"The Gym Teacher" is the nineteenth episode in the first season of the CBS television series The Nanny which was aired on April 6, 1994.
Synopsis[]
Fran returns to school to help Maggie pass her gymnastics final and encounters her high-school gym teacher.
Plot[]
Fran and Val come home from shopping and discover Maggie on the couch. She is complaining about her period. However, Fran rightly guesses that she is trying to avoid Gym class. When she goes to Maggie's school, she learns, to her dismay, that her old, tyrannical gym teacher from high school, a woman she knew as Ms. Wickavich (Rita Moreno) is now Maggie's gym teacher, called Mrs. Stone.
Mrs. Stone, a very nasty woman, thoroughly enjoys her job, as it gives her every opportunity to berate students. (e.g.: "You call that a back handspring layout?! SHAPE UP! I've seen better routines in Gymboree! You Mary Lou Rotten!!!") She gloats that she will make Maggie suffer, clearly showing that she enjoys making students miserable. Fran then tries everything in her power to get Maggie out of gym. However, Mrs. Stone sets up five stations each worth twenty points as a part of her mid-term, which, if she didn't do well at, she would fail the course.
Maggie gives it a valiant try, but the nasty Mrs. Stone gleefully fails her anyway, chortling that "I just love my job!". However, after she chokes on her whistle and Fran saves her life by giving her the Heimlich maneuver , Mrs. Stone revises her grade and very grudgingly passes Maggie.
Maxwell has to deal with a piece of his own past. In the form of one Alan Beck (Joseph Bologna), an actor whom Maxwell feared from an encounter some 20 years ago, when he first began work in theater. The egotistical Beck comes up with some outlandish and even downright ridiculous demands to the play. However, Maxwell makes it clear that HE is the boss, and if Beck doesn't toe the line the way he wants him to, then he would be replaced easily. Needless to say, Beck toed the line soon after, but he takes Maxwell's sculpture anyway!
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Fran Drescher as Fran Fine
- Lauren Lane as C.C. Babcock
- Daniel Davis as Niles
- Charles Shaughnessy as Maxwell Sheffield
- Nicholle Tom as Margaret Sheffield
- Benjamin Salisbury as Brighton Sheffield
- Madeline Zima as Grace Sheffield
Guest Starring[]
- Renée Taylor as Sylvia Fine
- Ann Morgan Guilbert as Yetta Rosenberg
- Rachel Chagall as Valerie Toriello
Co-Starring[]
- Tracy Kerestes as Student
- Christopher Carroll as Auditioner #2
- Rita Moreno as Miss Wickervich/Mrs. Stone
- Joseph Bologna as Alan Beck
Quotes[]
- Fran: Val, what comes after a sentence?
Val: A parole?
Fran: (to Maggie) You may have guessed Val is not short for valedictorian. Now what's going on? You've had your period 4 times this month.
Maggie: So?
Fran: SO, women don't get their periods 4 times a month, otherwise all the men would be institutionalized.
Val: Which would not necessarily affect my social life. - Maxwell: I hate actors, they ruin theatre.
- Niles: A woman with an electrical appliance around her neck and her feet in water should remember who her friends are.
- Fran: (Upon hearing that actor Alan Beck set a 20 year old Maxwell on fire) Well you're not a 20 year old boy anymore, you're a big macher producer.
Maxwell: Yes, but I'm still flammable.