TLDR: Bewitched launched in 1964 and quickly became one of the highest-rated shows on television.
I Dream of Jeannie followed a year later on a rival network, inspired enough by Bewitched’s success that creator Sidney Sheldon allegedly asked William Asher for his blessing before making it.
The supposed feud between stars Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden was largely a media invention.
The two women worked on the same studio lot, were both pregnant at the same time, and chatted regularly in the makeup room.
Television in the mid-1960s had two supernatural blondes living in suburban houses, hiding magical powers from the men in their lives, and generating weekly comic chaos from the collision between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
The comparison between Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie has been a staple of classic TV conversation ever since, and the assumed rivalry between their stars has been repeated so many times that it has long since hardened into received wisdom.
Most of it was invented.
Which One Came First and How Much Did It Matter
Bewitched debuted on ABC on September 17, 1964, and immediately became one of the biggest hits on television, finishing its first season as the second-highest-rated show in America.
NBC, watching the numbers, approached Screen Gems about developing something comparable. The studio first went back to Bewitched creator Sol Saks, who declined.
They then hired novelist and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon. According to accounts documented by entertainment historians, Sheldon spoke to both William Asher and Elizabeth Montgomery before developing the show, allegedly telling them he was trying to find his own equivalent of Samantha’s nose twitch.
The implication that Jeannie was built with direct awareness of what was already working on Bewitched is reasonably well-supported.
I Dream of Jeannie premiered on NBC on September 18, 1965, exactly one year and one day after Bewitched. It ran until 1970, five years to Bewitched‘s eight.
In terms of ratings, Bewitched was dominant throughout the period of overlap. In terms of cultural staying power, both shows have proven remarkably durable, though Bewitched has generally drawn more serious critical reappraisal.
How the Shows Actually Differed
The premise similarities were real but the dramatic mechanics were quite different.
Samantha Stephens chose to live as a mortal housewife and wanted her husband Darrin to accept her as she was, with both magic and her entire supernatural family included in the package.
The comedy came from his exasperated attempts to manage a situation that was never going to stay manageable, and from the ongoing class war between his ordinary mortal world and her ancient, aristocratic magical one.
Jeannie’s relationship with Tony Nelson had a fundamentally different power dynamic.
She was technically his genie, bound in servitude to a master she also happened to love, and the comedy was driven more by her well-intentioned meddling than by any external antagonist.
Critics have noted that Bewitched had a built-in conflict engine in the form of Endora and the wider witch family that gave the show continuous dramatic fuel, while Jeannie relied more heavily on individual comic situations without the same structural source of ongoing tension.
The shows’ implicit politics have also been analyzed differently over time.
Bewitched, as Montgomery herself discussed in a 1992 interview with The Advocate, was understood by at least some of its creators as a show about the frustration of being forced to suppress who you really are, an allegory that has resonated with LGBTQ audiences and with feminist critics examining Samantha’s position as a supremely capable woman voluntarily diminishing herself to fit domestic expectations.
Jeannie, with its master-servant dynamic and its lead character’s primary motivation being to please a man who sometimes does not want to be pleased, has generally attracted more complicated critical retrospection.
Both Shows Did the Dark Wig Bit
One of the cleaner illustrations of how closely the two shows were watching each other involves a specific production decision.
In 1966, Bewitched introduced Serena, Samantha’s identical but mischievous dark-haired cousin, as a recurring character. Montgomery played the role in a dark wig under the on-screen pseudonym “Pandora Spocks.”
In 1967, I Dream of Jeannie introduced Jeannie II, Jeannie’s evil dark-haired sister, also played by Barbara Eden in a dark wig. Montgomery was reportedly annoyed enough by the timing to consider it a fairly direct lift.
What Barbara Eden Actually Said About Elizabeth Montgomery
The supposed feud between the two stars has been reported and repeated for decades. Barbara Eden has spent an equal number of decades correcting it.
Both women worked at the same Screen Gems studio complex during the years their shows overlapped, meaning they were regularly in the same makeup room at six in the morning getting ready for their respective shooting days.
In the Bewitched 60th anniversary documentary, Eden addressed the rivalry question directly. “I’d see her every morning,” she said. “We were both pregnant together, we both had our babies around the same time. We chatted a lot. If there was any perceived rivalry, it was the producers’ invention.”
She has repeated this account in multiple interviews since, most recently around the 60th anniversary of I Dream of Jeannie in 2025, telling Fox News that she “enjoyed being with her” and describing the relationship as cordial and professional.
Sally Field, who was also working on the same lot during this period while starring in Gidget and The Flying Nun, offered a more textured version of the dynamic in a 1996 appearance on The Rosie O’Donnell Show.
According to Field, the two women were not exactly close friends.
Eden was apparently an enthusiastic presence in the shared makeup room, singing frequently, and Field recalled Montgomery observing with some exasperation: “She doesn’t shut up.”
It is, as backstage Hollywood stories go, fairly mild. Two busy women on competing shows who were professionally cordial, occasionally got on each other’s nerves in a shared makeup room, and did not spend much time together outside of work.
The mythologized version, with its implied magical rivalry and deep personal animosity, has always made for better reading than the actual version.
It is also, appropriately enough for two shows built entirely on the gap between appearances and reality, almost entirely fictional.
Which came first, Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie?
Bewitched premiered on September 17, 1964. I Dream of Jeannie followed exactly one year and one day later, on September 18, 1965, on NBC, and was reportedly developed with direct awareness of Bewitched’s premise and success.
Did Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden have a feud?
No. Barbara Eden has consistently denied any real feud, stating the rivalry was largely invented by producers and the press. Both women worked on the same studio lot, were pregnant at the same time, and had regular contact in the shared makeup room.
Which show was more popular, Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie?
Bewitched was significantly more popular in the ratings during the years both shows aired, finishing as high as second nationally in its first season. I Dream of Jeannie had decent ratings but never matched Bewitched’s commercial performance and ran for five seasons compared to Bewitched’s eight.
