As a kid, my friends and I would discuss which power we'd rather have - Jeannie's or Sam's.
"Bewitched" ran from 64 to 72. Yeah, pretty long, huh? Samantha, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, was a witch who was newly married and trying ever so hard not to let her quirky witchy relatives and her nose-twitching spell ways from her husband and others.
"I Dream of Jeannie" ran from 65 to 70. Jeannie, played by Barbara Eden, was a 2000-year-old genie from a bottle that was found by an astronaut and now sworn to do his bidding in the most fumbling of ways.
I liked both concepts as a kid. Most of my friend wanted to be a genie because it seemed like unlimited capabilities, but being the logic-minded one, I had to point out that Jeannie had to do magic for her master. Sam, however, could do spells for any reason she desired or for anyone. I also liked that Sam was surrounded by a quirky and oddly talented family too. It gave her a whole culture that poor Jeannie out of her element in Cocoa Beach, Florida, was missing.
So, which one would you have rather been?
