I got an email request
to do a recap of this specific episode of I Dream of Jeannie, and of course I was stoked! If there’s
ever an episode of something you’d like me to recap, then feel free to email me
at jvonhalsing@gmail.com. I
might not have access to what you want, but I’ll certainly try!
The last time we checked in on Jeannie, she was squaring off
against her sinister lookalike sister, Jeannie II. Major Nelson was
oblivious to subtle details, Roger was being blinked to every corner of the
earth, and Dr. Bellows was convinced that he was hallucinating James Bond
outfits on the people at work. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff for Cocoa Beach.
We’re now into season four, and there’ve been a few changes
worth mentioning: Jeannie II has appeared a couple of times since her last
visit, so some of the grudges you might expect to resurface are water under the
bridge; Dr. Bellows’ wife, Amanda, is now a regular feature on the show; and
Roger’s character has been turned into a cartoonish playboy instead of a
realistically girl-crazy astronaut. It’s all the usual characterization fatigue
you see on sitcoms. The really bizarre changes start in season five.
And, even though a genie and an astronaut almost get married
in this episode, this isn’t the one where Major Nelson and Jeannie tie the
knot. The title, “How to Marry an Astronaut”, is a take-off on How to Marry a Millionaire, the classic
Lauren Bacall film that was turned into a TV series in 1957, with none other
than Barbara Eden in the role originated by Betty Grable.
One day, I’ll subject you to an episode of that, but right
now we’re sticking with Jeannie. Or Jeannies, as the case may be.
The pink and gold bottle that Jeannie calls home is resting
in its usual place on the desk, and we see that inside, Jeannie is rocking out
to some ragtime on her Victrola while she reads Brides Magazine. Her Victrola
is very cute, painted with pink and red flowers that match her outfit, but it’s
also a weird choice. She lives in the 1960’s and was trapped in a bottle for a
hundred and fifty years, so where’d she get it and why doesn’t she want a
record player instead?
These urgent questions are swept aside, when the living room
fills with a distorted version of Jeannie’s blink sound, and Jeannie II
appears. She calls a few times for her sister, pacing the room with a
hip-swishing sashay that sets her harem pants rippling like water. Barbara Eden
changes the whole vibe of that costume just by altering her body language. It’s
really impressive.
Jeannie II notices the open bottle, the stopper sitting
right next to it, and raises an eyebrow at the universe.
“Oh…” she smirks, “That’d almost be too easy.”
Still, you can’t take the spots off a leopard. Jeannie II
pops the stopper in, and as her trapped sister realizes what’s going on and
starts to stomp her feet and call for help, she advises getting some kind of
alarm system. After all, she notes, Jeannie gets stuck in there an awful lot.
Jeannie II tells her to chill and learn to take a joke. She
opens the bottle, then turns into a puff of toxic looking green smoke. Inside
the bottle she goes, and when next we see her, she’s reclining on her sister’s
purple velvet sofa while Jeannie demands to know what she’s doing here.
Keeping things lively, that’s what!
Jeannie II is a great character because she’s actually
dangerous. Having put our heroine and our heroine’s sidekicks in
life-threatening peril more than once, she’s second only to the Blue Djinn in
her deadliness. But, unlike the Blue Djinn, she’s super fun and has the
malevolent capriciousness of the supernatural women of folklore.
She tells Jeannie that she just missed her and wanted to
catch up and hear all the latest dish about Major Nelson.
“Are you married yet?”
Jeannie shakes her head glumly. She doesn’t know why not,
she’s doing everything she can think of, and she’s even started reading the
human magazines and following their instructions.
I think I mentioned this a little bit last time, but it’s
worth going over in detail here. For the first two seasons of the show, it’s
established that if a genie gets married, they lose their powers. The idea is
that Major Nelson and Jeannie weren’t doing anything formal because he didn’t
want the guilt of being the reason she made that decision. It also ties into
why Jeannie has some family members who can time travel and some who can’t. Her
parents, who we’ve seen several times, were once genies, but then they got
together and now they live as humans. In season three, this whole idea is
dropped. Marriage is brought up constantly, and the lore aspects get swallowed
into a giant black hole of continuity errors.
Anyway, Jeannie II tells Jeannie that she shouldn’t look for
tacky instructions in tacky magazines. If you want to learn to hunt big game,
you get tips from the guy with a room full of trophies. Jeannie II has been
married forty-seven times (and she only killed like ten of them), so she’ll
show her sister how it’s done. Step one: the world’s most potent love potion.
“Oh, no!” Jeannie says, “I wouldn’t want my master to marry
me unless it was of his own free will!”
Jeannie, your master makes you use your powers to turn on
the coffee maker instead of letting you summon coffee. He doesn’t understand
what he wants. He’s just a random bundle of impulses guided by military
scheduling.
Jeannie II opines that men don’t really have free will, they
just follow the biggest carrot you dangle in front of them.
“But my master does not like carrots…”
“Darling, you can make a man eat shredded cardboard if you
know the right tricks.”
Remember that. That’s important for later.
Out of sisterly concern, what Jeannie II has decided to do
is woo a man into marrying her, and let Jeannie observe how she does it. Then
Jeannie can use the same tricks on Major Nelson, and boom. Everybody’s happy.
The only thing to do is pick out who’s going to be lucky number forty-eight.
Just as the girls are deciding, Roger taps on the front door
and sticks his head in, calling for Major Nelson. Roger carpools to work with
him, and Major Nelson is always forgetting to phone him to cancel when he makes
other arrangements. For some reason, this doesn’t annoy Roger.
Anyway, as you’ve no doubt predicted, Jeannie II declares
that Roger Healy is perfect husband material.
Jeannie’s whole face goes slack with shock.
I like the idea. Jeannie II and Roger have had some
unexpectedly steamy moments so far, and even though she’s constantly trying to
kill him with exposure to the elements, I think they have a weirdly fun
chemistry.
Jeannie hurriedly becomes a puff of bright pink smoke (I
swear, that smoke got pinker and pinker every year) and does her best to get
Roger out of the house lickety-split. Major Nelson isn’t here, he went to work
early, love you so much, don’t marry an evil genie, bye. Go away now, bye.
Flustered but amiable, Roger heads off to the space center.
For her part, Jeannie heads back into her bottle, where
Jeannie II is filing her nails and humming “Here Comes the Bride.” Jeannie says
this whole marrying Roger thing is out of the question, Roger is her master’s
best friend. (Technically, Roger is also Jeannie’s best friend, since he’s the
only person who she hangs out with other than Major Nelson. So there’s a good
chance what’s really bothering her, though she might not realize it, is the
idea of her sister using her best bud
like a pawn.)
“Look at it this way, Sis,” Jeannie II sighs, “If I marry
Major Healy, you won’t have to worry about me stealing Major Nelson from you.”
That does the trick. Apparently, Jeannie wants Major Nelson
so badly, she’s willing to surrender Roger for him.
Sometimes I just want to knock some sense into that genie.
Doesn’t she know that high-strung good looking jerks are everywhere? True
friends are the real catch.
Time to head to the space center, where high-strung, good
looking Major Nelson is using a slide ruler because it was the 60’s and slide
rulers were everything. He’s taking
measurements and making calculations while Roger uses the telephone on the desk
behind him to call his latest girlfriend.
According to Roger, he can’t use the phone in his office
because the switchboard operator is madly in love with him, and he doesn’t want
to make her jealous. He quietly mumbles the phone number as he dials, while
Major Nelson quietly mumbles the numbers for his very important astronaut
equations.
The numbers get jumbled, and both of them have to start
over. D’oh!
Dr. Bellows barges in and scolds Roger for tying up the
phone all morning, then tells him to get back to whatever. Astronaut business.
Sitting at his desk, clutched with the cold terror that he’ll face the infinite
voids between the stars. Practicing eating moon rations. Something that’s not
using the phone, nobody really cares what.
Roger salutes and hurries away.
“I think it would be a good idea if Major Healy got married
and settled down,” Dr. Bellows says when it’s just him and Major Nelson in the
room. “He devotes so much energy to girl hunting.”
It’s called a hobby,
Dr. Bellows. You know what those are, yours is entering people’s houses without
knocking.
Major Nelson thinks it’d take a pretty sharp girl to nail
Roger down, and it’s the funniest thing anybody says the whole episode. Roger will marry anyone who wants to marry him. He dates so much
because he has crippling self-esteem issues. It was more obvious in earlier
seasons, but yeah. Roger is pretty lonely dude, all things considered.
Dr. Bellows asks when Major Nelson’s simulator report will
be ready, like the base psychologist would need to know. Then the phone rings,
and he answers.
It’s Roger’s girlfriend calling back. We’re treated to a
repeat of the jumbled numbers gag as Dr. Bellows rattles off Roger’s extension
number while Major Nelson tries to redo his simulator report numbers, and they
get mixed up.
But enough of these boring stuffed shirt types! Let’s get
back to where the fun is at!
Jeannie II announces to Jeannie that it’s time to start the
man-catching lessons. Nobody actually try any of this advice, btw. It’s all
garbage.
The girls summon a pink bejewelled Mutoscope to spy on Roger
with. Mutoscopes were coin operated movie machines back at the turn of the 20th
century. You put in a penny and turned a crank, and you could watch a one
minute flipbook film made of still photos. (Unsurprisingly, about two seconds
after they were invented, they were commandeered by pornographers.) Jeannie’s
is magic, and with the cost of one ancient drachma, she can view Roger for
pretty much the whole day.
Totally unethical? Of course! But they don’t care, they’re
genies!
Also, between the Mutoscope and the Victrola, I’m wondering
if the writers of this episode didn’t quite
understand how long ago Ancient Persia was…
Anyway, Roger, oblivious to the fact that he’s being spied
on by a pair of supernatural snoops, is going through his little black book. A
bunch of the girls he knows have moved on to other guys, or aren’t interested
in a casual Saturday night with him, and it’s looking like he can’t get a date
for this weekend. You know, Dr. Bellows is a remarkably unobservant
psychologist. Just mentioning.
Jeannie II blinks him to a seaside garden, where she waits
for him on a swing of daisies, dressed like Scarlett O’Hara in the BBQ scene of
Gone With the Wind. I have no idea
why you’d think a guy would be interested in Scarlett O’Hara, that woman was a
jacked up mess, but Jeannie II seems to think it’s the way to go. I’m going to
go out on a limb here and suggest that most men are sufficiently beguiled by
the slinky harem costume she usually wears.
Roger doesn’t recognize her at first, which is kind of weird
since she’s just a brunette version of Jeannie, who he sees every day and hangs
out with pretty much all the time.
“Hello! I’m Roger Healy! I’m an astronaut! That’s a very
pretty dress!”
Those are his opening lines? How is he not getting dates?
Jeannie II turns to flutter her eyelashes seductively at
him, and that’s when he realizes it’s her. And he doesn’t even think for a
second it’s Jeannie, he knows right away it’s Jeannie II. He tells her if she’s
going to send him to Siberia again, it might be nice if she could include a
coat this time.
But why would she blink him to Siberia, when she wants him
right here, nice and warm, next to her?
She blinks him into her lap, and it doesn’t look like a
particularly comfortable position for either of them. Roger says he knows what
she really wants, and that’s Major Nelson, and he’s not going to be tricked
into letting her whisk him away or something because that’s not how friendship
works, lady.
“Darling, I’m not interested in Major Nelson at all. It’s
only you I want, you that I’m mad about,” Jeannie II purrs, swinging bath and
forth while Roger looks like he’s getting a little seasick. He says he doesn’t
believe her.
“What does Major Nelson have that you don’t?”
Bright blue eyes and obsessive-compulsive disorder?
Roger says he’s not interested in her or her schemes, and if
she really wants to impress him, she can just disappear.
So, blink! She does!
Roger fumbles on the swing, trying to regain his balance,
and looks around nervously.
Meanwhile, Jeannie II is in the nearby rosebushes with
Jeannie, explaining that she’s pretty sure Roger’s taken the bait. Jeannie
replies that she’s pretty sure Roger acted like a cat who got hit in the face
with water and asked her to disappear, which doesn’t seem super romantic.
But, left to his own thoughts, Roger realizes that he just
told his best chance of having a genie of his own to take a hike. He back
tracks hard and calls for Jeannie II to return.
Now it’s her turn
to sit in his lap, still on the
swing, still looking super uncomfortable for both of them. He says that if she
was really into him, she’d blink him up a Rolls Royce.
I have no idea what it is with people asking Jeannie II, in
specific, for Rolls Royces, also in specific. It’s weird and keeps coming up.
Regardless, Jeannie II blinks one up.
Then Roger asks for a yacht, so down in the ocean a yacht
appears.
Excited, Roger says he’s got to head back to work at NASA,
but maybe they can meet for lunch and he can give her a list of the things he
wants. She says no problem, and blinks him on his merry way.
Jeannie rushes out from the rose bush to tell her sister how
impressed she is, and how she can’t wait to use all of those tricks on Major
Nelson.
Uh… Jeannie? There were no tricks. Roger didn’t like any of
the weird trappings and he only came around because a free car was thrown into
the mix. We know that doesn’t work on Major Nelson, free cars have been your strategy this whole time and you've got bupkis.
Regardless, the next time we see Jeannie, Major Nelson is
arriving home to find her on a swing made of daisies, in a seaside garden. A
seaside garden right where his living room is supposed to be. He’s used to
that, and he’s also used to Jeannie trying new weird things to get his romantic
attention.
What he’s not used to is Jeannie underestimating the
trajectory of her swing and accidentally kicking him in the face.
She looks down in horror as the swing rocks her back and
forth over Major Nelson, lying flat on the grass with a pink slipper in his
mouth.
“I must have done something wrong!” Jeannie decides.
Well, I think it went great.
Time for the next phase of Jeannie II’s plan!
She and Jeannie are once again chilling in Jeannie’s bottle
with the Mutoscope all fired up and watching Roger seriously and actually
making a list of things to ask his new genie girlfriend for. He writes down
“golf club,” then decides to be more specific, so amends it to “the Miami Beach
Golf Club.” He also wishes for more ballpoint pens, so I guess NASA really
rations those out.
Jeannie II comes sauntering in, and slyly uses magic to pop
a button off of Roger’s breast pocket. She pretends to not know a thing about
it, and asks if he’d like to take her to lunch. He was hoping
they could send out for sandwiches and really hunker down on his wish list.
So, really, this is a course on how to get a man to marry
you for your money despite his better judgement.
Jeannie II makes a big show of noticing that Roger’s lost a
button, and sewing it back on by hand
for him. She says she doesn’t want to use her powers on it because she likes
doing little things for him. I’m pretty sure Roger is the kind of guy who would
prefer her to give him a desk drawer full of surprise money, or a cup of
infinite French fries, but he seems enchanted by the gesture.
Possibly some unseen enchantment is also in play. It’s not
exactly out of the question for Jeannie II to be cheating in this kind of
situation.
A quick spin through the bottle, where Jeannie is watching
everything with scientific fascination through the Mutoscope, and then to a
romantic dinner for two.
In Roger’s apartment – a TARDIS like location constantly
changing its size and layout – Rog is waiting on his new lady love, while
wearing a navy blue blazer and a red scarf. He looks like the long lost son of
Thurston Howell. It’s less something you’d wear to a date, and more something
you’d wear in a community theater production of Some Like it Hot.
But enough about Roger’s ridiculous, ridiculous clothes.
(He looks like the sea captain who turns out to have been masquerading as a ghost on Scooby Doo.)
Jeannie II, in her classic green genie outfit, brings in a
platter from the kitchen. She wanted to make dinner herself tonight, instead of
blinking it up with magic. It feels more personal that way.
Roger swoons at the idea that she’d cook for him with her
“own little hands.”
She feeds him a spoonful of her specialty.
He crunches awkwardly at something that looks like blades of
grass.
“It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever had in my life,” he
sighs, looking longingly at her. “What is it?”
“Shredded cardboard.”
Better spit that out, Rog. I don’t know what they used to
turn cardboard green back in the 60’s, but it probably shouldn’t be in your
stomach.
Through the Mutoscope, Jeannie watches as her sister feeds
Roger another spoonful of cardboard. (If you ever want a hobby where you get to
write bizarre sentences, considering recapping television shows.) She thinks
she’s got lesson two figured out, and she’s eager to give it a shot.
Except, once again, she’s not paying close enough attention.
That evening, while Major Nelson is reading a book at the
dinner table like he’s Major Rudeness instead, Jeannie brings in a big platter
of bright green shredded cardboard.
Major Nelson is distracted by his book as she explains that
she made dinner herself, how romantic! Then she stuffs cardboard in his mouth.
Weirdly, he doesn’t seem to enjoy that.
Jeannie makes a confused face while he complains about it.
How is this all going so wrong? Isn’t she doing exactly the
same things as her sister?
All of Jeannie’s woes are pushed aside, though, because
Roger shows up at the front door with amazing news. He also rings the bell
before he goes waltzing in, Dr. Bellows.
As he starts to explain that the most wonderful thing in his life is happening,
Jeannie II appears beside him.
Major Nelson jumps like a spider just crawled onto his
birthday cake.
“That’s Jeannie’s sister!” He warns, falling backwards over
the sofa.
Can’t really blame him on that front, Jeannie’s sister wants
to own him and also likes doing things like almost suffocating him and hitting
him in the head with lamps. So, you know, fair enough on the freak out front.
Roger explains that he’s 100% aware that Jeannie’s sister is
beguiling him, in fact, he’s in full support of being beguiled by her for the
rest of his life! Jeannie II and Roger are getting married!
I would love to see the Cocoa Beach society page’s
announcement, explaining that it’s the first marriage for Major Healy, and the forty-eighth
for his lovely bride. That’d drop some monocles.
Later, Major Nelson takes Roger out for a congratulatory cup
of coffee. Only it’s really more of a coffee-with-dire-warnings deal. The
waiter brings them their fourth cup apiece and Tony pushes six empty mugs down
the table. On the one hand, it’s to show that he’s really been pushing the
“have another cup of coffee and stay awhile” angle instead of doing the actual
talking; on the other hand, would it kill somebody to clear off their table?
Major Nelson’s approach is to remind Roger of all the
horrible things Jeannie II has done to him over the last year, but Roger waves
it off as it being a simple matter of her not really knowing him. Sure, a girl
can transport a fella to a burning desert in the middle of the day with no
headgear, but that’s the kind of thing she does before she cares.
“I’m basing this on many years with a genie. You can’t go
through with this.” Ah, the old high-horse approach. That always works on
star-crossed lovers.
Roger buttons his jacket and angrily stands up, shouting
that it’s his life and if he wants to marry an evil ancient spirit, he’s damn
well going to. He goes to make his dramatic exit, but the tablecloth got
buttoned into his jacket, and all the coffee mugs go crashing to the floor.
It’s funny, but also I feel like the only reason it was
added was so Major Nelson wasn’t the last person to make a mistake in a scene,
and that irritates me.
Back to Roger’s apartment, where the pending nuptials are still
pending, and no one can stand in their way.
Jeannie II has picked out the perfect thing for Roger to
wear at their wedding. It’s a green and purple glittered sequined jacket with
matching bow tie and ruffled shirt.
It’s the greatest
thing of all time.
Sometimes, a tacky outfit is just tacky (like that number
from before where he looked like the secret European prince taking a cruise on The Love Boat) and sometimes it’s so
tacky it becomes MAGNIFICENT.
Jeannie II worries that it’s too conservative, and Roger
feels that he should wear his dress uniform because he’s a military man at
heart.
Both of them are dead wrong, it’s perfect, and he needs to
keep it forever and start hosting the Cocoa Beach trivia night while wearing
it.
In the end, he wins the argument and gets to wear his
uniform. Then he asks if she’s figured out the cake yet, and she says that
“everything’s been ordered.”
(Show! Genies do not need to order things! They just blink
them into existence with magic! You were the one who made up these rules!)
A pair of bridal boutique mannequins in wedding clothes
appear with a gong of magic, and Roger asks if she’s trying to tell him they’re
going to have a people-shaped cake. He seems disturbed, because that’s actually
kind of disturbing. Whenever food looks like humans, it’s kind of freaky.
Jeannie II explains that the mannequins are just the toppers
for the giant super cake.
It’s going to be big.
Time for round two of the fashion shows, as we see Jeannie
making a grand entrance down the stairs at Major Nelson’s bungalow. The only
thing up those stairs is an office with a telescope and no window, so she
really just thought stairs would lend some drama. Anyway, she looks cute and
cheerful and very 60’s in her butter yellow maid of honour dress with oversized
covered buttons and matching hat.
“Roger cannot marry your sister,” Major Nelson says. “It’s
an impossible match!”
He really should’ve gone with: “I like your dress, but this
wedding is going to be a disaster.”
Always open with something positive. Also, never say that to the bride.
“I am sorry you feel that way about astronauts marrying
genies.” Jeannie says, on the verge of tears.
Should’ve opened with a positive, Major.
He backpedals like crazy and explains that it’s about Roger marrying an evil genie.
Roger is over 21, and Jeannie II is over 2021, and Jeannie
thinks that people can make their own mistakes and the whole point of a wedding
is to pretend like everyone’s doing the right thing even if they’re not. And
free cake. She forgot to mention free cake.
“She tricked him somehow!” Major Nelson grumbles.
“She merely made him fall in love, like any woman makes any
man fall in love.” Jeannie vehemently replies.
That’s right! All humans are capable of making terrible
relationship decisions without supernatural intervention. And genies also make
terrible relationship decisions, like when they obsessively fall in love with
pretty boy astronauts with as much charm as a mosquito bite.
I think the moral of this story is that you don’t need to be
under a spell to act like an idiot.
Jeannie bursts into tears because her awesome plan to wind
up married is a total failure and now Roger – Roger who thinks Ritz crackers are a romantic food – is beating her
down the aisle. Major Nelson tries to comfort her by sternly demanding that she
stop crying because it makes him uncomfortable.
She puffs into pink smoke and locks herself in her bottle.
(She leaves the stopper out, and blinks up a padlocked cage that prevents
anyone from accessing her.)
Later, over at NASA, Major Nelson is still trying to talk
Roger out of living his own life. Roger is all: “If you keep telling me this
marriage is going to ruin my life, I’m not going to let you be best man.”
Apparently, that’s a threat with some weight, because Major
Nelson decides to cool it on the anti-bride tirade for now.
Just in time for Dr. Bellows to come back and yell at Major
Nelson for not showing up to his daily psychological evaluation!
The two of them leave Roger and head to Dr. Bellows’ office,
where we find out that Mrs. Bellows is throwing Roger’s wedding in her back
garden. A genie doesn’t really have a budget, but a sitcom does, and the
wedding scene is only like two minutes long.
Major Nelson confides in Dr. Bellows that he doesn’t think
Roger should marry Jeannie II. Jeannie II is secretly in love with him and
probably using Roger as a pawn in some kind of elaborate plan to capture him.
It’s not that she’s in love with him, she just wants to own him. Like a pet.
Dr. Bellows makes the “do go on” face that TV psychologists
make when they hear something they think is truly bananas, and starts taking
notes. He decides that the shock of Roger getting married and no longer being Major
Nelson’s sidekick is causing delusions, because he lives in a very sheltered
world where an unhealthy love triangle doesn’t seem possible. It must be nice
there. I bet the trees are made of cotton candy.
He orders Major Nelson to be a good best man and declares the matter closed.
Do you think maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that
finding the right person to settle down with is hard, and his earlier
suggestion that Roger marry the next available woman was horribly
unprofessional advice?
Whatever the reason, the wedding is on. And the next thing
we see is the Bellows house all decked out with canopies and flowers and other
decorations. Dr. Bellows and Amanda live in the same house that belonged to
Samantha on Bewitched, and a sabre
arch is set up going from the living room sliding doors to the altar.
Major Nelson and Roger walk through, with Major Nelson
constantly jostling to try and go down the center, which is kind of weird. I
think the joke is supposed to be that he’s trying to push Roger out of the
wedding to help him, but it just looks like he hates not being in the
spotlight. Like the lady who wears an off-white dress, and insists up and down
that it’s a pastel and she looks better than the bride anyway.
Next down the aisle is Jeannie in her cute yellow dress.
And then it’s time for the bride’s grand entrance.
Jeannie II slinks down the aisle to a jazzed up version of
“Here Comes the Bride” in a lace mini-dress with a Victorian collar.
“Please join hands,” the officiant, a stern old fellow in a
pair of thin-rimmed pince-nez, requests.
Jeannie II takes Roger’s hand, and Roger reaches over with
his other hand to take Major Nelson’s, thinking that the whole wedding party
are supposed to hold hands like a kindergarten class crossing the street. Major
Nelson slaps his hand down and flashes him a furious glare.
It’s actually pretty funny. Not as funny as Major Nelson
getting kicked in the face, though. That was the best part.
Amanda starts sobbing into her purse as soon as we get to
the Dearly Beloveds, and Jeannie is beaming from ear to ear.
This is happening. Roger is getting married to Jeannie II.
Just as we get to the big question, though, Jeannie II
blinks and switches Roger for Major Nelson.
Genies have baffling taste in men. Just baffling.
Dr. Bellows blinks at the change and asks Amanda to tell him
what she sees up at the altar. She can’t see anything because her mascara’s
running, and by the time she gets her eyes dabbed, Jeannie has blinked Roger
and Major Nelson back into their appropriate spots.
“For heaven’s sake,” Amanda whispers to her husband, “Why
don’t you ever wear your glasses?”
Well, that’s got a lot of implications. But we’ll leave it
alone. For now.
Dr. Bellows, for his part, would rather think he was
catching Major Nelson’s delusions than admit his eyesight might be worsening,
which is kind of intriguingly weird. Maybe vision loss runs in his family and
he’s terrified that all of the things he’s seeing aren’t crazy but symptoms of
his worst fear, and that’s why he never really reports them…
Up at the altar, the officiant’s glasses break as Jeannie II
blinks Major Nelson back into the groom’s position.
“You tricked me!” Jeannie cries, and blinks the party into
quite a jumble, with the officiant standing backwards in the groom’s position,
Major Nelson facing forward in the bride’s position, Jeannie II off where
Jeannie had been standing, and Roger up in the officiant’s place.
Jeannie II quickly puts things the way she wants them, with
Major Nelson as the groom, her as the bride, Roger as best man, and the
officiant in his proper place. She also gives Roger and Major Nelson manacles
chained to the floor, and tapes up their mouths for good measure.
“I suppose if I could see it, it would all make sense.” The
officiant decides, and takes off his broken glasses to do his best to continue.
Nobody else at the
wedding notices this or says anything about it.
We’ve established that Amanda has runny mascara and Dr.
Bellows thinks he’s going insane, but there’s a whole sabre arch of dudes and a
mingling of about twenty other guests that can see all of this happening. None
of them care. The laws of physics are bending all around them, but as long as
they get free cake, it’s no big deal.
Jeannie, standing over by the champagne table, decides
enough is enough. She summons a thick fog to blanket the wedding.
“Fog? In July?” Dr. Bellows says.
That’s what’s
bothering you right now?!
“Most peculiar…” The officiant mutters.
Jeannie II tells him to forget the weather and get on with
the ceremony.
He says he's pretty much done, all they need to do is seal the deal with a ring.
Jeannie takes care of that by magically pulling the ring out
of Major Nelson’s pocket and sending it whizzing through the air to drop right
into the open champagne bottle next to her. Furious, Jeannie II chases after
it.
“Good luck getting married without a ring!” Jeannie taunts.
If you’re wondering whether or not the ring would matter to
ancient Persian girls, the answer is… maybe. The concept of the wedding ring
dates back to Ancient Egypt, where the marriage was sealed by a band of woven
reeds intended to symbolize eternity. The earliest image we have of what
appears to be a figure in a wedding ring is around three thousand years old. In
the Middle East, puzzle rings were common for a few centuries, but nobody’s
sure when they actually originated.
So it might actually be something important to Jeannie II,
which is why she totally falls for
the trap and hops into the champagne bottle to rescue the ring. Jeannie pops in
the cork, and we’re all wondering why Jeannie II didn’t just break the bottle
and snatch the ring like a non-magic person would do.
And that’s almost it! Just one loose end to tie up!
After Jeannie clears away the fog, Roger bursts into tears
and tells everyone that the bride left him at the altar and he’s devastated and
nobody – nobody – is EVER allowed to
mention any of this ever again. It’s too painful.
Roger’s friends are gullible, sensitive people who are all
quietly wondering if that was a vitamin they took that morning or something
more potent, so this works.
Time for one last gag.
At home, once the day’s behind them, the boys thank Jeannie
for her quick thinking, and she says that they can do one thing for her. She
makes Roger stand to one side, and Major Nelson stand in the middle, and she
takes his arm with her bridesmaid bouquet in her hand.
She blinks, and the voice of the officiant fills the room.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”
Roger looks unsurprised, but Major Nelson looks horrified.
Oh, Major Nelson, do you not know how many little boys in the
1960’s would’ve killed to marry Jeannie? Crack a smile.
This was an excellent read.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much!
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