Customer Reviews

Reno 911 - The Complete First Season

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

RENO 911 is a hilarious spoof of COPS. Set in Reno it follows a rag tag group of inept police officers as they fumble and fall all over the place! It's a lot of fun, and surprisingly well done. Each episode is about 20 minutes of the whackiest footage you will see - shot on video exactly like COPS. My favorite character has to be Lt. Dangle with his "Daisy Duke" shorts and penchant for going undercover as a female prostitute (on his day off!). Amazingly all the lead actors play both the cops and the criminals for the most part! A wig and a well placed blur usually means someone in the cast is pulling double duty. It's like COPS meets SPINAL TAP! But surprisingly as the stories develop you grow to love this group of enforcement misfits!

The DVD set shows you all of season one's episodes in order! Which is a great bonus since they aired somewhat out of order on Comedy Central initially. You noticed this the most with Clementine as her pregnancy didn't unfold in the correctly in the original airings. You get commentaries from the cast on the episodes - including some truly funny "hidden" commentaries which can be found by highlighting the push pins on the photos in the menus. It's a great set for a great show!

A camera crew follows the comings and goings of the Reno Sheriff's Department to create the TV series "Reno 911!" Leading the crack squad is Lt. Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), who wears short-shorts while on duty and dresses up as a female hooker on his days off. Deputy Trudy Wiegel (Kerri Kenney) is the offbeat officer who dreams of motherhood and tends to her pet cats. Deputy Clementine Johnson (Wendi McLendon-Covey) is the blonde bombshell who always gets her man! Deputy Raineesha Williams (Niecy Nash) never breaks a nail when apprehending criminals. Deputy S. Jones (Cedric Yarbrough) upholds the law, even when assigned to being a crossing guard. Deputy James Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui) is the grizzled veteran of the squad, having recently celebrated his fifteenth year of service. Deputy Travis Junior (Robert Ben Garant) has a better relationship with his canine partner than he does with the human members of the Sheriff's Department.

The first episode starts off with a bang at a birthday party, when everyone yells "Surprise!" and an officer is shot. Later on, Lt. Dangle rear ends a car, which causes the trunk to pop open, revealing several bags of marijuana. The squad really enjoys sitting around the campfire as the illegal marijuana is burned. In later episodes, a tear-gas grenade is used to destroy an old microwave oven, and an ice cream truck loaded with illegal fireworks is blown up. My favorite episode involves Lt. Dangle and Deputy Travis Junior on a drug stakeout. Lt. Dangle turns his attention away from the hotel room where the drug deal is supposed to take place, and discovers that Leonard Nimoy is staying in the next room. The officers decide to investigate this, only to discover that the man is a Leonard Nimoy look-alike who is in Reno for a Star Trek convention. While they're talking to him, the drug deal goes on in the next room. It turns violent, as the drug buyer kills the seller. As he's using a chainsaw to cut up his victim, the officers hear the noise and assume it's a leaf blower. The criminal leaves with his bloody chainsaw and the drugs, while the officers leave with free tickets to the Star Trek convention. "Reno 911!" is the funniest series on television today!

Thank goodness I stumbled onto Reno 911! one night on Comedy Central. In just a few scenes I was absolutely hooked. My fear was that I had just seen their best episode, but as it turns out they are ALL funny!

The premise is a reality-tv crew is following around seven members of the Reno Sheriff's Dept for a tv show called "Reno 911". Every cop is a unique character, and they are all some of the worst cops that have ever lived! Equal time is given for the actors to explore their characters. Three of the actors, Kerry Kenney (Officer Wiegel), Robert Ben Garant (Officer Junior), and Tom Lennon (Lt. Dangle) created the show and have worked together for over 15 years.

What's refreshing is that the commentaries show a genuine friendship between cast members. They poke fun, compliment, and psychoanalyze each other. The commentary is uncensored and hilarious. There is also an easter egg to be found if you highlight the odd colored thumbtack on the bulletin board on disc one. Click it and you will watch the episode with the entire cast ad libbing the entire episode from memory. It's a riot and further illustrates how much they seem to be having a great time together.

Depending on where you look, you can find this collection from $19.95 to $29.95. It would be a great deal even at $50. Too bad more series don't offer entire seasons for such a reasonable price. I sure hope this is only the first season of a long, long running series.

I'm an Australian, and as such this show has never been shown nor has anybody ever heard of it in my fair country. Then again, we haven't seen Mr Show, The Wire, or Deadwood either. My American friend from Kansas City lent me this fine DVD and I was blown away by how addictive it was in its story about a varied and distinct group of police officers, obviously none of them too bright.

Central to the show is its mockumentary style and improvised dialogue. Standing out as particularly good is Thomas Lennon, who plays the gay Lt. Jim Dangle, a character straight out of the village people. His constant overtures to Deputy S. Jones verge on the realm of the unbearably awkward, especially when he invites Jones over to help him move and greets him in ultra-gay clothes, brandishing cocktail glasses, yelling "who wants margaritas!"

The other stand out in the show is Dt. Weigel, who takes "medication... doctor prescribed!" she's quick to add. She is an aloof, almost unhinged character, disliked by the whole force. She is in love with Lt. Dangle, who treats her overtures with caution and distance. It's hilarious to watch.

The best thing about this show is that it doesn't rely on set pieces to get its humour across; rather, it's about character. All of the characters involved are beautifully drawn and well acted, despite their dialogue being improvised. The complex web of relationships within the department provides plenty of intrigue and humour, and knowing exactly who these characters are it's funny to see them get involved in different situations.

It has a few hit and miss moments, and by the end of the series you feel like you've probably gotten the joke. However, this is a hilarious show, one to watch an episode at a time perhaps every couple of days. Great acting, very funny, very original.

This scathingly funny, over the top, and sometimes too over the top for it's own good, show is one of the freshest programs to hit Comedy Central in the wake of all the new shows premiering on the network over the past few years. Reno 911 basically satires Cops, following the misadventures of the inept Reno sherrif's department as they perform drug busts, perform charity work, arrest criminals, and screw up a lot. Led by Lieutenant Dangle (Thomas Lennon) in his pair of incredibly short shorts, Reno 911 is something you have to see to be believed. It's premise does wear thin after a while, but the characters and actors keep the show going full steam ahead, especially Kerri Kenney-Silver as the somewhat mentally challenged Weigel who ends up being the butt of everyone's jokes. All in all, the first season of Reno 911 is solid comedy, but the show really became something special in it's second season which hopefully will be available on DVD soon.

This is indeed the funniest possible spoof of COPS. Just as many other reviewers have noted, the Reno Nevada Sheriff's department never fails to fail in this series. This two DVD set has all the episodes of its first season and the laughs never stop. The cast does a superlative job of improvising their lines during long takes and then through editing the show is cut down and produced in a regular 30 minute time slot. I give the cast a lot of credit for working so damn hard to make us laugh.

The show makes fun of every group possible. Lieutenant Dangle is the closeted gay cop who nevertheless makes a pass at a woman from the FBI during Homeland Security training. Then there is Officer Wiegel, who is about as appealing as a mortuary. Race relations come up when Officer Jones asks why the black cops are on one side of the table during the morning briefings. Asians, Jews, and other groups are made fun of, too! (Nobody gets left out! GRIN)

My favorite actor is Niecy Nash who plays Dept. Raineesha Williams. Her ability to make me laugh just by her facial expression is awesome! Officer Williams makes sure to wear lots of makeup to give herself a clown-type appearance.

The two DVD set still deletes the swear words (most of the time) although this is no show for children! The commentaries are funny but often lack much insight into how the show gets done. There are deleted scenes and alternate takes, too. Unfortunately there are no cast credits in the packaging.

I highly recommend this DVD set for fans of very good comedy, improvisational comedy, and for people who aren't going to cringe when a show pokes fun at all groups of people. And, now that season two has just ended, wouldn't this be a great time to release season two on DVD? GRIN

This series is so un-PC, no group is immune! This "Cops" take-off is the most blatantly anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, and every other type of prejudice one can think of show on T.V. today! And that is one of the reasons Reno 911 is such a riot. They just don't care who they offend (and EVERYONE can be offended at some point). Another reason it is the funniest comedy on television today are the characters. Clemmy: the sex-obsessed former showgirl, Wiegel: the odd to the point of uncomfortable to watch spinster; the sexually ambiguous Lt. Dangle, whose name is very apt in his short shorts; the angry and racist Garcia. They all have hilarious personalities and the acting is superb! For those who have not seen this series yet, the episodes are arranged sort of like Cops with the law enforcers encountering all kinds of weird people (not just themselves) and talking about their jobs and each other directly to the camera.

The menu page is arranged with Polaroid shots of each episode. The commentaries can be heard by clicking a separate spot below the photo, which is nice because I've had commentaries come on for no apparent reason on other DVDs and have to go to another menu page to turn them off. No such problems here. You get four commentaries, a bonus rendition of one episode, and alternate/deleted scenes with this DVD. The commentaries are on episode 1: Thomas Lennon (Lt. Dangle) and Niecy Nash (Raineesha Williams); episode 3 where Clemmy is proposed to by Steed: Michael Patrick Jann (director) and Wendi McLendon-Covey (Clemmy); episode 9 with Wiegel's suicide watch: Kerri Kenney (Wiegel) and Robert Ben Garant (Dept. Junior); and episode 13 the Halloween show: Cedric Yarbrough (Jones) and Carlos Alazraqui (Garcia). The commentaries are rather silly (especially the first one). The one with director Jann is more insightful. We do get a bombshell in the first commentary: Raineesha's booty IS NOT real! It also has my favorite line. Nash explains that she knows of women (like Wiegel) who collect baby clothes "just in case" because, "what if you're having a baby and they're not on sale?" By clicking the extra thumbtack on episode 2, you get to hear the cast recreate the script and sounds of the show. There are also 12 alternate/deleted scenes including a longer morgue scene (one of my favorites). Buy this DVD if you want to see the funniest little sheriff's dept. in the world, and remember the kleenex (tears have come to my eyes more than once while laughing with this show). Great price, too!

My husband and I watched both season 1 & 2 of Reno 911 and we laughed so much we almost cried. I will say that this type of comedy is for an acquired taste. You need to like this kind of schtick to really enjoy it. If you don't get it, you don't get it and you're like, "What was that?" But if you like it and get it, it is superb.

I highly recommend it.

I'm a huge fan of the aforementioned sketch-group "The State" -- they did truly brilliant comedy and imploded messily and, for a while, it looked like they were all going to fade away in a sea of candy bar commercials, bit parts, cult movies and talking heads on VH-1 specials.

But fortunately members of the group are together again - Thomas Lennon, Kerry Kinney and Ben Garant (with occasionally appeareances by Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black and others) - and the result is some of the best comedy on TV.

A "COPS" parody initially seemed to me like a) beating a dead horse and b) beating an obviously dead horse. Somehow, though, with sharp improv, clever jokes and a tendency to play gags as straight as possible, the ensemble (which also includes the great Wendy McLendon McCovey and Cedric Yarbrough) elevates this show to an almost "Simpson"-esque level of observed humor, satire and social commentary. One of the reasons the characters work so well is that they almost always do the *wrong* thing... and yet we can totally understand why.

It's rare that a TV show actually brings tears of laughter to my eyes but "Reno 911!" seems to do it on a regular basis - in Season 1 it was stuff like the gang of kids in the cemetery during the Halloween episode, the unit's scavenger hunt and the unlikely verbal ability and dancing skills of a drunk-driving cowboy.

This is a great series that is full of all different kinds of politically incorrect humor. I like the interaction between the wide variety of characters in the program. Sometimes, though, I wonder if there are too many characters. Seems like a lot of people to keep track of. Parts of the show remind a little of Sledge Hammer, which aired on ABC from 1986-1988. I agree with those mentioning Sledge earlier, that those who like Reno 911 will probably like Sledge Hammer: Season One (available July 27th, here at Amazon) as well, which revolves around one character and the few around him.