It Came From the '90s: My Secret Crush on The Nanny

This series looks back at the 1990s and its influence on the generation of people who came of age during the decade.

For six seasons in the 1990s, The Nanny made many of us laugh. At times, it could be downright hilarious. At others, well, not so much. This isn't a review of a '90s sitcom staple, though. No. This is simply an excuse to come clean about something I've kept buried deep inside for over two decades now: I had a secret crush on The Nanny herself, Fran Drescher.

The unadulterated nineties-ness of this is practically blinding. And I love it.

While The Nanny was sometimes quite funny, thanks largely to Drescher's spunky charisma and wholehearted commitment, the show was never considered hip. People my parents age seemed to love it, but my friends preferred, well, Friends.

That smile! Those legs! That dress! It's all overloading my circuits.

I watched Friends with my friends, but I also thoroughly enjoyed The Nanny, too. Obviously, I'm aware that much of that was owed to my little crush on Drescher.

Quintessential Drescher.

She was an effervescent presence at a time when most of my crushes were of the alternagirl, angst-ridden variety (and of course there was my then and still number one celeb crush). Like Sandra Bullock in Speed (another major '90s crush), Drescher was a breath of fresh air. She could be snarky but chipper, sardonic yet sweetly straightforward. And, not to bury to lede, but she's also hotter than a leather car seat during a mid-July heatwave.

I heart Nanny Fine.

I mostly watched The Nanny alone, sometimes when I was home over school breaks, other times in my single dorm room back on campus. I enjoyed the will-they, won't-they aspect between Drescher's goofy sexpot Fran Fine and Charles Shaughnessy's stuffy Brit playwright Maxwell Sheffield, but much of that enjoyment came from watching Dresher do her thing.

Here's the thing about Drescher's thing (I swear I'm not trying to make that sound like innuendo): she was smoking hot, with a body that wouldn't quit as the kids used to say (I shudder to think what they say now), but she was also ridiculously, endearingly charming.

Couldn't get past her nasally New Yawk whine, you sniff? Amateur, I spit back. Her voice was and remains delightful! I may be insane but I actually find it soothing. Then again, I grew up in an Italian family full of expressive women, so I may have a higher tolerance already built in.

Surely the often crazy-big hair was a turn-off though, you insist? Once more I declare you not ready for primetime and ask that you kindly get your life in order. Again, growing up around fellow Italian Americans meant the outsized personality, the absurdly big hair, all of it was hardwired into my DNA. It's not necessarily my type, but it's weirdly, nostalgically comforting, even today.

Somehow, against great odds, she makes this outfit work.

Drescher's fashion on the show was often silly and colorfully garish—it was the '90s, after all—but the woman could wear anything and make it look haute couture. The most micro of micro-minis were a major staple of her wardrobe. She made any outfit work because she also had the warmest, biggest, loveliest smile of any sitcom star of the era.

That smile could broker world peace, all on its own.

Simply put, she was one of the sexiest women alive back then because funny is always sexy. Her public persona, both on the show and as a celebrity, was just plain fun. My Kryptonite as a young male geek was always women who made me laugh. That's just a fact. Few celebs personified that type in the '90s better than Drescher. Her gorgeousness reeled me in, and her comedy kept me coming back.

I can still remember my excitement at finding out Drescher had small but famous roles in Saturday Night Fever and This Is Spinal Tap. I first saw both of these classics in the '90s, right around the time I was first aware of Drescher from The Nanny. There she was, sidling up to John Travolta and brazenly asking, "Are you as good in bed as you are on that dance floor?" There she was, tough-cookie feminist record exec Bobbi Fleckman, berating Spinal Tap for their sexist record cover. These brief, but iconic appearances only served to increase my affection for the Queens-born spitfire.

Nineteen year old Fran, already bringing the sass like a boss.

It feels good to get all of this off my chest. Back in the day, I had more than one dream where Ms. Drescher's Nanny Fine was my nanny, okay? I wasn't the type to gush about celebrity crushes back then, though. Finding like-minded geeky souls on the internet changed all of that, and now you can't shut me up about it.

Pardon the pun, but Fran is Fine.

On a more personal note, I had a friend-turned-girlfriend in the mid-'90s who bore a not-so-slight physical resemblance to Fran Drescher. Her hair wasn't big, but it was long, dark, and wavy. Her eyes and smile were most definitely Drescher-esque. I have a faint recollection of reveling in those similarities, privately in my own head, like any pop-culture-obsessed-introvert would. I love how a memory like that could only come from having grown up in the '90s. What a time it was to be alive.

So, to sum up, I had—oh hell, I still have—a crush on Fran Drescher. Phew, glad that's finally out in the open. Feels good, like climbing the nearest mountaintop and declaring, "Make mine Nanny Fine forever!"