Meanwhile, Maxwell’s coiffed Anglo mannerisms keep him from acting on his temptations for the fashionable Miss Fine, while remaining completely oblivious to the obvious advances made by his pining business associate C.C. Her Queens upbringing gives her an edge over the pranks pulled by the mischievous middle child Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and lends a guiding (albeit nasal) voice for the awkward eldest daughter Maggie (Nicholle Tom) and the young existentialist Gracie (Madeline Zima). There, Fran is able to cultivate an instant rapport with the butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), where her street-smart quips and eccentric style bounce off his dry British wit.

Where was she to go, what was she to do? She was out on her fanny! But when she approached the Sheffield mansion on the Upper East Side prepared to sell cosmetics, she convinced a desperate, widowed Broadway producer named Maxwell (Charles Shaughnessy) to take her on to watch his three kids, thus becoming the titular Nanny. The story goes that Fran Fine (Drescher) was working in her sleazy boyfriend’s bridal shop before he broke up with and fired her for his younger, blonder new girlfriend.

Getting to watch it now across the country in my chosen home of Seattle, the feeling grows stronger. Come to think of it, these weekly marathons likely had a hand in making me gay, but ultimately watching The Nanny always felt like taking a trip back to the city to see my loud, eccentric, and (above all else) hungry family. Where some of my earliest memories are of me and my older sisters watching Lifetime every weekend morning, bingeing a two-hour block of the Golden Girls followed by a two-hour block of The Nanny. Love her all you want, but The Nanny is a part of my culture.Īs an infant, my family moved across the bridge from Staten Island, NY to central New Jersey, I’m far from the first person to pledge my allegiance to the power of Fran Drescher, just ask the 320,000 followers of the What Fran Wore Instagram, but I am obnoxious enough to try to gatekeep the Fran Drescher fandom to anyone who claims to have a deeper love of the flashy girl from Flushing than I do. Seeing old sitcoms get rebooted or become the center of another internet resurgence has left me waiting for The Nanny to be available on streaming for years.

Fran fine the nanny