duke Show, but Sidney Sheldon also wrote for the theater and was a novelist as well, writing several over the years (and he started writing novels at age 50!), including The Other Side of Midnight, If Tomorrow Comes, Rage of Angels, Bloodline, and Master of the Game.

Besides I Dream of Jeannie and Patty Duke, he also wrote or created several other series, including Hart to Hart and Nancy, and wrote an episode of the Twilight Zone revival in the mid 80s. Movies he wrote or co-wrote include the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy Pardners, Easter Parade, The Buster Keaton Story, and The Bachelor and The Bobby Soxer.

Sheldon died this afternoon in Los Angeles from pneumonia.

Here are the new TV DVDs in stores tomorrow.

• The Benny Hill Show - Hill's Angels, Set 6
• The Big Valley - Season 2, Vol. 1
• Dallas - Season 6
• I Dream of Jeannie - Season 3
• Law and Order: SVU - Season 3
• Lucky Louie - Complete Series
• Murder, She Wrote - Season 5
• Three's Company - Jack's Favorites

Our weekly roundup of new TV DVDs. Some noteworthy releases for today, July 11:

• Bridezillas - Season One and Season Two
• A Different World - Season Two
• The Ellen Show - Complete Series
• I Dream of Jeannie - Second Season
• ER - Fifth Season
• Masters of Horror - Homecoming
• Perry Mason - Season One, Volume One
• Reno 911! - Season Three
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - Season One, Volume Two
• Weeds - Season One