What Happened on the Final Episode of ‘I Dream of Jeannie’?
There are few things that instantly evoke 1960s television more than the image of Barbara Eden clad in her pink harem pants and veil, creating mischief for Major Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie. The series ran for five seasons and 139 episodes, though you could be forgiven for thinking it was on for much longer, since the show has been such a constant presence in reruns for decades. But while you probably have your own personal archive of great Jeannie moments (the episode with the wine that makes people invisible, perhaps), do you remember how I Dream of Jeannie ended?
Why I Dream of Jeannie ended
Everett Collection
I Dream of Jeannie, which premiered on Sept. 18, 1965, was the brainchild of Sidney Sheldon (who would go on to become one of the most popular novelists of the ’70s and ’80s). Sheldon, inspired by the success of Bewitched, decided to create another show about a magical woman paired up with an average man — though unlike everyman Darrin on Bewitched, Major Tony Nelson is a decorated NASA astronaut.
Jeannie was never a huge success during its initial run — it never hit the Nielsen top 20, and only cracked the top 30 in its first and fourth seasons. But fans and the show’s cast and creators alike believe the show was cancelled in the fifth season due to network demands that Jeannie and Major Nelson wed. Series creator Sheldon wrote in his 2006 memoir that “with their marriage, the relationship had changed and much of the fun went out of the show,” while star Eden told ReMIND in 2024, “I didn’t agree, but I had no say in it. I just told him, ‘She’s not a human. She’s an entity, and you’re mixing a human with an entity. It wouldn’t happen.’”
But the marriage did happen, midway through what would turn out to be the show’s final season.
What happened on the final episode of I Dream of Jeannie?
Unfortunately, the final episode of the series, “My Master, the Chili King,” which aired on May 26, 1970, didn’t wrap up any major plot points or go out with a big sendoff. In fact, the episode introduced a new character: Arvel, Tony’s con-man cousin. Arvel journeys over from Texas to Florida to try to get Tony involved in a scam to launch his own line of canned chili. Arvel sees Jeannie as a mark and pitches her on the chili, trying to get her to “invest” some money for her and the major’s financial future.
Of course, Cousin Arvel does not know he has a genie on his hands. Jeannie immediately blinks Cousin Tony’s Texas chili into existence in grocery stores — a chili with Major Nelson’s face on the can. Chaos ensues, naturally; when customers try to buy the chili, the stores have no record of ever stocking it, and when Tony’s bosses find out, they are less than pleased (turns out that NASA frowns on active officers having their own lines of canned snacks … who knew?).
Naturally, Jeannie is able to work it all out in the end, removing all trace of the chili with a blink.
It wasn’t quite an epic note for the show to go out on — which might be why the story of Jeannie continued, in two made-for-TV movies, one which aired in 1985 and one which ran in 1991. Larry Hagman appeared in neither — he was replaced by Wayne Rogers in the first and is away on a space mission in the second. But Eden reprises her role in both as an all-grown-up Jeannie who is mother to a son (played by Facts of Life star Mackenzie Astin), and finds herself getting into slightly more serious misadventures that involve her marriage and her stay on this plane of reality.
But perhaps, in a certain way, “My Master, the Chili King” is the perfect sendoff for the show, in that it focuses on the over-the-top comedy and low-stakes silliness that has made Jeannie such a pleasure to watch for nearly 50 years.
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1965
February 2025
Flashback to 1965 and celebrate the very best of TV, Movies, Music, Fashion & more!
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