July 12, 2005
The Nanny: The Complete First Season
Howie Green READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Fran fans rejoice!
Season One (1993) of the hit TV show The Nanny is out on a 3-DVD set that includes the pilot and a few bonus extra features. The DVD set includes all 22 episodes with audio commentary by Fran Drescher on three of them and a short retrospective with the cast and crew.
Fran Drescher is a smart lady and in the audio commentary she comes across as somebody you'd like to hang out with for a while. On the audio commentary for the pilot episode she discusses her career dilemma before The Nanny. She knew if she was ever going to make a go of it in show biz she needed to find a vehicle that was tailored to her peculiar personality, voice and look. Let's face it, Fran is never going to be doing "Hamlet".
When she and her husband couldn't find any scripts or ideas that suited Fran, she accidentally came upon the idea of doing a fish-out-of-water show about her and an aristocratic family. She was filming a movie in London and there was a young British girl in the cast who Fran got close to. Whenever they would be hanging out or talking together the cast and crew would end up laughing at the sight of the wacky Jewish girl from New York and the very proper English lass. Fran recognized the humor in the situation, married it together with her lifelong love of Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" and The Nanny was born.
Drescher points out the retro nature of The Nanny and the fact that it wasn't trying to be hip or different made it stand out during its TV run. The show had a heart, and combined with Drescher's wacky persona and a priceless cast of character actors, it became a hit that still airs all over the world on TV every day. Behind the "I Love Lucy" situations and comic characters on the show Drescher, acting as co-producer, made sure that there was real warmth and concern between the cast which come through in even the silliest of episodes.
In the audio commentary Drescher also discusses the fact that the show developed a huge gay following. She says that while they never intentionally tried to appeal to gays she welcomed the audience with open arms. How could a show that featured an overdressed wise-cracking diva, guest appearances by the likes of Bette Midler, Carol Channing and Patti Labelle, and more sexual double-entendres than a Mae West movie not have a gay audience?
Howie Green is a Boston-based artist and painter whose portrait of rapper Biggie Smalls appears on the album "Incredible". He is winner of Absolut Vodka's 25th Anniversary art competition and he painted 3 of the cows in the Boston Cow Parade. He recently painted a series of Pop Art Murals at the Dimock Center in Boston, MA and completed large art and mural installations in Delray Beach and Jacksonville, FL. He also recently painted the front entrance to Boston City Hall. His a multi-media designer and author of several books including "Jazz Fish Zen: Adventures in Mamboland" - and he once sang back-up for the opening act at a Shaun Cassidy concert in Madison Square Garden.
