{"id":12832,"date":"2025-08-19T22:33:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12832"},"modified":"2025-08-19T22:33:33","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:33:33","slug":"mr-nanny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/08\/19\/mr-nanny\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Nanny"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mr. Nanny<\/strong> (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 84 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (comic action\/violence and mild language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Gottlieb\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Gottlieb and Edward Rugoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Johansen and Brian Koonin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Stein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 8, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hulk Hogan, Sherman Hemsley, Austin Pendleton, Robert Gorman, Madeline Zima, Raymond O\u2019Connor, Mother Love, David Johansen, Peter Kent, Jen Sung, Jeff Moldovan, Artie Malesci.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $4.3M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0At one point late in Mr. Nanny<\/strong>, somebody is threatened with a \u201cslow and agonizing\u201d death. I can\u2019t think of three better words to describe the experience of sitting through this embarrassingly unfunny comedy starring Hulk Hogan. That right there is a major red flag!<\/p>\n

\u00a0I actually went to see Mr. Nanny <\/strong>at the cinema on opening day. I ditched my afternoon classes at university so I could be among the first to witness this affront to film. What can I say? I\u2019m a glutton for punishment. I watched in horror as Hogan did things no self-respecting tough guy should ever do. I cringed as he sat down to a tea party with a little girl. I winced as he sang \u201cTwinkle Twinkle Little Star\u201d to help her fall asleep. HOWEVER, those are nothing compared to the sight of the wrestler wearing a tutu while learning ballet moves. That was positively traumatizing. It still haunts me to this day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Michael Gottlieb (Mannequin 1 & 2), Mr. Nanny<\/strong> is a mix of Home Alone, Mr. Mom, Kindergarten Cop, The Toy and about a dozen other movies. The Hulkster plays Sean Armstrong, a former wrestler with a recurring nightmare about his last match, the one that put him out of the ring for good. He\u2019s approached by his former manager and friend Burt (Hemsley, The Jefferson) with an offer of a job, bodyguard to tech firm head Alex Mason (Pendleton, My Cousin Vinny) or so he thinks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u2019ll actually be watching over his two children, Alex Jr. (Gorman, Leprechaun) and Kate (Zima, The Nanny). These kids are a real handful. They take great delight in torturing every nanny their widowed dad hires to take care of them. Sean arrives at their estate just in time to see their latest victim running away screaming with her hair on fire. He agrees to stick around until Dad hires a new nanny. Of course, the service refuses to send anybody else. That means Sean\u2019s stuck there enduring the little darlings\u2019 pranks and shenanigans. He can\u2019t just leave, can he?<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s an action element to Mr. Nanny<\/strong>. Did you think there wouldn\u2019t be? Alex Sr. has developed a new sophisticated anti-missile system and has all the data stored on a microchip. It\u2019s extremely valuable meaning nefarious types want to take it off his hands. The leader is Thanatos (Johansen, Scrooged), a criminal dunderhead with a steel skullplate. Strangely enough, he has a personal beef with Sean and Burt. They\u2019re the ones who caused the accident that cost him the top of his skull. When he resorts to kidnapping Sean\u2019s charges to get what he wants, Hulk shifts into action hero mode.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are no ifs or ands. There is, however, a but. Mr. Nanny<\/strong> is a bad movie. It\u2019s the kind of bad that makes you feel ashamed for the actors appearing in it. BUT I actually found myself enjoying it when I rewatched it this afternoon. I\u2019ve said it a few times, the bad movies from the 80s and 90s are so much better than today\u2019s bad movies. Some of them are even better than the mediocre ones. \u00a0I was looking for something simple to watch today and I came across Mr. Nanny<\/strong> on Tubi. I thought why not. Well, I can think of a lot of reasons why not, but I decided to go through with it anyway. It\u2019s still pretty painful, but I can now look at it with a sense of bemusement. Wonder factors into it too as in \u201cI wonder how this abomination ever got made?\u201d Did Hogan really have that much power in Hollywood? NAH! Was Hollywood trying to make him go away by handing him the worst script they had lying around? That sounds more feasible.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In looking at Hogan\u2019s filmography, I only see one straight-up action title on the list, 1998\u2019s The Ultimate Weapon. Everything else- No Holds Barred (1989), Suburban Commando (1991), Santa with Muscles (1996) and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998)- is comedy. I never saw the 3 Ninjas one, but I saw all the others and all of them are better than Mr. Nanny<\/strong>. Still, I have to hand it to Hogan. He\u2019s a good sport for getting involved with these films. He\u2019s no actor, but a good sport nonetheless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are no good performances in Mr. Nanny<\/strong>. If you go into that movie with those expectations, you have a lot to learn about cinema. This is the kind of movie where some of the performances are less embarrassing than others. The two kids do okay. That is to say, they didn\u2019t get on my nerves. Their characters are pretty standard. Alex Jr. is a genius (like his dad) who invents things (e.g. an electrified toilet seat, poison ivy TP) that cause pain. He also has problems with bullies at school. Of course, Sean helps him figure it out. Kate is a sweet little monster who still misses her mother. She doesn\u2019t sleep at night. Again, Sean helps her through it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Everytime I saw Hemsley, I mentally shouted \u201cWEEZY!\u201d He\u2019ll always be George Jefferson to me. He doesn\u2019t do too badly as Burt, the owner of a failing security company who really needs this job with the tech guy to work out. Pendleton is okay as the dad who consistently prioritizes work over his kids. That\u2019s why they act out. Comedian Mother Love is funny as the housekeeper who loves the children and keeps a list of the nannies they chase away. Okay, so there\u2019s one decent performance in Mr. Nanny<\/strong>. SO SUE ME!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The booby prize for worst performance goes to Johansen as Thanatos. It\u2019s cartoonish to the point of disbelief, not that anything about Mr. Nanny<\/strong> is believable. He has to be the most incompetent criminal I\u2019ve seen this side of Home Alone. Johansen, who many of you know as novelty singer Buster Poindexter, doesn\u2019t even look the slightest bit embarrassed which makes me wonder about him. To his credit, he looks like he\u2019s having fun.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the end, I have to say that Mr. Nanny<\/strong> is something of a guilty pleasure. It falls under the category Kids Movies Adults Should Never Lay Eyes On. It\u2019s what I call a \u201cdrop off movie\u201d. Drop the kids off at the theater, run errands for two hours and pick them up after. This way, the parents retain their sanity while buying a brief respite from their progeny. As for me, all I lost was a few IQ points and 84 minutes of my life. I almost hate to admit it, but it was worth it just to relive great bad memories.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Nanny (1993)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 84 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (comic action\/violence and mild language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Gottlieb\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Gottlieb and Edward Rugoff\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Johansen and Brian Koonin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Stein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 8, 1993 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hulk Hogan, Sherman Hemsley, Austin Pendleton, Robert Gorman, Madeline Zima, Raymond O\u2019Connor, Mother Love, David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mr.-Nanny-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12832"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12840,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12832\/revisions\/12840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}