why did mike's daughter call him by his first name?

Ha! I'm sure Dr. Lenny would have plenty to say. He was one insightful psychologist.

Its a strange thing throughout the episodes that Jeannie calls him Mike instead of Dad. In the beginning I thought it was for familiarity, but other times in other episodes it comes off a clumsy. Almost uncomfortable.

I recall in one later episode when Mike picks up Jeannie from one of her many returns from College, for a laugh to shock some passersby pretends shes a younger woman sneaking off with an older man which catches her father off guard.

Like gppressington says, I get the same impression that so many people were familiar with him when she was a youngster she picked up on calling him Mike. One might imagine other officers dropping by the house, or those who worked with him who saw him when she was around to visit him at work hearing him being called Mike. This is a great supposition as an audience but the only thing that really fits. I certainly recall as a kid calling my Father by his first name just because I'd picked it up from his work friends.

Not sure if it sheds any light on this aspect of Mike and Jean. But In the very episode "Beyond Vengance" the January 10th 1973 dated script I have for the show lists in the second scene while Jean (Jeannie) and Valerie talk on the bus that includes some character background written by the scriptwriter Robert Malcolm Young... To quote:

"Jean: Why don't you get a place together next semester?
Valerie: List to the fem. What would your dad do if you made that scene?"

"Jean smiles again as she thinks of her father. And there's a twinkle in the blue eyes that is reminscent of Mike Stone's. But that is the only physical resemblance between father and daughter. Her features finely carived in her moths image. Her dress, too, denies Mike's influence. This is a young woman of her times, stylish, casual, comfort-before-propriety. For all the apparent difference between them, though, she is still very much her father's child in that she has learned how to deal with life from him. Those her know her well might say she's sensitive, independent, direct, and strong-willed... those first meeting her might say--as others have said of Mike on first meeting -- she is thin-skinned, overconfident, blunt and stubborn"

Maybe more than you wanted to know, but there you go!

I agree with your take on it that he was an absentee father and that's what led to her calling him Mike

Though it's not common I don't think it's totally unusual. I've seen some other US movies and series where (grown-up) children always called their parents (actual parents not step-parents) by their first names (e.g. Christine Cagney in "Cagney and Lacey" calls her dad Charlie).

Later I think I decided as an alternate explanation that Jeannie had a "hippie," laid-back California casual kind of attitude; probably some hippie kind of friends with parents that objected to the whole "Mom and Dad" role.

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Agree. I always thought it was a sixties thing, where hippy kids wanted to rebel against authority figures, and/or be their equals.

Btw, there are times when she calls him Dad/Daddy, mostly when she's feeling vulnerable, I think.




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