Jonathan Storm: 'Fran Drescher Show': Tawking the tawk in daytime

Fran Drescher's new daytime talk show has the usual bells and whistles, plus a live band, and the one thing no other show has had, or ever will have.

That laugh.

It sounds like a constipated barnyard animal, or maybe an old tractor that turns over but can't get started. That a Fran Drescher noise would make you think of Old MacDonald's Farm is surprising, since she has been dragging that thick New York accent around since she started talking in Flushing, Queens, 51 years ago.bridal consultant who brought her sense and sensibility into the lives of a prim British father who was a Broadway producer, and his pampered children. It aired for six seasons on CBS in the '90s, lives forever worldwide in syndication and local offshoots, and runs at varying times on Nick at Nite, and two episodes on TV Land at 1 a.m.

Able to discuss politics, matinee idols, medical mysteries, and fingernail polish with aplomb and authority, Drescher might be just the thing for afternoons next fall, when, as she says, "some of the gravy trains are going to be going away."

The biggest of all being the five-locomotive, 200-car fast freight that's The Oprah Winfrey Show, headed for the roundhouse Sept. 11, after 25 years, most of them high atop the ratings. Oprah, most people know, is off to start an entire new network of her own.

But before Drescher starts in September, she's mounting a three-week run through Dec. 17 on Fox stations in a few big cities (New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Orlando, and noon weekdays in Philadelphia), during this holiday season when the pressure is low and she can run through material and work out the kinks. Having a bunch of shows in the can will also make it easier for the salesfolk when it comes time to syndicate the effort nationwide in spring.

The Wendy Williams Show, which, like Drescher's, is produced by Debmar-Mercury, took a similar tack in 2008.

"It's the prudent way to do it," Drescher says. "Nobody risks that much, and it gives us an opportunity to get it right."

Drescher is known as an astute show-businesswoman. She and ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson (they married at 21), who helped her create, write, and produce The Nanny, kept a big piece of it for themselves. The couple divorced in 1999, after Jacobson disclosed he was gay. He's not involved in The Fran Drescher Show, but he is working with her on a new sitcom.

"We're happily divorced," says Drescher. "His gay boyfriend is very similar to my straight one. We have an oddball, extended family, and we just celebrated our wedding anniversary Nov. 4."

Active in Democratic politics (she lobbied to be appointed to serve out Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate term), Drescher is a State Department public diplomacy envoy who has traveled to Eastern Europe advocating for improved women's health. She is pro-choice and a well-known cancer survivor, whose book Cancer Schmancer was a best-seller.

When asked which View host she most resembled, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, or Sherri Shepherd (conservative youngster Elisabeth Hasselbeck was an obvious leave-out), Drescher replies, "Barbara Walters."

She lists some of her show's topics as "women's health issues, education, civil liberties, living towards the true ideals of what it means to be an American, entertainment, fashion culture, music. I'll do a monologue." Tawk about the whole megillah.

"I love music," she says. "We're one of the first daytime shows to have a live band."

She has a point of view on a lot of issues, most notably cable news.

"I feel like the all-news networks are being very divisive for their own financial gain. . . . We're hurting the very psyche of our nation.

"It has lowered the mean of journalism. The FCC needs to run a banner: 'This is not news. It's entertainment.' "

That might not sit too well with the local Fox stations' sister outlet Fox News Channel, but neither she nor they care. And everybody's pretty confident the FCC won't have to run a banner under The Fran Drescher Show identifying what it is.

The Fran Drescher Show

Weekdays at noon, through Dec. 17, on Fox29.