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Fran Drescher Reveals Why ‘The Nanny’ Was Canceled

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 05:19 PST, Jun 15, 2017

Fran Drescher says her on-screen romance with co-star Charles Shaughnessy killed The Nanny.

The Nanny may have been canceled nearly two decades ago, but it’s never too late to set the record straight about why the hit CBS show was axed.

Speaking to Studio 10 on Wednesday about the terrifying home invasion and rape that happened to her 30 years ago, Fran Drescher lifted the curtain to reveal why The Nanny was canceled back in 1999, according to the Daily Mail.

As it turns out, the on-screen romance between Fran Drescher and Shaughnessy killed The Nanny’s idea. The show used to draw large audiences, but after Fran Fine (Drescher) and Maxwell Sheffield (Shaughnessy) got together, it marked the beginning of the “demise of the show.”

For years, The Nanny explored Fran Drescher’s character’s boiling sexual tension with her employer, played by Shaughnessy. But when the two got together, it ruined the whole idea of the hit sitcom.

“This romance ultimately led to the demise of the show.”

The Nanny was canceled soon after Fran and Maxwell put that unreleased sexual tension behind them and became an item.

Even though it led to the show’s demise, at least other TV series can now learn a priceless lesson. And that lesson is, Fran Drescher says, to never change the dynamic of the show if that original dynamic is what served to attract millions of viewers in the first place.

“When a show is built around a love that can’t happen, sexual tension, you have to keep it that way.”

The sad truth is that no matter how hard audiences are rooting for two on-screen characters — who clearly share megawatt chemistry together — to get together, the second they do, people start tuning out.

This was the case with The Nanny, which was on the air from 1993 to 1999, says Fran Drescher. But it’s nothing the actress didn’t see coming.

Fran Drescher says she tried to talk the Nanny writers out of pairing up her character with Maxwell. But they just wouldn’t listen, and Drescher was eventually forced into it after the network threatened cancellation of the show.

So it looks like The Nanny would have been canceled either way. But the show had to go off the air with a noticeable slap mark on its face from viewers, who turned their backs on the once-popular sitcom as soon as it paired up Fran Drescher and Shaughnessy’s characters.

The Nanny’s demise started when Fran Drescher and Shaughnessy’s characters tied the knot. With producers thinking that they had breathed new life into the show, The Nanny was booted off the air after its ratings plummeted the next season.

But even after so many years, The Nanny still sees some light at the end of the tunnel, as Fran Drescher said a reboot of the show could become a reality.

In the so-nostalgic year of 2017, with so many networks focused on reviving popular 90s TV shows, The Nanny could still re-emerge on the small screens. Besides, Fran Drescher doesn’t rule out the possibility of reprising her iconic role of Fran Fine.

But Fran Drescher was quick to add that she’s not going to jump on just any The Nanny reboot script. Instead, she’s going to be picky.

Fran Drescher stressed that she won’t star in a Nanny reboot just to pocket huge paychecks. The actress says the reboot would need to have a script that provides adequate justice to her character’s story 20 years on.

Besides, any reboot of The Nanny has to be of a “high standard” so that the reboot doesn’t get axed like the original series did in 1999.

[Featured Image by Mike Coppola/Getty Images]

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