Actors Thomas Lennon and Mary Birdsong join Trending to chat about their new holiday special, 'Reno 911! It's A Wonderful Heist.'

Between Bells

Thomas Lennon and Mary Birdsong Get Into The Holiday Spirit In 'Reno 911!: It's a Wonderful Heist'

Welcome back to trending. Lieutenant dangle and his hot pants are returning to Comedy Central and this time he and the reno Sheriff's Department are getting into the holiday spirit. Reno 911, it's a wonderful heist finds Lieutenant Dangle at a really low point during the holidays. He then wishes he'd never been born. So with the help of a roller skating angel, he learns what the lives of his fellow deputies would be like if he never even exist. So joining us now is lieutenant dangle himself thomas Lennon alongside mary birdsong, A. K A. Deputy kimball, great to have both of you guys here, thomas, I want to start with you. It's a wonderful heist is airing this saturday now in this special, Lieutenant dangle gets to see what reno and his colleagues would be like if he was never there. I mean, I shudder to even think about what it would look like, but what kind of reno are we talking about here? It's magnificent. Obviously, it's absolutely magnificent. A lot of that part of the storyline was just a very flimsy excuse for us to have Nick Swardson as character of Terry, the street hustler playing Clarence, the angel. Uh so that was a, like a lot of things on reno 911 that was a zen level of under thinking it. Uh but more importantly, is gonna be on, more important is gonna be on roller skates is what I care about, the bigger question is how after 20 years of doing this show, can Nick Swardson still not roller skate at all, he doesn't do in practice in between seasons? No, as Harry is going to be on roller skates is like saying is santa gonna come into play? Yeah, yeah, true true. Or is santa real obviously. Yeah, and mary, I mean, let's talk about you here because you and the lives of the other deputies clearly altered by no lieutenant dangle here. So what is it sort of like to play an alternative reality and a version of yourself of this character on this show? Oh, so liberating. So, so liberating. Finally, finally say that that Kimble has a pet snake, I can finally say that. And and and she's got cleavage, she gets to wear makeup might be so much better without lieutenant dangle. Everybody's lives. Everybody. The good thing is that everybody's dreams came true without dangle. But the other good thing is that all of their dreams were very small. Yes, like, like a snake being the manager of a restaurant. Like they're all, they're not very a small dream catcher. Could catch all of these dreams thomas. What I also love about this special is it's returning to Comedy Central. I mean, 13 years after the original run ended, we've seen the show come back over the years in several different forms and it seems like no matter what you guys do or where you all just sort of snapped back into form. I mean, that's definitely not always the case when it comes to these reboots and show revival. So what sort of the secret sauce for reno 911 for one thing. I think it does help that we don't really ever script anything too much. So in some weird way, everybody's just stepping back in as the characters as the slightly bizarro universe version of them. You know, like Lieutenant dangle is just the version of me that thinks he's steve McQueen, you know, that thinks he's like a real badass in those shorts and it looks really cool. So, you know, in some ways to me, it's like stepping into the briefing room, it's not like stepping on a set of a tv show. It's a little bit other house, it's our other reality. You know, it's the other reality of my of our alter egos, like having a summer home, right? I mean, by the way, we're gonna talk about the shorts here just a little bit. I mean Mary you joined the cast back in season three, this is back in 2005. So you've been playing this role for 20 years. Why do you think audience seem to not be able to get enough of you guys? Well, I think it's just there's a magic to it. And. And also we've never done that thing where you kind of like replace one deputy, but call them the same name. Like jan brady situation, we would never do that. We did a bit called, let's jump the shark in season four where I literally jumped over sharks like over and over again, but every time I would fall and land in the tank and then like smash my face in the glass. So we called it what it was, which I think your audience Yes, we like full transparency here. And it's also amazing when you look about how this show came about. I mean thomas, you said reno 911 came through total desperation. It was a show you were working on was canceled the day before filming. And Fox let you use the remaining budget and film a new pilot in just five days. So I guess sticking with this wonderful life theme. Do you ever revisit that time in your mind and and maybe consider what life could have been like if anything was sort of different here. Oh, for sure. There's an interesting detail which is we we did do that pilot for Fox, we played all of the cops and all of the perps. So it was supposed to really be like a sketch comedy show where we keep going to sketches that were also us. Uh We ended up sort of phasing that out a little bit, but it sat on the shelf at Fox for three years. Uh We sort of stopped playing the perps, but if you see the new movie, we also didn't stop playing the perps because Carrie still plays Jackie, the pickle throwing hooker and Niecy still plays tt uh no matter how many Emmys they've both been nominated for, they played the absolute stupidest characters on reno every time still. So I'm trying to remember they all kind of mushed together in my brain, all the episodes in the movies, but I think I may have played a Karen in one. Well for sure you did. Yeah, we know what the show has been going on so long that we do have have to look up episodes on imdb to see if we've done something before or not. Actually. Don't mary was the original Karen by the way before. It was everybody else took it on thomas. More importantly, I mean, do you think I could pull off the hot pants here? What sort of the key to being able to pull them off the hot pants? Isn't about what your legs look like, It's about how confident are you in them? It's really only confidence. I do lunges almost everywhere I go, just so that I can still get in them. So a little bit of confidence. And then about 1500 lunges a day, confidence, definitely a must wearing hot pants. A special thanks actors, thomas Lennon and mary birdsong. Reno 911. It's a wonderful heist. Air saturday eight p.m. Eastern time. Comedy Central