The Nanny Trivia
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47 free The Nanny trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
42 free The Nanny trivia questions with answers. The Nanny ran on CBS from 1993 to 1999, nearly got cancelled in its first season, and then became one of the most syndicated sitcoms on the planet, from Australia to a Russian remake so popular the original writers were hired to write new episodes. This quiz covers the whole thing: Fran Fine's arrival on the Sheffield doorstep with a case of cosmetics, the three children, Niles and C.C.'s six-year war of insults, Sylvia and Yetta, and the wedding and twins that finally ended the will-they-won't-they. Beyond the plot there are questions on how the show was born on a transatlantic flight and a shopping trip with Twiggy's daughter, why the studio audience was made up of hired professional laughers, the pilot's borrowed theme song, the cast's other famous roles, and the parade of guest stars from Elizabeth Taylor to a young Jon Stewart playing Fran's cousin. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the show and its cast and carries its source. Difficulty runs from questions any fan can answer to production details for people who own the box set.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which network did The Nanny originally air, from 1993 to 1999?
CBS
CBS could easily have pulled The Nanny after a weak first year, but its entertainment chief Jeff Sagansky kept telling affiliates to stick by the show.
Q 02Fran Fine grew up in which neighbourhood of Queens?
Flushing
Flushing is where Fran Drescher went to junior high, and she named Fran's parents, Sylvia and Morty, after her own.
Q 03What is Fran selling door to door when she first turns up at the Sheffield house?
Cosmetics
Cosmetics were her fallback after her boyfriend dumped and fired her; the Sheffields' butler took her for the new nanny, and Maxwell hired her on trial.
Q 04What does Maxwell Sheffield do for a living?
He is a Broadway producer
He is a Broadway producer, and a widower too busy with his shows to mind his three children, which is why the house needs a nanny.
Q 05What can C.C. Babcock never remember about the three Sheffield children?
Their names
Their names escape C.C. Babcock all series long, though she has worked beside their father for almost twenty years and known them all their lives.
Q 06Which fact about herself does Fran Fine constantly lie about on The Nanny?
Her age
Her age is Fran's best-kept secret: she claims to be 29 season after season, however much time has plainly passed.
Q 07Who plays Niles, the Sheffields' butler, on The Nanny?
Daniel Davis
Daniel Davis put the English accent on: he comes from Arkansas and normally speaks with a Southern one.
Q 08The actor who plays Niles also played which villain in Star Trek: The Next Generation?
Professor Moriarty
Professor Moriarty got the same put-on English accent as Niles: the Arkansas-born actor played him in two Next Generation episodes and again in Star Trek: Picard.
Q 09What do C.C. Babcock's initials stand for, as revealed only in The Nanny's finale?
Chastity Claire
Chastity Claire comes out at her wedding to Niles, the butler she traded insults with all series, in the finale's last minutes; until then everyone, C.C. included, used only the initials.
Q 10How does Fran and Maxwell's family grow in The Nanny's final season?
Fran has twins
Fran has twins, Jonah and Eve, in the finale, while Niles and C.C. marry in the same delivery room.
Q 11Whom does Maggie Sheffield marry near the end of The Nanny?
An underwear model
An underwear model, Michael Brolin, proposes in the last season; Maxwell objects at first, then gives his blessing after a talk with Maggie.
Q 12Who plays Fran's mother Sylvia?
Renée Taylor
Renée Taylor plays Sylvia Fine; in the final season her real husband, Joseph Bologna, turned up as the doctor Sylvia has an affair with.
Q 13Yetta, Fran's grandmother, was played by an actress best known as Millie Helper on which classic sitcom?
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show made Ann Morgan Guilbert known as neighbour Millie Helper, decades before Yetta, who decides early on that Fran is already married to Maxwell.
Q 21Why did The Nanny tape before hired, pre-screened 'laughers' instead of a regular studio audience?
Drescher feared strangers after a break-in
Drescher feared strangers after a break-in at her home in 1985, so Central Casting supplied vetted audiences, and its casting director became the first 'laugher wrangler'.
Q 22Which sitcom crossed over with The Nanny when its star appeared as Fran's old high-school classmate?
Everybody Loves Raymond
Everybody Loves Raymond lent Ray Barone to Fran's class reunion in 1998; in real life Ray Romano and Fran Drescher were classmates at Hillcrest High School in Queens.
Q 23Which real-life figure is Maxwell's perpetual professional rival, a running gag on The Nanny?
Q 14Before she became the nanny, Fran worked in what kind of shop, owned by her boyfriend?
A bridal shop
A bridal shop was Drescher's nod to her own mother, a bridal consultant; on screen its owner, Fran's boyfriend Danny, dumps her and fires her at a stroke.
Q 15The pilot's opening theme was 'If My Friends Could See Me Now', a number from which Broadway musical?
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity supplied the pilot's opening, sung by Gwen Verdon; once the series began, an animated sequence with a song of its own took over for good.
Q 16What is the title of The Nanny's animated opening theme song?
The Nanny Named Fran
The Nanny Named Fran was written by Ann Hampton Callaway, who sang it with her sister Liz; it retells how Fran lost her job and her boyfriend and landed at the Sheffields' door.
Q 17How does The Nanny's animated opening sequence end?
The camera explodes during a family photo
The camera explodes during a family photo when Fran sets off the shutter, leaving the whole household covered in soot; she shuts the door on C.C. a few seconds earlier.
Q 18The idea for The Nanny came to Fran Drescher on a shopping trip in London with whose teenage daughter?
Twiggy's
Twiggy's daughter was the teenager Drescher dragged round London's shops; she pitched the result as The Sound of Music with herself at the door, and Twiggy later played Maxwell's sister.
Q 19Fran Drescher first won a pitch meeting by cornering network president Jeff Sagansky where?
On a transatlantic flight
On a transatlantic flight to Paris, Drescher sat down beside Sagansky and talked him into a meeting, though she and her husband had no idea yet what they would pitch.
Q 20Sponsors worried The Nanny's Fran was 'too Jewish' and wanted her changed to what?
Italian American
Italian American was the proposed switch, which Drescher refused; the producers instead made the Sheffields British, so that Fran would read as the American viewers rooted for.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber always seems to have the upper hand, and Maxwell never gets over having turned down the chance to produce Cats.
Q 24Which hereditary title did the actor who plays Maxwell on The Nanny inherit in real life in 2007?
Baron
Baron Shaughnessy is the title: it passed to Charles Shaughnessy when a cousin died without heirs, and it was first given to his great-grandfather, who ran the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Q 25Before The Nanny, the actor who plays Maxwell spent eight years as Shane Donovan on which soap opera?
Days of Our Lives
Days of Our Lives made him the secret agent Shane Donovan, and the soap never quite let him go: he went back to the role in 2002 and again in 2010, after The Nanny had ended.
Q 26Bobbi Flekman, the brash publicist Fran Drescher revived on The Nanny, first appeared in which film?
This Is Spinal Tap
This Is Spinal Tap gave Drescher the publicist in 1984; on The Nanny she is Fran's double, so Fran has her locked in a bathroom and takes her place to test Maxwell.
Q 27Which comedian played a dream date of Fran's who turned out to be her cousin?
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart played Bobby, a Jewish doctor Fran meets at a singles bar in a 1997 episode, only to learn at a family wedding that they are cousins.
Q 28Pamela Anderson guest-starred on The Nanny as which character?
Fran's glamorous nemesis
Fran's glamorous nemesis, Heather Biblow, stole both her fiancé and her job; Anderson played her in two 1997 episodes, the second making Heather a soap star.
Q 29Which legendary musician played Yetta's fiancé Sammy on The Nanny?
Ray Charles
Ray Charles played Sammy, who turns out to be Bryant Gumbel's uncle and uses the connection to get Fran a television audition.
Q 30Whose Pomeranian, Chester, appeared as C.C.'s dog in more than a dozen episodes?
The star's own
Fran's real parents also appeared, first in a therapist's waiting room and later as Uncle Stanley and Aunt Rose.