If we're being honest with ourselves, since the cast of The Nanny took their final bow in 1999 we've been living a life devoid of style, of flair, heck, of joie de vivre…whatever that means.
But that's all about to change. Thanks to HBO Max, all six seasons of the beloved sitcom are now available to stream for the first time ever. And honestly, even without a global pandemic, this is exactly what the doctor would prescribe.
ICYMI, the series follows flashy girl from Flushing Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) after she gets kicked out of her boyfriend's bridal shop and lands at the front door of Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy).
And, as is the case with any tale as old as time, she starts nannying his three kids until she and Max fall in love and live happily ever after. Throw in a meddling butler, conniving business partner and an overbearing Jewish mother—plus grandmother!—and you've got the dysfunctional fairy tale Disney wishes they thought of first.
"The reason the show is such a cult classic is that it's laugh-out-loud funny," Drescher, the president of the Cancer Schmancer foundation, exclusively tells E! News. "There's lots of sexual tension and the clothes are off the scale! People always tell me that every age group within a family can enjoy it in their own way."
Now, toss aside your bath robes, dust off your miniskirts and grab your volumizer because Drescher is walking E! through her 10 favorite episodes—the ones you need to watch ASAP (based on the order HBO Max has them listed). And then you can get to the other 135, of course.
"When we shot the pilot in front of a live audience, they loved it and laughed in all the right places. They got the show and all the characters. We knew we caught lightning in a bottle."
"This is the episode we introduced Grandma Yetta (Ann Morgan Guilbert) to get Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury) to stop smoking. My real Grandma Yetta was insulted we wrote the character of Grandma Yetta to live in a senior home. That is until her salon on Queens Blvd treated her like a celebrity and always fit her in with an appointment."
"In this episode, Fran gets to save the life of Gracie's (Madeline Zima) imaginary friend using two pot covers as defibrillators, resulting in physical comedy becoming the cornerstone of every episode."
"This was the first time Fran got a little socially relevant by refusing to wear real fur."
"I got to play a guy for the first time and the transformation was incredible. I really enjoyed playing a character other than Fran Fine. Plus, I got out of those high heels..."
"We got the iconic Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop. This was one of the funniest episodes we ever shot and we used my real dog Chester Drescher to play C.C. Babcock's (Lauren Lane) dog in the series but he liked Fran better. The dog and the Lamb stole every scene."
"The Nanny had amazing guest stars: Whoopi, Bette Midler, Elton John, Twiggy, etc. But this one not only had Rosie O'Donnell but also Elizabeth Taylor. My mother was in heaven. The best part of it was Fran got into a car accident, ended up with amnesia and wound up with Mr. Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) in a bath tub."
"One of my favorite physical comedy scenes I ever did. Fran and Val (Rachel Chagall) take a vacation in the middle of a hurricane. I get to bring margaritas from the bar to Val, trying not to spill a drop through forty mile an hour winds."
"It was like planning a real wedding: the colors, the flowers, the dress! I had to have fittings and even lost weight for it. My real-life parents were in it and they didn't even have to pay for it this time."
"The first episode we got to see a show Mr. Sheffield produced. Niles (Daniel Davis) got to sing. Sylvia (Renée Taylor) went to Paris. And Yetta got her life story made into a musical. What's not to like?"
So, what do you do after binge-watching? Well, we've got more to kvell over: Alongside Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's Rachel Bloom and Nanny co-creator (and ex-husband) Peter Marc Jacobson, Drescher is developing the series into a Broadway musical.
"It's going to be bigger than the show could ever be on television," she teases to E!. "But still with the same sense of humor, lovable characters and the clothes will be spectacular."
That we have no doubts about.
The Nanny is now streaming on HBO Max.