20th Century Fox came up with what amounted to their answer to Disney's adaptation of Mary Poppins with the ABC fantasy-sitcom, Nanny & The Professor. Unfortunately, despite being part of a Friday night comedy block that also included fellow frosh The Partridge Family and the 2nd year series, The Brady Bunch, Nanny didn't have any staying power, lasting just a couple of years before it was cancelled.
Juliet Mills top-lined as Phoebe Ficalilly, hired on as a housekeeper-nanny for Professor Everett (Richard Long, ex-The Big Valley), a widower with three children. And, like Mary Poppins, Phoebe also possessed magical powers, the extent of which was never fully explored.
Fox had earlier repackaged one of their feature films into a sitcom (The Ghost & Mrs. Muir), but that wasn't quite so successful, either, as we discussed when reviewing that series. So the question remains, what went wrong?
Perhaps it's just a case of having three family-based sitcoms airing back-to-back-to-back, and viewers growing tired of what they perceived as the weakest link, which is why Nanny was let go after two seasons, although the cast would reunite for a pair of Saturday Superstar Movies, which independent producer Fred Calvert helmed, though Fox owns the rights to those features, and they're not available on YouTube.
Sadly, getting the cast together now is problematic. Richard Long passed away several years back, and I believe it was while working on another sitcom, Thicker Than Water. Long did return for the cartoons, and also filled in for Fred Gwynne on an animated adaptation of The Munsters, also for the Saturday Superstar Movie. Trent Lehman, reportedly, took his own life at 20, though I confess to having no memory of reading anything on the subject. Kim Richards is back in the spotlight, having returned to TV in one of Bravo's Real Housewives reality shows, and is related to debutante and wanna-be actress-singer Paris Hilton. Juliet Mills was last seen on the NBC soap, Passions, a few years ago, and I've read nothing on David Doremus, who was the other Everett child.
TV Toy Memories uploaded this commercial promoting the show.
I'd have pulled the open, with the dreamy theme song recorded by the Addrisi Brothers, but the only clip includes some ads for some 900 phone service, presumably from around the early 90's, so I passed.
Perhaps what hurt this show was ABC had too much sugar in their primetime bowl, if you catch my drift.
Rating: B.
2 comments:
I remember the Addrisi Bros.!
They were alumni of my college (NCC) and wrote the Mello Yellow soda song!
I didn't see this show until it was repeated on Nick some years ago. It was likeable, and Juliet Mills seemed quite at home in the Mary Poppins-type role. Too bad we didn't get to see more about what she was about.
Sadder still for losing Richard Long and Trent Llehman. I had heard Trent hanged himself on the fence at his former school. Why he was so sad to end up there at such a young age I will never know nor understand.
I do remember Mills turning up on "Passions" and she seemed to relish the role of Tabatha. For some reason, the writers on that show kept hinting she was the same Tabatha from "Bewitched" by having so much in common with the other character (parents with the same name, etc.).
I think Juliet Mills was also Haley Mills' older sister.
BTW - I belive Nanny's last name weas "Phoebe Figerlilly", not "Picadilly".
You're right about the sibling link between Hayley & Juliet, and, as we all know, Hayley would later try TV herself (Good Morning, Miss Bliss).
As for Phoebe's last name, I'll have to look it up. I could've sworn as I listened to the theme song that it came out "Picadilly". I'll amend the original post if it turns out you were right on that score.
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