Nanny and the Professor is an early 1970s American sitcom created by AJ Carothers and Thomas L. Miller for 20th Century-Fox Television that aired on ABC from January 21, 1970 until December 27, 1971. During pre-production, the proposed title was Nanny Will Do.

Premise

Playing upon the popularity of Mary Poppins and other magical nannies of literature, this TV series posited another ostensibly magical British nanny taking care of a family in need of guidance. Unlike the candid "magicality" of its forebears, this Nanny's paranormal nature was less overt and only implied. The Nanny's young wards, and the audience, were left intentionally uncertain of the nature of Nanny's "powers", if any. The series starred Juliet Mills as Nanny Phoebe Figalilly, Richard Long as Professor Harold Everett, and in season 3 Elsa Lanchester in the recurring role of Aunt Henrietta. Figalilly is the housekeeper for Professor Everett and nanny to his three children: Hal, the intellectual tinkerer, played by David Doremus; Butch, the middle child, played by Trent Lehman; and Prudence, the youngest, played by Kim Richards. Nanny is apparently psychic, and has regular flashes of what is often more than intuition (accented by a musical tinkling sound effect); she frequently knows who is at the door before the doorbell even rings. There is the vague suggestion that she may be at least several hundred years old and more than human, which the children think they have discovered in an episode after they see a photo of Nanny's aunt, taken a century earlier, who looks exactly like her. On outings, Nanny wears a navy blue Inverness cape and cap that resembled a deerstalker; the program's opening titles showed animations of both. Midway through the first season, Nanny and the kids restore a broken down 1930 Model A Ford, which Nanny names "Arabella". For some reason, the car's radio can only pick up radio broadcasts from 1930. The location of the series is never named. In two episodes it is mentioned that Everett is a professor at fictional Collier University. Following the show's cancellation, two animated adaptations of the series (Nanny and the Professor and Nanny and the Professor and the Phantom of the Circus) aired as part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. All of the principal cast members provided voices for their respective characters.

Main cast

Episodes

Season 1 (1970)

Season 2 (1970–71)

Season 3 (1971)

Nanny's relatives

From time to time, some of Nanny's eccentric relatives (and some Nanny claimed as relatives because they were everybody's uncle) dropped by the Everett home for a visit. They include:

Ratings and cancellation

The series first aired as a mid-season replacement on January 21, 1970, on ABC, with the final episode broadcast on December 27, 1971. The series enjoyed initial success due to its Friday night timeslot when it was scheduled between The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family, which were shows aimed at similar demographics (largely young children and pre-teens). Ratings suffered in the third season when ABC moved the series to Monday night opposite Gunsmoke and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. After the series was canceled, it was seen for a few years in syndication. It was also one of the first shows rerun on FX Network in 1994. The show was added to getTV's lineup in May 2016 for a short time. The show also appeared briefly on Nick@Nite.