Q&A: Reno 911! star, Lt. Jim Dangle
The Nevada Sagebrush: Why are you coming to Reno to celebrate Homecoming with us?
Thomas Lennon: I guess it mostly traces back to I wrote that song called “Proud of Reno.” It’s Lt. Dangle singing about civic pride and some of the positive things about Reno.
NS: Are you going to play it?
TL: It’s kinda hard to play. It’s like a rap.
NS: Are you going to wear the Dangle shorts?
TL: You got to be kidding me. How on earth would Dangle—? Of course! It’s in the forties there, right?
NS: Yeah, it is. It might snow during the game.
TL: Right, here’s the thing. It’s always horrible in the shorts. Although I was also in Chicago in January in the shorts.
NS: Do you have winter shorts and summer shorts?
TL: (Laughs.) I don’t. There was a period where once in a while it would get so cold when we would shoot that I would wear pantyhose, but it gives me a look sort of like a Hooters girl. It’s also weird because then I look down at my own legs and think, ‘Boy those look kinda good.’ I sort of am thinking of myself at a Hooters. It’s disturbing and confusing.
NS: Going back to the shorts: Do they chafe?
TL: The shorts are more horrible than you could possibly imagine. Like, I thought the shorts were a very funny idea. You have to understand, we shot the pilot for ‘Reno 911!’ in the year 2000. It was basically right around the Y2K scare. We’re nosing up on a decade in them.
NS: Do you get new ones every season?
TL: I do. I’ve been through probably several dozen sets.
NS: And they all suck?
TL: Uh, yeah. They’re really horrible. You know, there’s an official Lt. Dangle Halloween costume you can buy? Those shorts, by comparison? Are huge! But they’re made of vinyl.
NS: So, boxers or briefs?
TL: It’s really specific. It’s a certain kind of briefs that have, like, no seams in them.
NS: Oh I see. Specially ordered or something?
TL: They are specially made. It’s basically the underwear that a weird, very gay, European underwear model would wear.
NS: Flown in from France?
TL: it must be made in France or Ibithia or somewhere. Some little slave labor somewhere making his briefs.
NS: Are you surprised that people in Reno like the show?
TL: No, I feel like we’re not really negative about Reno in the show, it’s mostly that these eight people are grossly incompetent and dumb.
NS: What is your favorite skit that you’ve done?
TL: My favorite all time skit? Probably is the one called ‘Weasel in the Wall’ They go in this house and there’s a very old woman. It’s very long and all you see us doing is looking at the wall and behind it you hear the weasel running around. We tried to treat it like the movie “Aliens” where they don’t know where the alien is and they’re all freaking out.
NS: Trying to find it?
TL: Yeah, except it’s just a weasel behind a wall. And then we end up shooting Junior through the door. I like that one quite a bit.
NS: Did you ever get the weasel out of the wall?
TL: No, never.
NS: It stays there?
TL: Those are actually used as training videos for the LA police department.
NS: Are they really?
TL: The one called ‘Shoot my Dog.’ You know that one? Where the guy come up and he’s like, ‘I can’t afford to put him down, he’s dying’ and the guys take him behind the garbage cans and shoot the sweet, old dog. Then a lady comes out and says, ‘You shoot my dog.’ They used that one and the one where the lady flushes all the cocaine down the toilet and they think they’re at the wrong apartment are used for the L.A. Sheriff’s Department. For training purposes.
NS: Were they like what-not-to-do training purposes or what to do?
TL: No, no, they were in the ‘what not to do category.’
NS: Why are there palm trees in Reno? Is it one of those myths that you’re never going to explain?
TL: If we could afford the CGI to remove them, we certainly would.
NS: Do you get a lot of feedback from real police people telling you it’s so great or it’s so wrong?
TL: This is going to sound like a joke, but I’m 100 percent serious, most of the cops we meet say it’s the most accurate cop show on TV. They do because it feels like CSI and those investigative shows, everybody’s very slick and they’re always running off to a lab and things are wrapped up very neatly in the end. The fact is, that’s not what most of police work is like. A lot of it comes from us shooting in a real police station in Carson, Calif.
NS: When you’re not filming, do they have police meetings in there?
TL: Oh always, in fact, they kinda work around us when we’re there. The last time we were there, they brought in a guy in handcuffs who was being booked and who saw me in the shorts and yelled out, ‘oh my god, you guys were shooting here the last time I was getting arrested.’
NS: What does your character like about Reno?
TL: It is three-and-a-half, four hours from San Francisco. That was when Dangle was just sort of dropping hints that he might, you know, might be into dudes.
NS: Do you think that will ever be answered?
TL: I don’t think that will ever be fully answered. I hope that we keep that as weird as it can possibly be.
NS: Is there anything else that you or Dangle would feel is appropriate to say in preparation for our homecoming celebration?
TL: I can’t tell you how honored I am to actually be walking in your parade as a fictional person from your town.
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