From time to time I do enjoy the fake reality show drama types of shows such as The Office and Trailer Park Boys which are two of my favorite shows of all time.
Recently a friend of mine sent me a highlight clips reel of Reno 911! and they were pretty funny so I figured I would jump in there and go ahead and watch a whole season to see what other sort of gems could be found in there.
Well, it didn't take me very long to figure out that the "best of" clips that my friend had sent me are probably gathered from many different episodes because I found myself not laughing and kind of bored after a very short while.
I remember when this show was a weekly thing on Comedy Central from 2003 onward but for reasons probably related to me being quite busy during that time of my life, as well as being more social, I didn't watch it when it was still being filmed and aired once a week but going back and looking at it now, I am actually kind of surprised that it made it 6 seasons and a couple of revivals as well.
It's a parody of a lot of things but most notably probably the old TV show called COPS that was popular in the 90's or at least I think it was in the 90's. COPS involved real officers investigating and intervening in real crimes whereas Reno 911 is obviously fake.
I take a lot of issue with this show but mostly the fact that it just isn't very funny.
It was likely funny the first couple of times that I saw Lt. Jim Dangle wearing his teeny tiny shorts but that got old pretty fast yet they just stuck with it. His character is straight but is constantly behaving in an androgynous or weirdly gay fashion and I guess that is supposed to be funny. It was and is every now and then, but IMO they overly relied on this to be funny and it just kind of isn't.
The idiot boss angle is used often as well and again, this is widely used and to me at least, it just doesn't stay funny for a very long time, let alone episode after episode where they keep revisiting similar situations where everything gets screwed up by the boss but the underlings still admire him a great deal. If that sounds an awful lot like The Office then I am not the only one that sees the parallels.
There is one bright side that I can think of when it comes to this show though and that is the character of Terry Bernadino or Terry Jaspermans.
The gay and habitual liar character is wonderfully played by Nick Swardson, who I think is one of the most underappreciated comedians of our age. Come to think of it, other than the odd spot in some Adam Sandler films, you don't really see the guy in very much.
Perhaps this show is a just a victim of the passage of time because it has been nominated for Emmy's twice, although it didn't win any of those awards.
To try to nail the point home I want to include this clip that they selected as being the "best" moments from the show. If you laugh at all while watching that I would be surprised.
I hate to be all negative because I am sure some people worked really hard on this show but it's just not for me. I normally am a big fan of stupid comedy too so it's not like I need everything to be super-original and edgy in order for me to enjoy it. While watching season 1 I thought to myself that a lot of the scenes seemed as though they were just making the dialogue up as they went along and as it turns out that is exactly what the show's notes say. Much of the dialogue that made it through to the final cut wasn't actually in a script.
Well, it shows.
The friend of mine that sent me the clips hoping to get me enticed, after hearing that I wasn't really impressed went back and watched some episodes himself because he was astonished that I didn't like it but then he later told me that yeah, he should have left that one in his memories because his thoughts about the show were actually a lot more funny than the show really is. Maybe we all just smoked a lot more weed back in those days or something. I can't really say.
If you like this show I mean no offense but there are a lot of mockumentary style shows out there that are far superior to this one. Maybe this was funny and original back in the early 2000's when it first aired, but these days I feel as though this is just not funny at all.
If you disagree with me I"m all ears!
The only legal way to stream this is with a Paramount+ account and 2 seasons are available on Fubo, whatever that is
