All The Tropes

Becoming the Genie: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Becoming the Genie (view source)

Revision as of 14:12, 8 April 2014

56 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (categories and general cleanup)
m (Mass update links)
Line 19:
 
== [[Film]] ==
* In [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]], Aladdin [[Batman Gambit|tricks Jafar into wishing to become a genie]]. Jafar only realizes the downside when it's too late.
{{quote| '''Aladdin:''' [[Call Back|PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS... Iiitty-bitty living space!]]}}
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* One of the vignettes of ''[[American Gods (Literature)|American Gods]]'' (After a fashion): A beleaguered businessman sleeps with a cab driver who turns out to be a djinni, and awakens to find that the djinn has left and taken with him all the businessman's clothes, identification and money. The djinn left behind his own drivers license, clothing and keys to the cab and his apartment. After a brief consideration, the businessman sees this as an improvement over the miserable life he had been living. {{spoiler|He gets killed when [[Dropped a Bridge Onon Him|bridges start getting dropped]] on all the supernatural creatures.}}
* Used as the happy ending (!) in the short story "Time In A Bottle", by P. Andrew Miller, published way back in ''[[Dragon]] Magazine''. The genie in question is found by an aspiring scribe. His first wish was to visit a place no human had ever seen before. His second is to hear all the stories she knows, so he may record them. By the time she finally runs out of material, he is an old man, a successful anthology writer, and they are long-time friends. His final wish is to [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|join her in her bottle forever as another genie.]] She's glad to oblige.
* Another "happy ending" example, albeit a variation: ''[[Winni Allfours]]'' wants a pony more than anything. When her parents won't give her one, she eats all her vegetables to turn herself into a horse.
Line 30:
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* One episode of ''[[The X -Files]]'' features a genie. Mulder asks her how she got involved in all this, and she explains that her third wish was "great power and long life". She's more snarky than outright malicious because she knows it's her own fault she got stuck as a genie.
* One hour long episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]'' has a nebbish man hypothesize over what he would get if he wanted money, fame, or power, being careful since his genie says that he only gets [[Our Genies Are Different|one wish]]. Realizing he would be a catastrophic failure with any of these wishes, he eventually decides that he would rather be a genie himself: he doesn't like his old life, and he enjoys being nice to people. {{spoiler|He also gets to wear some sweet Middle Eastern clothes, speak in a cool authoritarian voice, and hang out with his dog. Since it's his wish, he decides he wants to be an old-school genie.}}
** {{spoiler|The dog also gets a turban.}}
* In the ''[[Charmed (TV)|Charmed]]'' episode "I Dream of Phoebe" (Season 6 episode 15), the sisters came across a genie in a bottle. [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished|Wishing the genie free would replace the genie with the one who wished her free,]] turning the wisher into a genie.
* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'': In the episode, "The Tale of the Time Trap", Sardo, the store keeper who sold the box to the protagonist, accidentally frees the current genies of the lamp and becomes a genie himself when he wishes for a million more wishes (the same wish the other genie used when she became trapped in the box as well, and so must grant them to others).
* In ''[[I DreamofDream of Jeannie]]'', Jeannie's original orgin was that she was once a human until she was transformed by an evil djin who she refused to marry. This was given a [[Retcon]] after the first season to her being born a genie.
 
== Music ==
Line 52:
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* An episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'' featured a magical jewel-eyed skull that was bound to grant a wish to whoever found it. At the end of the episode, Grim found it and wished that both of them could be free of their curses, which the skull did by ''swapping'' their curses - Grim is now a wish-granting skull, and the jewel-eyed skull is now the Grim Reaper.
** [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard|Who has to live with Billy and Mandy.]]
* There's one episode of ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Animationanimation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' where Fat Cat tries to get his hands on a lamp with a genie in it, but Monterey Jack gets the lamp instead. The genie tricks him into wishing him free, which in this case results in them swapping places: the genie is freed (and gets Monterey Jack's outfit in the deal), while Monterey Jack ends up a genie. It's not long before Fat Cat gets the lamp back, and mayhem ensues: only a [[Reset Button]] [[Wishplosion]] (''"We wish none of this ever happened!"'') puts everything back to normal.
* A non-genie example occurs in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' with Freakshow, one of the few human villains. Freakshow finds a magic gauntlet and gains the power to [[Reality Warper|warp reality]]. Danny exploits Freakshow's envy of ghosts and tricks him into using the gauntlet to become one. Predictably, Freakshow is promptly captured with the Fenton thermos.
* In one episode of ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'', Timmy wishes Crocker to be a fairy to humiliate him in front of a packed auditorium. The audience tries to attack him, capture him, and bring him to scientists to be examined. He escapes and flies away. It seems to be an actually happy ending in the end for Crocker, as he realizes just how great it is to be a fairy, until the last second, when Timmy remembers to unwish the wish, causing Crocker to fall out of the stratosphere and into the Turners' trashcan.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/897348"