What’s with The Nanny references?

## *The Nanny*, *The Simpsons* and Australian Free to Air TV

To help explain this you need to know that in 1995, when *The Nanny* arrived in Australia:

* Adam was 11
* Geoff was 13
* Australia had 5 TV stations and
* *The Simpsons* had been on Channel 10 at 6pm every weeknight for 4 years.

Perth had only had all 5 TV stations since 1988, and outside the capital cities you often only had 2 or 3 channels. Five stations nationally. ***5***. In 1995 Foxtel entered the Australian market as the only ‘cable’ or subscription TV option, but physical presence and market share was low for some time, and really only available to rich kids.

This meant that most Australian kids up to and including that generation grew up watching the same things. It also meant that if a TV network had the rights to a long-running series that was doing ok numbers - like, say, *The Simpsons* or *The Nanny* - it was on *all the time*. *The Simpsons* still runs on Australian free-to-air TV. Due to some other quirk of programming\*, the episodes didn’t always show in order and they didn’t worry about showing newer episodes in any order; you’d put the TV on and be like, I have seen this episode 5 times before (and watch it anyway).

This has basically permanently poisoned the brains of Australian millennials and some of GenX, as you will know if you listen to any Australian podcasts (not just TFW, trust us). *The Simpsons* was on every day for literally decades and there is a Simpsons scene for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, to the point that there are entire political outfits translating #AusPol into Simpsons memes, because those millennials (Adam’s generation) are now running the comms teams and social media campaigns of Australia. You can read more about this here and here.

*The Nanny* was not nearly as popular as *The Simpsons**,* but was also on every work day and considered more of a family show, so whether you watched it faithfully or not, you were exposed to *The Nanny* and its recurring themes. Like a lot of things from our formative years, Australians might not think *The Nanny* is very good, but it is familiar and comforting.  It’s pretty obvious (well, if you’ve ever watched the show or know someone who has) that every time you mention Lord Sheffield or his Shield, we think of Mr Sheffield. If you have somehow escaped this, Fran Drescher plays the titular character of the Nanny, Fran Fine, and has a distinctive pronunciation for the name of her boss and love interest, Mr Sheffield.

\* Somehow there is not yet a 5,000 word thinkpiece on the broader effects of these shows on Australian culture, but one day someone will write it. One can only hope they will find whoever programmed particular episodes, as it will likely explain a lot.

## Music, Pop Culture and Culture Culture.

Geoff was a poet and writer well before TFW, and Adam worked in politics, and they’ve both somehow also had time to become generalist sport and music nuffies. This means that references in episodes can range across philosophy, Greek classics, poetry, 1990s indie classics, WWE, any political TV and almost every music genre known. We can’t possibly list all the references here (and we’ve probably missed half of them anyway), but besides the classics covered above, three other TV favourites are:

* *Buffy The Vampire Slayer*: hit Australian FTA in 1997 and while it didn’t go mainstream, aired on Monday nights for years. Geoff is an aficionado and Story Time 74 was titled “*On the nature of death in the Buffy universe"*
* *Quantum Leap*:  the nature of causality, and another Australian free to air classic - there are only five series so it’s likely some Australians have watched all of this at least twice.  Sadly *Quantum Leap* is not currently available to stream anywhere, though this could also contribute to the nostalgia effect.  In Story Time 56 Adam recites the *Quantum Leap* intro from memory (at about 54:30).
* *The West Wing*: politics, duh, shown on SBS TV in Australia and required viewing for lefty GenX and Millenials. Several Nerd Pledges have related to *The West Wing*.

It’s hard to capture TFW musical influences because they range from bubblegum pop to NIN and hipster bands you genuinely will not have heard of, but there are a few Spotify playlists thanks to Discord and Jono Haylen:

* Galle DJ playlist (a recreation of the ground DJ mix during the Tests): ‘Party Time At Galle International Stadium’
* Final Nerd Jams: a collective list open to Nerds and curated on Spotify by Jono

## Politics (mainly Australian)

As mentioned, Adam previously worked in politics, most notably as an advisor to Kevin Rudd, occasional Prime Minister. It doesn’t take much to start Adam on an #AusPol rant, but the pod also mentions Victorian politics as both are from Melbourne and there are some cracking characters in Victorian state and local politics. You can probably google most references or ask a friendly Australian to translate. With Adam now based in the UK, references do branch out into UK and European politics, and of course cricket does seem to end up intertwined in politics most places it goes. See, for example, The Final Word election special (season 12, episode 8), where Geoff and Adam provide their thoughts on the 2022 Australian Federal election result.