SUNDAY'S PORN DAY!

The porn parody machine keeps on crankin' 'em out and among the most recent examples is this parody of I DREAM OF JEANNIE, its title altered solely with the addition of the now familiar "This Ain't" and "XXX" identifiers.

The 1965-1970 sitcom enjoyed a long life in syndication during the youth of Americans of my age and many of the little girls I knew during childhood and early adolescence were positively obsessed with it, or more specifically the main character. Jeannie was a cute blonde genie (played indelibly by Barbara Eden) who'd been relegated to imprisonment in a bottle of the type common to such ARABIAN NIGHTS-inspired yarns. The reasons for her imprisonment remain vague (and were really beside the point), but when her bottle was found by astronaut Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson (a pre-DALLAS Larry Hagman), Jeannie was let loose for the first time in apparently two thousand years and, as per her function as a wish-granting genie, she was bound to serve her new master with her vast powers. But here's something I totally forgot about until I re-watched the show's first episode for the first time in over thirty years thanks to Hulu: Major Nelson explicitly freed Jeannie from servitude as repayment for her granting his wish that a helicopter show up to rescue him, so she was free to do what she wanted and what she wanted to do was be his very willing slave. In fact, while wearing naught but one of his shirts (after helping herself to the use of his shower), Jeannie tells Nelson to his face in no uncertain terms, "Thou hast freed me and that means I am free to please thee, and I am going to please thee. Very much!" Sounds like an invitation and a half to me!

Major (then Captain) Nelson and Jeannie, as seen in the show's first episode. Only on 1960's network TV could a scene like this not have immediately led to the making of the beast with two backs, and believe me when I say Jeannie very blatantly threw herself at the guy.

A lot of mileage was wrung from that scenario and while the girls I knew were fantasizing about having Jeannie's foxy harem-girl outfit, awesome bottle apartment (one of the best sets in TV history) and magical abilities, most of the boys I knew were fantasizing about having Jeannie herself. Next to Julie Newmar as Catwoman or Yvonne Craig as Batgirl on the Adam West BATMAN series, there was perhaps no woman on pre-WONDER WOMAN or CHARLIE'S ANGELS television who inspired such outright lust in pre-pubescent males as Barbara Eden, and the boys twigged very early on to the fact that if Jeannie were in their possession — which would be the case because, technically, she was a slave — she would have no choice but to obey their every sordid and ill-considered whim. Such a scenario was a no-brainer for pornographic translation and to the best of my knowledge there have already been at least five stick-vids based on I DREAM OF JEANNIE prior to this new one, including I DREAM OF JENNA (with two installments, both starring Jenna Jameson) and, somewhat surprisingly, the all-gay WET DREAMZ OF GENIE. (I would have gone with I DREAM OF GENE or I CREAM ON GENE for the title.)

As for me, I was always a dedicated BEWITCHED fan (the porn title for which should be BE-RAUNCHED), preferring the mis-adventures of Samantha Stevens because they were in general much funnier and definitely a hell of a lot weirder than Jeannie's. And, since I started watching this stuff as I was being made aware of the realities of slavery (roughly around age seven), I couldn't really find Jeannie's enslavement amusing, not even considering that she was in the (luckily for her) benevolent hands of Major Nelson. I knew it was all played for laughs, but it made me sad to see this sweet and very cute genie in a situation where she could potentially be used to commit great evil or have great evil committed upon her, all while expressing an unbridled desire to serve her master in every way, plus it was made quite clear that Jeannie really loved the guy, but he always seemed pissed-off at her. (Darrin on BEWITCHED also had a short fuse — a very short fuse — but he was so impotent in the face of Sam and her family that his asshattery was pretty much rendered moot, whereas Jeannie would sadly acquiesce to the Major's incessant shrilling of "Jeannie!!!")

But there I go again, over-analyzing stuff that was intended as harmless brain-optional entertainment. And, as previously stated, I had not seen the origin episode since I was literally a kid, and even then I think I only saw it once and forgot that Jeannie was a free individual who apparently liked to "top from the bottom."

Anyway, the new Jeannie-based porno intrigues me due to what appears to be a level of attention to detail on par with that found in both THIS AIN'T STAR TREK XXX and BATMAN XXX. It's one thing to cobble together a tenderloin flick that simply lifts a pre-existing cult property's basic concept, but it's a whole other ballgame when bringing the object of parody to exacting life that looks and feels as much like the original as possible, and the results of the latter approach can be quite appealing for fans of the original who also happen to enjoy a fun hump-vid in the privacy of their own homes. Considering its huge fan base among those of us of a certain age, I'm betting THIS AIN'T I DREAM OF JEANNIE XXX will go over like gangbusters.

Unlike the STAR TREK and BATMAN parodies, the JEANNIE spoof would be a considerably easier project to tackle since I DREAM OF GENIE did not feature crazy sets and art direction, nor special effects and a whole warehouse-worth of costumes. All that's really needed here is an actress who is adorable in the same way the original Jeannie was and that fetching cartoon harem girl outfit,and it looks like the filmmakers have found just that in the person of Shawna Lenee.

Pixieish Shawna Lenee as Jeannie.

Jeannie was simultaneously cute, rather adorable and possessed of a sense of twinkly-eyed mischief, and I get that from the stills I've seen of Lenee. The roles of the male characters don't require the same level of similarity to the template, but I am pleased to see that the Major Nelson role went to Dale DaBone (certainly the name that appears on his birth certificate), the guy who perfectly channeled Adam West's squareness for BATMAN XXX.

You can guess where this is gonna go...

The minute I heard this flick was being made, the first thing that popped into my head was the absolute certainty that it would contain a three-way featuring Jeannie, her master and his best friend and colleague, Major Healey, and sure enough, that's exactly what we get. We also reportedly get a sequence between Air Force psychiatrist Dr. Bellows (who always came off as rather queer to me, even when I was a kid) and his wife Amanda, which leads me to ask who actually would care to witness any action between those two, but I guess you have to do what you can to pad out a narrative that only has a handful of characters anyone really gives a shit about. And while the hetero couplings are a pre-requisite for this kind of thing, where would a porno film be without our stalwart friends, the mighty lesbians? In this case, Jeannie decides to spy on the neighbors across the street, who happens to be of the Sapphic variety, and in no time she finds herself entangled in a fleshy, donut-bumping arabesque with a pair of gregarious canyon-yodelers.

Who knows what may have gone on in the seraglio where Jeannie most likely lived before her incarceration in that bottle? All those luscious girls around and only the occasional visit by some aged sultan? The math does itself, so this isn't much of a stretch for my way of imagining it.

Since I DREAM OF JEANNIE was not a favorite during my growing up years (although, like most kids, I did watch it simply because it was on), I have no idea when I'll get around to checking out its naughty doppelganger, but when I do I promise I'll get back to you with an in-depth report.