Enter Niles and Maxwell and an Eliza Doolittle-esque training session. Fran is all ready to throw Maggie the hottest shiksa shindig west of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, only to second guess her ability to fit in with the other high-society women the day before the party. In this episode, that shtick is the plot of My Fair Lady, slightly tweaked to follow Fran as she prepares to host Maggie’s debutante luncheon. Fine, you seem to have listed the Queen Mother as a reference?” “Oh no, that’s not the Queen Mother, that’s my mother from Queens!”).Įarly in its run, The Nanny establishes itself as a show that loves a good shtick. All the while this first episode gets in some good jokes along the way (“Ms.
Max is the emotionally constipated widower, Niles the sassy butler, Sylvia the overbearing mother, etc.
It’s more impressive when you realize the pilot introduces nine main characters, each established pretty seamlessly. The pilot really just does what it’s supposed to do: introduce us to the premise and the characters without seeming forced or awkward. The Nanny pilot could have been that - it almost was that! - but instead it turned out to be something else entirely: a wonderfully simple and funny foundation for the entire show.įor a series that would go on to use much more rambunctious motifs, The Nanny’s pilot can basically be summed up by the theme song itself, with a bit of introductory Yiddish thrown in to fill things out. They’re usually over- or under-produced hot messes of awkward character introductions and misguided studio suggestions. I hate to break it to you, but most pilots of your favorite TV shows are really, really bad. This article contains spoilers for The Nanny. So, whether you’re a lifelong Fran fan or just beginning to get that catchy theme song stuck in your head, here are 15 essential episodes of The Nanny to kick off your binge-watch. If that weren’t enough, The Nanny boasted some of the ’90s most memorable fashion and a gaggle of guest stars flashy enough to make even the flashy girl from Flushing plotz. But Drescher knew that integrating her authentic cultural self was essential to the show’s success, which is why the Nanny we know and love makes matzo balls instead of meatballs. As a member of the tribe myself, I often wondered how the show, with at least a third of its scripts utilizing deep-cut Yiddish vocabulary, was able to find such a broad audience. (The entire series is now available to watch on HBO Max.) Premiering in 1993 on CBS, the series stars Drescher as Fran Fine, the nasally nanny herself, and draws upon her real-life Jewish blue-collar upbringing. The Nanny, created by Fran Drescher and then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, about a Jewish woman from Queens going to work for an incredibly rich and English widower and his children, is the latest classic ’90s sitcom to experience a renaissance thanks to streaming.
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