The Nanny/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The episode after Fran and Maxwell get engaged features a classic Niles prank. He sends two tap dancers to CC's apartment and they sing this little gem (to the tune of "Yankee Doodle"): "Fran and Maxwell are engaged / It looks like you're a loser / She'll be happy all her days / And you'll become a boozer" before they dance off. The twitch Lauren Lane does at the end of the scene only adds to the moment. This troper fell out of his chair laughing when he saw this scene.
    • Oh, but it gets better. When Maxwell contemplated how to break it to C.C., Niles smugly announced he'd taken care of it and... well you know the rest.
  • The infamous scene from "A Close Shave" where Fran, masquerading as a nurse, is told to shave the genitals of Mr. Sheffield. It is possibly the longest period of Studio Audience laughter this troper has ever seen.
    • Charles Shaughnessy was barely holding back from laughing, and instead was clearly giggling.
    • It was the longest period of studio audience laughter in the show's entire run. What makes the scene hysterical is Niles' reaction: "Bucking for a raise?"
  • In "A Kiss is Just A Kiss", C.C. tries to ambush Maxwell with a passionate kiss...she instead gets Niles. Her horrified expression is priceless.

Niles: Was it bad for you as it was for me?

  • In one episode, Fran makes friends with a male nanny named Kurt she assumed was gay so she let him into her room while she tried on clothes to decide which ones to take back. Kurt kisses her and Mr. Sheffield rushes in, thinking she kissed him. Then Fran realizes she doesn't have a shirt on and tries to get a dress on but it gets stuck so Mr. Sheffield pries it off of her, causing her to fall on the bed. Niles walks past just as this exchange happens:

Fran: (with the dress over her head) Oh, Mr. Sheffield, I'm so hot!
Maxwell: Don't worry, Miss Fine, we'll get it on! I can't do this: get on the bed! (He tosses her on the bed and takes the dress off and then sees Niles in the door way grinning)
Niles: If you let me tell Ms. Babcock about this, I'll work free for a year.

  • At the end of "The Two Mrs. Sheffields", Maxwell apologizes to Fran for proposing to her just to make his mother angry. She has the perfect method of payback.

Fran: Well, you can return this. It's what I was going to wear on our honeymoon night.
Maxwell: There's nothing in here but lip gloss...(He pauses as he gets it)
Fran: (She smiles and winks) Suffer.

  • This little exchange in "Val's Boyfriend":

Maxwell: How about I be your new best friend? What would you two normally do together?
Fran: Uh...make out? (flirty smile)

  • After Fran loses her memory, she thinks she and Maxwell are married so she slips into his bathtub while he's not paying attention. Naturally, Maxwell freaks out and tries to explain she isn't his wife.

Maxwell: The truth is that I hired you.
Fran: (gasps) I'm a hooker?! (Beat) Well, that explains my shoes...

  • In "Oy Vey, You're Gay!", Fran finds out that Sydney Mercer, the gorgeous public relations agent Maxwell has a crush on, is actually a lesbian, meaning that she is no longer a threat. Her reaction is the best part.

Fran: You're gay? OH, THANK GOD! (she hugs her and then stops when she thinks about how that sounds) Um... I'm letting go and you're not. Why?
Sydney: Aren't you gay, too?
Fran: Me? No!
Sydney: I just assumed. You're over 30, never been married, there's no man in your life...
Fran: Oh honey, I'm not gay. I'm just pathetic!

    • This scene in "Oy Vey, You're Gay" where the PR agent has Maxwell walk up the stairs in a new wardrobe:

Niles: Did you see how many holes he has in his jeans?
Fran & C.C.: (longingly) Twelve.

  • The scene in "Green Card" where Filipe hits on C.C. Everything from "'Allo, Ca-Ca!" to "Did Ca-Ca do a no-no in the kitchen?!"
  • The scene in "Pen Pal" where C.C. thinks Maxwell is behind her in the office and tries to seduce him. It's actually Niles. She asks him what he wants her to do and he tells her to cluck like a chicken. She does. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Let's face it, practically EVERYTHING Niles quips.
  • The episode "The Fifth Wheel" when Fran and C.C. give up men after C.C. discovers the man she was talking to online was really Brighton.
    • And C.C.'s reaction when she processes what really happened.

C.C.: The things I said! The things he... you know he's got quite a vocabulary for a fifteen year old.

  • In "Honeymoon's Overboard", Fran and Maxwell are stranded on a deserted island as something appears to sting him:

Maxwell: I can't feel anything in half my body.
Fran: Which half?
Maxwell: The lower half.
Fran: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

    • Also in that episode, Fran has to get the poison out of Maxwell by sucking it out.

Maxwell: Don't swallow, or it will kill you.
Fran: You mean my mother was right?!

  • In one episode Val and Fran move into an apartment together. Fran spots a cockroach and tells Val to "Take off your shoe and kill it". So she takes off her shoe and stomps her bare feet on the cockroach.
    • Fran's reaction makes it all the more funnier:

Fran: Oh my God. I've moved in with Forrest Gump!

  • When Fran mistakes wasabi for mustard. She piles it on her sushi, and you slowly see her eyes getting wider, until she falls over.

Fran: (in Fran Drescher's normal, deeper voice) You know, that mustard really clears up the nasal passages! (beat) I like it! I wonder how long it's (switches back to Fran Fine's higher, nasally voice) going to last. Oh. (shrugs)

  • Yetta: Wait, who's purse is this?
  • In "Fran Gets Mugged":

Maxwell: The manuscript was in Fran's purse.
C.C.: I'll KILL you! (She grabs a pillow and tries to smother Fran on the couch)
Niles: Sir, aren't you going to stop her?
Maxwell: (watching passively) Yes.

Fran: Sorry that I had to get tough with you, but you had to learn!

Maxwell: When was the last time he passed for Cher, Sea World?!

    • And before his appearence;

Maxwell: I was just thinking before I hired you I never had the need for an emergency transvestite.

  • In "The Nanny Napper", Fran gets accused of kidnapping an infant in the subway after volunteering to hold it for the mother, only to get separated.

Fran: (getting home with the baby) Niles, do we have any old nipples around the house?
(the door opens and C.C. comes in)
C.C.: Hello, hello!
(Niles just bites his coat)

    • In the end, after getting cleared:

Fran: (finding Gracie eating ice cream) Oh my, would you look at this mess?
Gracie: I'm binging. I'm a little depressed about giving back the baby.
Fran: Aw, well, sweetie, we had to give him back, he wasn't ours.
Maxwell: That's right, he didn't belong to our family.
Gracie: Then why don't you two make a baby?
Fran: Take it away, Mr. Sheffield...
Maxwell: Well, um, we would have to be, you know, you have to be married first.
Fran: Oh, right, married...
Maxwell: There has to be an engagement...
Fran: I'd want a big ring, a party, don't ask...
Gracie: Then why don't you two get married?
Maxwell: (to Fran) I took the last one.
Fran: Thanks. Well, you have to be in love with the person.
Gracie: (to Maxwell) Don't you love Fran?
Fran: Yeah, don't you love Fran?
Maxwell: Well, in a Nanny-friend-boss type of way...
Fran: Yeah, and I love your father in a "Thanks a lot, you British cold fish" type of way.
Gracie: But you could have a baby and get married if you wanted to?
Fran: Well, uh, we'd have to be best friends to see if we can live together and, of course, there'd have to be a very strong physical attraction...(the two of them reach for the same thing, their hands brush and their eyes meet) Would you go to bed?!
(Gracie leaves)

  • Niles tricking CC into singing the "Popeye" theme like Popeye.
  • A very cute little scene from "A Star is Unborn":

Fran: (to Niles, since she and Mr. Sheffield aren't speaking) Well, you can tell Mr. Sheffield that I am a grown woman and can seek fulfillment anyway I wish and that he is a doodiehead. (exits the room)
Niles: (deadpan) To summarize, sir...you are a doodiehead.
Maxwell: (disgruntled) That's the part you choose to repeat?
Niles: Translator's prerogative.

    • Speaking of "A Star is Unborn, I'm surprised no one put Fran's Bad Bad Acting as Juliet.
    • Not to mention the kiss that Maxwell and Fran share, followed by Fran nearly falling down the stairs due to weak knees.
  • In "Everybody Needs a Bubby", Grandma Yetta stays at the Sheffields as her retirement home gets fumigated, much to the irritation of Maxwell. At one point, they smell smoke in Yetta's room, but it's not from Yetta's cigarette's.

Fran: (finding Yetta in bed with an elderly man) Oh my god, Yetta!
Yetta: What a coincidence! Saul said the same thing not ten minutes ago!

    • Niles: (to C.C.) Grandma Yetta, aged 80, living in a home, got a heap o'good lovin' last night. And you?
  • Lamb Chop on the Menu

C.C: God I have to move out of my to get my floors redone and I can not find a kennel.
Niles: Oh, treat yourself to a hotel
C.C: Not me, my dog.
Fran: Chester? You're going to put Chester in a cage somewhere? Oh, I think that's terrible to a dog out of it's warm, and loving environment *pauses* Hrm.. well anyway you still shouldn't do it, my uncle Mani put his dog in a kennel and he was never the same again would you like to knows what happened?
Maxwell: Not really.
Fran: He put his German shepherd King in a cage with male poodles. P.S: All hopes of breeding him were over.
C.C: Oh, for heaven's sake, he's a small dog. He fits in a wet bar fridge!

  • Fran, Maxwell, and Niles all pause to look at her*

C.C: ...Nevermind how I know that.

  • In "Mom's the Word", Fran tells Sylvia she's pregnant, but then says she hasn't told Maxwell because she has a problem. Sylvia then concludes: "It's not his?"
  • In the episode where Fran admits to Maxwell that she's pregnant, Yetta and Brighton go to the movies and lose one another. Yetta returns to the Sheffield House and tells C.C. what happened, and asks her not to tell Maxwell because it would devastate him.

Yetta: The same thing happened to me in 1939. I lost my little girl, Sylvia. Never saw her again!
C.C. (Aside Glance): ...she's in the living room.
Yetta: She's back?! My baby!

    • Moments later, Niles enters the room and thinks that C.C. knows Fran is pregnant when she says "don't tell Maxwell about the kid." Niles had promised Fran he wouldn't say anything, and, thinking C.C.'s in on it, expresses amazement that she hasn't lost it upon learn Fran's pregnant. This leads to a dramatic zoom in, complete with a soap opera organ chord, of C.C.'s completely shocked look as she learns that Fran's pregnant and all hopes of getting with Maxwell are completely gone.

C.C.: Nanny Fine is... pregnant?
Niles: That wasn't your secret?
C.C.: No! (Cue dramatic zoom in on Niles' Oh Crap expression)

  • C.C. gets big one, along with possibly her only Crowning Moment of Awesome. Through out the episode, Niles has convinced C.C. that Maxwell has four kids, using a picture of the family with Macauly Culkin. After the whole group goes out to a show, C.C. shows up with a little boy. Niles is understandably horrified, and reveals that he lied about there being four children before he runs off to phone the police. It turns out that C.C. knew Niles was playing her all along, and hired a child actor to play the boy she "kidnapped". When she's paying him, we get this gem:

C.C.: Here's twenty-five.
Boy: You promised me fifty!
C.C.: Well, if you had remembered the line about needing your insulin, you would be getting fifty.

  • Niles and C.C. crying over the latest development in a Spanish soap opera, in broken Spanish. When Maxwell comes in the room and angrily asks if they have anything better to do, the two leave the room together muttering stuff about Maxwell in Spanish.
  • The ending of I've Got a Secret had this howler of an ending.
    • Preceded by this line:

Maxwell: You know, before I met you, I never had the need for an emergency transvestite.

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