Search - I Dream of Jeannie: The Complete Series on DVD

Functionality nightmare! Read before buying!

Midge | TX | 07/30/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The episodes are great & I want to make it clear that I love this series. I have no complaints with the episodes or the quality of the episodes.



The problem is with the functionality of the nightmare packaging, the DVD indexing, the ear-blasting irritating audio on the Menu and inconsistent labeling vs menu designations. I recommend you read this before buying this cute set. You might change your mind and get a set with normal packaging after you read about the nightmare you will go through just to watch the DVD's.



The packaging is cute... if you don't ever plan to watch the episodes. However, if you do plan to watch them, when you remove the disk sleeves from the bottle, do NOT set it down because you will end up with disks everywhere. The sleeves cannot be set down because they cannot support themselves upright without the bottle... so it flops over and the disks all fall out. The sleeves are an open accordion/slinky style design, made from thin cardboard. This design is a real pain in the wazoo if you are trying to take out the disks to place them into a DVD player. Since you can't set it down... you have to hold the packaging in one hand while loading the disks into the player with the other hand.



Also, the cardboard bottle is very tall, so you need a minimum clearance of 18 inches of height to set down the bottle on the card box as it was designed... so if you have shorter shelf height, it won't fit.



The disk labels are all numbered sequentially 1-20. It does show you the season on the label and the sleeves are color coded to separate seasons... but here is the problem. When you load the disks, once you get to disk #5... it is actually season 2 disk #1... so instead of seeing Disk 5 on the menu... you see Disk #1 on the menu. Talk about mismatched numbering schemes between the disk labels and disk screen menu... Really confusing if you have a 5 disk DVD player and see it change from disk 4 to disk 1 (when you were expecting disk 5 like the label).



Now that your DVD is loaded... you'd better turn down your sound because you are going to be blasted out of your seat by the opening music volume which is 50 times louder than the episodes. Then when you hear the menu audio music, it plays only a few notes from the theme song then it is abruptly cut off by the loud bang of a snare drum. It does this over and over and over until you stop it. It is really irritating. Especially if the episodes have finished playing and the screen reverts to this menu where you hear a dozen or so notes of the theme song followed by that irritating snare drum bang... over and over again until you put it out of its misery.



Now we come to the indexing problem. The entire 1st season's indexing is screwed up... which means you can't skip past the opening credits and theme song on each episode unless you fast forward. If you try to skip to the next scene to bypass the opening theme, you will miss a big chunk of the episode. This is really a nuisance having to fast forward through the theme on every single episode of the entire first season. Evidently, it does not occur to the "lack of brains" crew which handled the DVD indexing... that we may not want to watch the opening theme 30 times in a row. The second season seems to be working ok... but we'll see how that goes. I've seen other series like ST-TNG where it goes back and forth from one season to the next. No consistency. By the time I got to disk #5, I was thoroughly irritated enough to write this review while it was all fresh in my mind.



Now we come to the little box of cards which the cardboard bottle sits atop. It is like a deck of playing cards for the episodes and only has a short sentence of description about each episode and none about the actors. The same amount of info you will find on Wikipedia. The font is about a 6... so if you are over the age of 40 (which all of the original fans are) you will not be able to read these without some kind of magnification or bifocals. Obviously designed by someone under the age of 30. The cards are cute but totally nonfunctional if you are truly wanting to look for info on the episodes.



The colorizing of the B&W episodes is not as good as on Bewitched, but tolerable. This was done by a lazy (or cheap) colorizer who didn't get inside the mouths and put way too much yellow in her hair. It was almost orange. This was also done by someone under the age of 40 (or someone in a foreign country) who had no clue as to what colors the phones, furnishings, decor, appliances and wall & floor treatments were available in the 60's. All they had to do was to watch a couple of the episodes which were filmed in color... to get the correct colors before they began the colorizing process. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.



This might be nitpicking... but things like Orange phones jump out at those of us who lived in the 60's We all know that they didn't have Orange phones in the 60's. Most of the standard phones were either black, white and olive green with some exceptions on the princess and wall phone lines which could be found in baby blue and yellow. The first orange phone I remember wasn't available until around 1980 when they made an Orange overlay template (for either OSU or OU football team colors) for one of the touchtone phone styles.



So, if you are buying this set as a cute collectible... it is an adorable design. But if you are planning to watch all of the episodes... this set will be a real pain in the wazoo.





"

Very nice package. It could have been just a little better t

cv393 | Mineola, NY United States | 11/18/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I received mine the other day. The packaging is pretty nice. It has a clear plastic outer box with nice graphics. The discs are beautiful with high quality labeling and are also color coded by season. The video and audio quality is very good to excellent. The discs are kept in a colorful, fan-out style holder. The set also comes with 55 trivia cards packed in a nice, little fancy box. I have just a few issues, some little, some not so little. First, the 'bottle'. It's touted as a 'replica' but it's made of cardboard and only looks like the actual bottle from an image seen when turned to the side. A more realistic solid bottle would have been very cool even if made of only plastic. They could have put the discs and holder lying flat in the base and had the base removable. I know I'm going on but that's the way I would have done it. I doubt it would have cost them much more. Also, the discs are numbered 1 thru 20. It probably would have been better to group the disc numbers by season. For example, the first disc of Season 2 says 'Season 2, Disc 5' which was a bit confusing at first. Another thing. . there is no episode guide included with this set. That's a big miss as it makes it very difficult to know what disc has which episodes. Lastly, as some already know, the first season is the colorized version which may disappoint the purists. Despite the negs, it's worth it as you're getting a high quality DVD set of the whole series for a little over $100. And I'm glad I waited instead of buying the single season sets."

Great DVD - Lousy and Dangerous Bottle

Eric Provencher | Montreal | 05/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Altogether the collection is nice (although season 1 is colored)



My only deception with this collection is the "bottle". I own over 500 DVD's at home and this is THE single most hazardous box to hold a collection of DVD's.



Each DVD is inserted in a sleeve and all these sleeves are glued together in an "accordeon" type of holder. I use term "glued" very loosely: 1 tiny drop of glue at the top of the sleeve and another tiny one at the bottom.



Then you slip this "accordeon" sideways "inside" the "bottle". If you try to lift the bottle by its "neck", chances are all your DVD's will slip to the floor faster than Jeannie could blink!...



Even getting a DVD out of this "accordeon" is hazardous; picture 20 DVD's held in a barely glued cardboard Slinky and you will have a pretty accurate idea!!!



Word from the wise: forget about keeping the DVD'S it their original holder... Put your them in a safer box!



"

Great Videos Inane Packaging

James T. Malleck | CHI-Town | 04/18/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The vid work was great.All the B&W shows came out in bright crystal clear color.

But with this many CDs a book format is required.The cost effective bottle dodat sucks big time.I have already tossed it and put the CDS in plastic

sheets in a binder.This iconic hall of fame show deserved better."