Nanny Will Do

Seeking the success of the fantasy/supernatural sitcoms of the time, "Nanny and the Professor" ran for 54 episodes over parts of three seasons from 1970-71. Clearly inspired by Mary Poppins, the show starred young English nanny Phoebe Figalilly (noted English actress Juliet Mills, "Passions"). Nanny has mysterious implied magical abilities (mind reading, correctly predicting future happenings, arranging convenient occurrences) that aids watching after the Everett family. The head of the household is young windowed scientist Professor Harold Everett (Richard Long, "The Big Valley", "The House on Haunted Hill") whose practicality is at odds with the strange happenings surrounding Nanny. Nevertheless, he needs her guidance over his three rambunctious children: the intelligent tinkerer Hal (David Doremus), typical middle child Butch (Trent Lehman), and the sweet, youngest child Prudence (popular 70s child actress Kim Richards). Background music and musical cues are used from the previous supernatural sitcom "My Favorite Martian".

As the series opens, Nanny arrives at the airport shrouded in a sense of mystery and intrigue- ahead of the plane. She declares that she is to work for Professor Everett, but he doesn't know it yet. At the Everett home we are introduced to an idyllic white, two-story house with a nice lawn and white-picket fence. But inside are three rambunctious children, driving their fifth housekeeper of the year, Miss Dunbar (Edith Atwater), to leave. Appearing at the door with a mysterious musical cue that plays when she appears to intuitively sense knowledge she could not reasonably possess is "Miss Figalilly....Nanny will do." While very nice and pleasant, she immediately strikes a firm, no-nonsense tone in handling the kids in an omniscient manner. Nanny enters the family dog Waldo in a dog show and takes the kids. Charles Thompson who will appear familiar to "The Andy Griffith Show" fans as Asa, and later Doc Roberts appears uncredited as an elderly dog owner. At the show all the dogs go wild, except one. The opening entry is an establishing episode that I felt lacked a little in plot and laughs.

It never was a show of one liners and laughs every minute, but a sweet show about a delightful young woman arriving out of the blue to help out a family in need. The Professor is the preoccupied type and the kids are a bit out of control. The love is there - it just needs a little direction from Nanny, who happens to know more than she should (like everyone's name before she's ever introduced, and who is at the front door before it's opened, and how to talk to and understand the family dog Waldo) and who believes in "the rightness of things."

She shows up the day after the latest housekeeper can't take it anymore and leaves - the fifth time this year. The kids try to show they can take care of themselves, but they can't and breakfast is a disaster. That's when Phoebe Figalily shows up, smiling, unflappable, ready to step right in. The Professor is definitely willing to give her the opportunity. She enters Waldo into the neighborhood dog show, sends a chorus of neighbors' dogs to the house to remind the Professor to come to the dog show when he forgets to, and enlists the family guinea pig Myrtle (who tells her he'd really rather be called Mike) to disrupt all the dogs but Waldo at the competition.

A very good introduction to a Nanny who doesn't fly or wiggle her nose to do magical things - she just knows and understands more than a mere mortal.