The Glorious, Long Overdue Arrival of “The Nanny” on Streaming
After years of only being available on DVD and reruns on obscure cable channels, Fran Drescher’s classic 1990s CBS sitcom finally made its streaming debut on April 1st via HBOMax. Having recently rewatched the series in its entirety on DVD, I can attest that it is certainly worth revisiting — and that it is possibly the most underrated comedy series of the 1990s.
The Nanny’s Six Season Run, Objectively Speaking
The Origin. The Nanny famously began by pure happenstance when Fran Drescher ran into current CBS President Jeff Sagansky on a transatlantic flight. She had recently starred in a short-lived series for the network (Princesses, co-starring Twiggy and Julie Hagerty) and managed to convince Sagansky to let her and her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobsen pitch a show to him. He agreed.
When they got back to Los Angeles, Drescher and Jacobsen made the pitch to Sagansky — it would be like The Sound of Music, but instead of a compassionate ex-nun played by Julie Andrews, a brash and sexy door-to-door makeup salesgirl from Queens showed up at the door. Sagansky was sold. Drescher and Jacobson teamed up with Robert Sternin and Prudence Fraser, another husband-and-wife writer-producer team who had success in the 1980s with the Tony Danza-Judith Light sitcom Who’s the Boss?.
