Hey, Jeannie!
Encyclopedia
Hey, Jeannie! is a 32-episode half-hour situation comedy
starring Jeannie Carson
as a young Scottish
woman living in New York City
. Twenty-six segments aired on CBS
from September 8, 1956 to May 4, 1957 in the Saturday slot following The Gale Storm Show
and preceding the western
series Gunsmoke
.
Six additional episodes aired in 1958 in syndication
.
descent, plays 28-year-old Jeannie MacLennan, who like Andrew Carnegie
, is originally from Dunfermline, Scotland
. Upon signing to star in Hey, Jeannie!, Carson became the second highest paid entertainer in the United Kingdom
, behind Vivien Leigh
. Whereas Carnegie settled in Pittsburgh
, Pennsylvania
, Carson's character comes to New York to better herself financially. She takes a job as a waitress in a donut shop and lives with her sponsors, Al and Liz Murray, a brother and sister portrayed by Allen Jenkins
(1900-1974) and Jane Dulo (1917-1994). Jenkins is cast as a cab driver in Brooklyn. Frequently the whole cast breaks out in song, performing such numbers as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game
," "Side by Side", "Start All Over Again," and "The Lady's in Love with You."
In the 1958 episodes, the series was revamped, Jeannie was cast as a flight attendant, and Allen Jenkins and Jane Dulo were replaced. Jack Kirkwood (1894-1964) appeared as Charlie O'Connell, Jeannie's landlord, who particularly dislikes pets. Vera Vague, also known as Barbara Jo Allen
, portrayed Mabel, the boss of the flight attendants.In one of the syndicated segments, Jeannie befriends Joe, a young Korea
n orphan, after she indicates that she is a baseball fan. When the flight lands, Joe, played by Warren Hsieh, follows Jeannie to her apartment, instead of the residence of his adoptive parents.
, who was at the time launching his own ABC
western series, The Rifleman
, portrays millionaire playboy Buck Matthews, who rents an entire plane for himself and invites Jeannie to join him on a tour of the nightclubs of New York.
In the series finale, Jeannie meets the Cheyenne chief, Mike Flying Eagle, played by Robert Warwick, on a flight from Washington, D.C.
, where he had been to seek federal aid for drought
relief. He performs a rain dance, and Jeannie and the flight engineer, Herbert, portrayed by William Schallert
, hire a light aircraft to salt the clouds with ice. This creates rain at last. The grateful Flying Eagle declares Jeannie his daughter, "Little Rain Cloud." But the Pawnee are irate because the downpour destroys their newly planted grain.
Other guest stars included Jack Albertson
, Parley Baer
, Charles Bronson
, Virginia Christine
, Tristram Coffin, Mike Connors
(who plays a rodeo
star Lash Connor), Hans Conreid, Brian Corcoran, Clegg Hoyt
, Helen Kleeb
, Richard Long
, Jerry Paris
, Lyle Talbot
, Sammee Tong
, Mary Treen
, and Will Wright
.
in It's Always Jan
. Hey, Jeannie is a production of Dick Powell
's Four Star Television
. It ran on CBS opposite Lawrence Welk's Dodge Dancing Party
on ABC and Sid Caesar
's Caesar's Hour
on NBC
.
Some ten Hey, Jeannie! episodes were repeated between June 30 and probably September 22, 1960, on ABC
as a summer replacement for the departing variety show
, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
.
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
starring Jeannie Carson
Jeannie Carson
Jeannie Carson is a retired English-born United States-based comedienne and musical theatre actress...
as a young Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
woman living in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Twenty-six segments aired on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
from September 8, 1956 to May 4, 1957 in the Saturday slot following The Gale Storm Show
The Gale Storm Show
The Gale Storm Show is an American sitcom starring Gale Storm. The series premiered on September 29, 1956, and ran until 1960 for 143 half-hour black-and-white episodes, initially on CBS and in its last year on ABC...
and preceding the western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
.
Six additional episodes aired in 1958 in syndication
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
.
Premise
Carson, who is actually of EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
descent, plays 28-year-old Jeannie MacLennan, who like Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
, is originally from Dunfermline, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Upon signing to star in Hey, Jeannie!, Carson became the second highest paid entertainer in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, behind Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
. Whereas Carnegie settled in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, Carson's character comes to New York to better herself financially. She takes a job as a waitress in a donut shop and lives with her sponsors, Al and Liz Murray, a brother and sister portrayed by Allen Jenkins
Allen Jenkins
Allen Jenkins was an American character actor of stage, screen and television.-Early life:He was born David Allen Curtis Jenkins in Staten Island, New York on April 9, 1900.-Career:...
(1900-1974) and Jane Dulo (1917-1994). Jenkins is cast as a cab driver in Brooklyn. Frequently the whole cast breaks out in song, performing such numbers as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer which has become the unofficial anthem of baseball, although neither of its authors had attended a game prior to writing the song. The song is traditionally sung during the seventh-inning stretch of...
," "Side by Side", "Start All Over Again," and "The Lady's in Love with You."
In the 1958 episodes, the series was revamped, Jeannie was cast as a flight attendant, and Allen Jenkins and Jane Dulo were replaced. Jack Kirkwood (1894-1964) appeared as Charlie O'Connell, Jeannie's landlord, who particularly dislikes pets. Vera Vague, also known as Barbara Jo Allen
Barbara Jo Allen
Barbara Jo Allen was an actress also known as Vera Vague, the spinster character she created and portrayed on radio and in films during the 1940s and 1950s. She based the character on a woman she had seen delivering a PTA literature lecture in a confused manner...
, portrayed Mabel, the boss of the flight attendants.In one of the syndicated segments, Jeannie befriends Joe, a young Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
n orphan, after she indicates that she is a baseball fan. When the flight lands, Joe, played by Warren Hsieh, follows Jeannie to her apartment, instead of the residence of his adoptive parents.
Guest stars
In another segment, Chuck ConnorsChuck Connors
Chuck Connors was an American actor, writer, and professional basketball and baseball player. His best known role from his forty-year film career was Lucas McCain in the 1960s ABC hit Western series The Rifleman....
, who was at the time launching his own ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
western series, The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
, portrays millionaire playboy Buck Matthews, who rents an entire plane for himself and invites Jeannie to join him on a tour of the nightclubs of New York.
In the series finale, Jeannie meets the Cheyenne chief, Mike Flying Eagle, played by Robert Warwick, on a flight from Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where he had been to seek federal aid for drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
relief. He performs a rain dance, and Jeannie and the flight engineer, Herbert, portrayed by William Schallert
William Schallert
William Joseph Schallert is an American actor who has appeared in many films and in such television series as The Smurfs, The Rat Patrol, Gunsmoke, The Patty Duke Show, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Waltons, Bonanza, Leave It to Beaver, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Love, American Style, Get...
, hire a light aircraft to salt the clouds with ice. This creates rain at last. The grateful Flying Eagle declares Jeannie his daughter, "Little Rain Cloud." But the Pawnee are irate because the downpour destroys their newly planted grain.
Other guest stars included Jack Albertson
Jack Albertson
Jack Albertson was an American character actor dating to vaudeville. A comedian, dancer, singer, and musician, Albertson is perhaps best known for his roles as Manny Rosen in The Poseidon Adventure , Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Amos Slade in the 1981 animated film The Fox...
, Parley Baer
Parley Baer
Parley Edward Baer was an American actor in film, television, and radio.-Radio:Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Baer had a circus background, but began his radio career at Utah station KSL...
, Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
, Virginia Christine
Virginia Christine
Virginia Christine was an American film and television actress and voice artist. Christine had a long career as a character actress in film and television. She played "Mrs...
, Tristram Coffin, Mike Connors
Mike Connors
Mike Connors is an American actor best known for playing detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series, Mannix. Before that, he had played a crime-fighting investigator, wielding a .38 handgun hidden in his back, in another CBS series, Tightrope.-Early life:Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in...
(who plays a rodeo
Rodeo
Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...
star Lash Connor), Hans Conreid, Brian Corcoran, Clegg Hoyt
Clegg Hoyt
Clegg Hoyt was an American actor who appeared primarily on television.- Filmography :* In the Heat of the Night ... as Deputy...
, Helen Kleeb
Helen Kleeb
Helen Kleeb was an American film and television actress. In a career covering nearly fifty years, she may be best-known for her role as "Miss Mamie Baldwin" on CBS's The Waltons .In 1956-57, she guest-starred on CBS's Hey, Jeannie!, starring Jeannie Carson...
, Richard Long
Richard Long (actor)
Richard Long was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several ABC television series, including The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor and Bourbon Street Beat.-Early life:...
, Jerry Paris
Jerry Paris
Jerry Paris was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show.-Life and career:...
, Lyle Talbot
Lyle Talbot
Lyle Talbot , born Lisle Henderson, was an American actor on stage and screen, best known for his long career in movies from 1931 to 1960 and for his frequent appearances on TV in the 1950s and '60s, including his decade-long role as Joe Randolph on television's The Adventures of Ozzie and...
, Sammee Tong
Sammee Tong
Sammee Tong was an American film and television character actor.He appeared in more than thirty films and some forty television programs between 1935 and 1965. He first appeared in an uncredited role as a waiter in Charlie Chan in Shanghai , and later as Cheela, the houseboy, in Think Fast, Mr....
, Mary Treen
Mary Treen
-Selected filmography:-External links:...
, and Will Wright
Will Wright (actor)
William Henry "Will" Wright was an American character actor. He was frequently cast in curmudgeonly roles. He was sometimes credited as Will J. Wright....
.
Scheduling
In the 1955-1956 season, the Hey, Jeannie! time slot was occupied by another unsuccessful sitcom, Janis PaigeJanis Paige
Janis Paige is an American film, musical theatre and television actress. Born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, she began singing in public from the age of five in local amateur shows...
in It's Always Jan
It's Always Jan
It's Always Jan is an American situation comedy starring Janis Paige, which aired on CBS in the 1955-1956 season. It was the lead-in program at 9:30 p.m...
. Hey, Jeannie is a production of Dick Powell
Dick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...
's Four Star Television
Four Star Television
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer, the company produced many well-known shows of the early days of...
. It ran on CBS opposite Lawrence Welk's Dodge Dancing Party
The Lawrence Welk Show
The Lawrence Welk Show is an American televised musical variety show hosted by big band leader Lawrence Welk. The series aired locally in Los Angeles for four years , then nationally for another 27 years via the ABC network and first-run syndication .In the years since first-run syndication...
on ABC and Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
's Caesar's Hour
Caesar's Hour
Caesar's Hour is a live, hour-long American sketch comedy television program that aired on NBC from 1954 until 1957. The program starred, among others, Sid Caesar, Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Janet Blair and Milt Kamen, and featured a number of cameo roles by famous entertainers...
on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
.
Some ten Hey, Jeannie! episodes were repeated between June 30 and probably September 22, 1960, on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
as a summer replacement for the departing variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
, The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom
The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom is a half-hour variety show that aired on ABC from October 3, 1957 to June 23, 1960, starring the young singer Pat Boone and a host of top-name guest stars. The program was of course sponsored by Chevrolet...
.