★★1/2 March 21, 1963 Season 4 Episode 12
If you want to see where we are…HERE is a list of the episodes.
This episode is one of the light ones. You will notice the star of this episode right off the bat if you are a fan of the Andy Griffith Show. It’s Howard Morris…who is better known as Earnest T Bass. He does what he can do with the script. It’s slow paced and dull in spots. It does have a good moral to the story and a good twist at the very end…getting there is the challenge in this one. I feel like a broken record in a few of these longer episodes…but the hour works against itself in this one. One thing I will say…Howard Morris and Jack Albertson as the Genie are good in their parts.
The best moments in I Dream of Genie is when Howard Morris is in the fantasy roles imagining how a wish would turn out if he made it. There are some funny moments but the journey is too long to get there. A thirty minute version of this still wouldn’t save much.
This show was written by Rod Serling and John Furia
Rod Serling’s Opening Narration:
Meet Mr. George P. Hanley, a man life treats without deference, honor or success. Waiters serve his soup cold. Elevator operators close doors in his face. Mothers never bother to wait up for the daughters he dates. George is a creature of humble habits and tame dreams. He’s an ordinary man, Mr. Hanley, but at this moment the accidental possessor of a very special gift, the kind of gift that measures men against their dreams, the kind of gift most of us might ask for first and possibly regret to the last, if we, like Mr. George P. Hanley, were about to plunge head-first and unaware into our own personal Twilight Zone.
Summary
A smart aleck genie appears from a lamp to a meek man, George P. Hanley. Hanley is so used to bad luck, he imagines how each of three possible wishes could go very wrong – but the genie will grant him only one wish.
Rod Serling’s Closing Narration:
Mr. George P. Hanley, former vocation; jerk. Present vocation; genie. George P. Hanley, a most ordinary man whom life treated without deference, honor, or success, but a man wise enough to decide on a most extraordinary wish, that makes him the contented, permanent master of his own altruistic Twilight Zone.
CAST
Rod Serling … Narrator / Self – Host (uncredited)
George P. Hanley…Howard Morris
Ann…Patricia Barry
Watson…Loring Smith
Starlet…Joyce Jameson
Genie…Jack Albertson
Roger…Mark Miller[1]
May…Molly Dodd
The P.R. Man/Scientist were played Milton Parsons
Masters…James Millhollin
Sam…Bob Hastings
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Even though it’s only been a short time ago since watching this, I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember what happens in it 😦 I do remember it wasn’t very good. Hey not every one can be expected to be 5 stars. Life just doesn’t work that way.
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Oh yea… funny my cousin Mark wanted to watch a Twilight Zone last weekend. I have everything where it’s cast to the tv from a playstation…he picks this one out…we didn’t make it through it.
Oh it’s one of the few weak ones…as far as quality…there is only one other really bad one coming up. Still the batting average for the TZ is incredible.
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LOL, wouldn’t you know he’d pick one of the few duds.
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no arguing with your last statement… only a few misses which is more remarkable when you see how much Serling had to do himself . almost parroting Lisa, I think I have seen this one (though not terribly recently) but can’t recall much of it.
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The next one I really like but then it dips again slightly but not this low until the end of this season.
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Here’s a recent article about Rod Serling, including a brief interview with his daughter Anne, I saw in our local publication Palm Springs Life that I thought you might find of interest Max.
https://www.palmspringslife.com/rod-serling/
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Thank you Jeff. I wrote her after I read her book a couple of years ago…she was so gracious and nice.
Thanks again
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You’re welcome Max. I should have guessed you might have already read her book.
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I’ve only wrote two authors in my life. One was her and the other was David Stenn who wrote “Runnin’ Wild”….a Clara Bow biography.
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Agree with others. This one just seemed to drag and drag. The set up at then beginning had promise in terms of him being able to give the girl the genie lamp but then they didn’t do anything with it if I’m remembering it correctly
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The fantasy sequences are the best thing about it but they went on for too long.
It did have promise but just fell flat.
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