MovieChat Forums > I Dream of Jeannie (1965) Discussion > The blink sound

The blink sound

posted 9 years ago by urgeking
14 replies | jump to latest

Maybe this has been answered on some DVD commentary or in some book. I once tried searching for the answer online but came up empty.

For several decades I've been listening carefully to a very wide variety of musical styles and instrumentation, and working on many analog and digital sound experiments (on an amateur level), but I'll be damned if I can figure out how they created the 'blink' sound effect. My best guess is it's either a coiled spring (with the speed accelerated on tape?) or something done on an early synthesizer.

There's also an effect used in some later episodes when a person or thing suddenly pops into the shot because they were 'blinked' into it-- the sound is kind of like "PAFF!"

Can anyone explain how they did these?

[–] kentauros 9 years ago

The blink sound is made by a Jew's harp, or a mouth harp. If you have a sound editor, take a copy of the blink and slow it down. You'll hear the regular sound of the harp then.

The Wikipedia page has a sample sound, though I don't know if it would work for speeding up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew's_harp

The other sounds, I still don't know how the foley artists made them. I'd love to know how the appearing sound of Jeannie's from the first season was made, for example. There were also some 'smaller' sounds that were similar and used for when she made small things appear and disappear (such as all of the murder weapons in "This Is Murder.")

[–] urgeking 9 years ago

Ah, but of course! Thank you. I should have thought of that! So it is indeed a piece of metal under tension. Seems like in those days the most common way to create weird effects was to take some well-known household object or acoustic musical instrument and speed up (or slow down) the audio. The Beatles would soon figure that out, too...

I wonder how many sounds the production crew went through before settling on that one? It'd be fun to hear some of the others. Hard to imagine that someone would have said, right off the bat, "Oh, I know exactly what would be best-- a mouth harp at double speed-- that's obvious!"

The other cool part: It kind of sounds like "Jeannie"-- which they must have noticed.

[–] kentauros 9 years ago

I've tried searching for any information on the foley work done on IDoJ, but to no avail. Hanna-Barbera Studios released a set of sound-effects some years ago, but even there, no description on tools used to make each sound. Someone has bound to have compiled a book or something by now of common tools/items and the sounds they can make. With IDoJ, we know how things like the smoke-effect was done, but the foley arts are completely ignored. I know you're not the only person out there who has wondered how the blink-effect was done, as well as the other sounds.

That 'powmpinng' sound used for when Jeannie appeared (and sometimes used for blinking out in the first season) has taken me a while to figure out, too. Only yesterday when I was listening to some audio clips I'd made, did one of them have some more distinct details within. That it sounds like a tabla drum thumped and let to vibrate along with a bell or maybe some zils struck a fraction of a second after the thump of the drum and allowed to ring. I don't think it's bells or zils attached to the drum, as that would sound more like the shaking of bells than the ringing sound. I suspect it was hung and struck, and then recorded separately so they could overlap with a reel-to-reel and mixer.

I'll have to see if I have either of those sounds and attempt a 'copy' with a digital editor :)

I understand what you're getting at for how the blink-sound 'sounds' like Jeannie. That may be. It may also be because we've watched the show so often that the association is just right to our ears now.

One thing to notice is how the blink-sound is sometimes loud and sometimes soft, but that doesn't seem to be associated with however powerful whatever it is Jeannie's blinking. But maybe it's something she can change by desire or by mood (other than the obvious of various inconsistencies within the production of the show.) :)

[–] CajunGenie 9 years ago

Did Jeannie II have a different blink sound? It seems like the sounds associated with her were accompanied by "fuzzy guitar" licks, but not sure if her actual blink sounded differently. After a while, you get so used to it, that it's hard to distinguish between them.

[–] kentauros 9 years ago

Every djinni has unique sounds to their magic, as put forth in the show (same for most other TV shows with magical characters.)

I think the fuzzy guitar licks sound was for Serena on Bewitched, but as I haven't watched that show in years, I'm not certain about that.

For some stupid reason, IDoJ did start using a single guitar pluck for a magic sound (usually for something appearing) in the fifth season. To me, it was too obvious. If you're going to do that, at the very least modify it enough that one can't tell it's from a guitar any more.

The other sound-effect they used in the fifth season was the 'bo-wee' sound of the kettle drum. Again, unmodified, giving one more of the impression that either the foley artists were lazy, or over-worked, or (more likely) that NBC was just getting cheaper and cheaper.

[–] urgeking 8 years ago

Well, the kettle drum may be simple and unmodified, but that doesn't particularly bother me. It does get the job done-- whatever the exact definition of that 'job' is. (One might consider it a quicker alternative to what the National Lampoon once described as the 'amused trombones' used to punctuate some 1950s sitcoms.)

As for the tabla sound: Yes, that sounds very plausible. Just shortly before I posted about that sound, I'd been listening to a CD of percussion pieces full of tablas and other Indian and Middle Eastern drums, and I should have made the connection.

[–] kentauros 8 years ago

The problem with a sound simply "getting the job done" is that you can tell what that sound is. There's no mystery to it, and there's no sense of it sounding like the magic it's supposed to represent. The sounds used for the blink (by Jeannie, her sister, and her mother) were unique and not easily discerned without having sound-editing equipment/software to make further determinations. Most people still have no clue how those sounds was made (most also likely don't care.)

Now, the sound of appearing are like the tabla and maybe even small frame drums with bells or zils on them. Jeannie's sister's appearing sound was taken from the transporter sound on Star Trek, just sped up a bit. I'm still not sure how her blink-sound was done. And that's the point. It shouldn't be easy to figure out; it shouldn't be obvious, like a trombone, guitar, or kettle-drum.

Foley artists know this stuff better than I, even with what they did fifty years ago. So, going with easily recognizable sounds for "magic" sounds was a bad decision on someone's part. My semi-educated guess would be it came from the TV Suits. They're usually the source of bad decisions in TV shows 

[–] urgeking 8 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the kettle-drum sound used more as an aural comment-- to amplify the silliness/wackiness of something that just happened a moment ago in the episode (similar to a rimshot being used to accent a standup comic's punchline)-- rather than as an effect that signified a specific person or action?

[–] jhonwask 8 years ago

Yes, I concur.

[–] kentauros 8 years ago

Okay, I will 

It was not used as you suggest. It was used as a magic sound for things appearing or changing. They didn't start using it until the fourth season (maybe later in the second half, not sure) and on into the fifth. A kettle drum doesn't sound like magic to me. It sounds like a kettle drum!

Honestly, I can't think of any aural cues used in the show to punctuate a punchline. They used the laugh-track for that.

[–] mastbradped 8 years ago

Like the stock footage woman's scream on all of Aaron Spelling's crime shows of the 70's, the "blink" sound was used in other shows of the mid-60's, for example, I heard it in Gidget a few times for various sounds.

[–] thatjpwing (1) 6 years ago

Many of the pop in/out sounds on IDOJ originated on Bewitched. The 2nd season blink-plink sounds were from the first season of Bewitched, and Jeannie's Sister's blink sound was originally heard on Bewitched as well. The only ones that didn't come from Bewitched are the two Jeannie blink sounds, the coming out of the bottle sound, and a couple others. Foley artists were the same for both shows - Fred J. Brown and then Sunset Editorial.

Weirdly, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir *didn't* have the same pop in and out sounds, but the Ghost's sounds appeared on "The Secrets of Isis" about five years later.

While I'm on foley talk - the "magic" sound from the movie "Bell, Book, and Candle" in 1957 or 1958 ended up as the Wonder Twins' "Wonder Twins Powers Activate" sound effect almost 20 years later.

[–] AdamSephens (83) 5 years ago

Wow you guys are great! I always wondered what the "blink" sound was!

Since you brought up Bewtiched, what od you think made 1) the "pop in" sound, the generic "ding" whenever Samantha or Endora popped in? A bell?

And 2) the "spell" sound...... whenever they would recite incantations..... it sounded like 2 things.... like a synth-string bed with something "tinkling" above it.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (14646) 5 years ago

Since the question has already been answered, I just wanted to say that many times, I've playfully imitated Jeannie and blinked while [attempting] to imitate the sound myself. It always comes out silly.