‘The Nanny’ and ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ Had a Weird Crossover Episode

Sitcom crossovers usually make some kind of sense — Laverne and Shirley lived in the same Milwaukee as the Happy Days gang. Lisa Kudrow starred on both Friends and Mad About You. The Simpsons and Family Guy were both animated. But none of that prepared us for the time Ray Barone showed up on The Nanny. 

About the only thing those two shows had in common were that both aired on CBS during the 1990s and both featured characters who lived in New York state. So no one saw it coming during Season Five of The Nanny when Fran attended her high school reunion and ran into an unexpected classmate. Standing in the buffet line, she asks a guy in a suit to hand her a piece of quiche. He turns around, and what do you know? It’s Raymond.

The jokes are as corny as the quiche. “You know, Raymond,” giggles Fran’s pal Val. “In high school, I had such a crush on you.”

Fran lets loose with a nasal snort. “Well, who didn’t? Everybody loved Raymond.”

Oh geez.

The sitcom stars exchange the usual reunion pleasantries: “Oh, you just had twins,” and “I don’t care how this reunion goes, I’m just happy to be out of the house.”

“That was always you, Ray,” says Fran. “Funny and fertile.” 

Really? Ray Barone was always fertile back in high school? Sounds like everybody did love Raymond. 

We’re only a minute into their interaction before Fran is telling Ray to shove off. “Oh boy, Ray, I think you better get back to your table,” she says. “It looks like your wife is getting a little annoyed that you're talking so long to the two of us.”

She’s not jealous, Ray assures them. He’s simply holding her plate of food.

And that’s that — Romano showed up for a minute of screentime and took the rest of the day off. It’s not much of a crossover, but hey, it happened. The question is: Why? 

“Ratings stunt” is the obvious answer, but there’s another reason Drescher and Romano’s characters show up at the same reunion — the comics actually went to the same high school, according to CBR. The Nanny reunion celebrates the graduates of Hillcrest High School, the same high school the comics attended. Both Romano and Drescher graduated in 1975 — and strangely, both attended Queens College as well. 

The whole thing required a small suspension of disbelief for sitcom superfans. While the character Fran Fine was from Queens — making Hillcrest High a reasonable alma mater — Everybody Loves Raymond’s Ray Barone grew up in Long Island. 

What the heck, we’ll let it go for the sake of “this is bonkers!” comedy.