I Dream of Genie (The Twilight Zone)
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| “I Dream of Genie” | |||||||
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| The Twilight Zone episode | |||||||
 Scene from "I Dream of Genie" |
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| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 114 |
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| Written by | John Furia, Jr. | ||||||
| Directed by | Robert Gist | ||||||
| Guest stars | Molly Dodd : May Milton Parsons : P.R. Man Howard Morris : George P. Hanley Patricia Barry : Ann Jack Albertson : Genie Mark Miller : Roger |
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| Featured music | Fred Steiner | ||||||
| Production no. | 4860 | ||||||
| Original airdate | March 21, 1963 | ||||||
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| List of Twilight Zone episodes | |||||||
"I Dream of Genie" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Contents |
[edit] 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. | ” |
[edit] Synopsis
George Hanley is offered one wish by a genie summoned from a lamp. Rather than make a rash wish, he carefully considers the three most popular options. He wonders what it would be like to wish for love. While having a beautiful actress for a wife sounds like a dream come true, he begins to imagine his wife so obsessed with her acting career, and wearing makeup at all times, and living a starlet's life that it drives him crazy.
Hanley next decides whether or not great wealth is a proper wish. The ennui and boredom that comes with excessive amounts of money is soon recalled, and Hanley chooses not to make this wish. His final thoughts are on wishing for great power, but he then imagines becoming the President of the United States, and being paralyzed by indecision when faced with a global crisis.
Realizing that he's not really cut out for any of the things that most people would wish for, Hanley comes to a sudden conclusion and decides that he's going to make an "original" wish. The audience is not made aware of what he wished for until later, when a homeless man in an alley finds the genie's lamp lying in a garbage can. A genie emerges from the lamp and offers three wishes, on the condition that the lamp will be returned to the alley afterward for another needy person to find. The camera pulls away from the stunned man to reveal that the genie is none other than George Hanley himself, accompanied by his faithful dog.
[edit] 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. | ” |
