In Episode 18, Season 5 of The Nanny “The Reunion Show,” Fran Fine walks to the buffet at her high school class reunion, and she asks a faceless man to pass her a quiche. The man turns around as the audience quickly recognizes Ray Romano and explodes into cheers. However, as Fran yells his name, it soon turns out Romano isn’t playing just any character, but his iconic role in the famous sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
“The Reunion Show” has a 7.4 average on IMDb.
Fran Drescher and Ray Romano also attended the same college, Queens College.
Fran usually carries a man’s jacket to his class reunions so people think she is engaged. Funny enough, this time she’s actually engaged to Maxwell, but he couldn’t attend. Fran still carries the jacket, though, and Ray hilariously shakes one of the sleeves to say hello, as if it were a real person. After Val tries to explain that Fran’s fiancé is, indeed, real, she also confesses to Ray that she used to have a crush on him in high school. Fran said, “Well, who didn’t? Everybody loved Raymond,” obviously referring to Romano’s popular sitcom. Amidst several jokes that have the live audience in stitches, Ray tells Fran about his children, his new house, and his parents. Debra makes an off-screen cameo as Fran realizes the woman is intently looking at her husband, prompting Ray to quickly leave.
Split Images of Freeks & Geeks, The Nanny, and Roseanne
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Shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Golden Girls will always hold a special place in the hearts of the ’90s kids who grew up watching them.
While Romano’s cameo in The Nanny only lasts a couple of minutes, it canonically places the two sitcoms in the same universe. It’s an amazing crossover with great fan service for people who watched and still love these two sitcoms. Shows sometimes still achieve this sort of crossover, with New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s iconic merged episodes, for example, and they’re usually a success. There’s nothing better for audiences than seeing their favorite characters surprisingly interacting.
