10 Best Moments From Reno 911! (Reprint)

A Reno 911 marathon on Comedy Central brought me back to this post. Please Enjoy My 10 All-Time Favorite Moments from one of my favorite shows. I have included a "bonus" favorite moment. Enjoy...


My favorite all time show on the planet is Reno 911!. In my 6 1/2 years as a public safety dispatcher, I ran across more than one officer that closely mirrors a character from that show. Inspired by a list that Cracked.com compiled, I decided to compile my own list of the best moments from Reno's finest.

1. THAT'S WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE. My favorite and the all-time best moment of this show is the conversation during morning briefing surrounding the use of the N-word. Garcia watches "the BET and those fellas throw it around all the time." Jones doesn't use it but thinks he should be able to. But Trudy--we love Trudy--stops everyone cold by asking, "What if someone said, wh-who, which n*&&%r took the last donut?" Dangle stares and horror and all he can spit out is, "that's wildly inappropriate."

2. LOOK-SEE'S LAST STAND. What I love about this show is that it shows what I believe the trashy streets of Reno to be like--full of white trash, hookers, titty bars and casinos. I wonder if it is really exaggeration or truth but it is funny nevertheless. In this scene, Reno's finest have responded to a nudie bar to investigate the murder of one of its showgirls. A crippled, crutch-wielding dancer with big hair and big 1980's glasses is only to eager to tell Dangle and Junior what happened to her lazy-eyed showgirl friend, Look-see. She explains that she was having her "show drink", the one free drink all dancers get before the show when a spectator started shouting slang terms at her friend, Look-see before he killed her. "We call her Look-see because she has a lazy eye." If that weren't enough, Bunny, the crippled dancer wants the deputies to give her a ride home. Instead, they stick her in the back of the ambulance with Look-see's corpse.

3. AVENGE MY DEATH I. Reno's beloved sheriff, Sheriff Chechekevitch is dead. His dying words to his deputies are "avenge my death." After tailing the sheriff's young, hot wife, accusing her boyfriend and jumping to all the wrong conclusions, sheriff's office surveillance video shows the true story. The peanut allergic sheriff is seen on the tape purchasing and eating a peanut candy bar from the station's vending machine. As instructed, the deputies do indeed avenge their comrade's death by blowing up the vending machine.

4. EMPLOYEE'S MUST WASH HANDS. Responding to the Chicken Hole--one of Reno's legal brothels, the gang finds Andrew, a frequent patron, complaining that upon finishing his "business" he discovers there are no signs in the bathroom that say employees must wash hands and is outraged because, "that's state of Nevada law." Really, if someone were that obsessed with cleanliness, do you think he'd be going to a brothel in the first place?

5. JUNIOR AND THE JUNIOR DEPUTIES. If there's one person in this group that you do not want in contact with your children, it is Deputy Travis Junior. Somehow, it is left to Junior to take Reno's junior deputies on a tour of the jail. Not only does he tell them how to make wine in prison but tells them exactly why the bunks are bolted to the wall with a riveting tale of inmates maiming another inmate. Shell-shocked kids stre in horror and all Junior says is, "ok, let's continue with the damn tour."

6. FIREFIGHTERS ARE JERKS I. I couldn't call myself a firefighter if I didn't include this one--although, it may be mistitled. The deputies, eager to sell tickets to their annual fundraiser, the policeman's ball are dismayed to find out that the fire department is holding a pancake dinner the very same night. The deputies try everything they can think of to persuade the fire department to change the date of their event. They even put one of those immobilizing boots on the fire engine. When the fire bells go off, it turns out that the deputies have lost the key to the boot so the engine is truly immobile. In an act of triumph over challenges, the firefighters grab their gear and a hose reel and start running down the street. Hoo-rah for the firefighters. To twist the proverbial knife in the wound, the deputies sell one ticket to the policeman's ball while the pancake breakfast is a huge success. The gang is also a little miffed that Clemmy, has left the ball to join the firefighter's party.

7. DANGLE GETS DIVORCED. Dangle's personal orientation is always in question. The question seems to be removed when his soon-to-be ex-wife shows up at the sheriff's office with divorce papers. Just when you think everything you knew about the Reno 911! universe is about to implode, a candid camera conversation with Dangle reveals in not so many words that he married her for her money in the hopes that she would soon be dead because of "the way she was tossin' them hoagies back." So you forgive Dangle for his moment of hetero-weakness and soon the routine in Reno returns to normal when we meet Deb's new fiance, Leslie. Leslie's lispy invitation for Jim to visit his store, Bi-Curios, quickly brings us a sigh of relief that all is returning to normal. Jim and Leslie's new friendship feels like a warm bowl of chicken soup for our soul.

8. THE SCAVENGER HUNT: EXECUTION STYLE. This isn't so much a "moment" as it is an entire episode. For me, it wouldn't be so funny if I didn't know that police departments and sheriff's offices across the country have scavenger hunts of their own. The grand prize might not be tickets to an execution, but they all do it; don't let them tell you they don't. Davis County deputies had their own scavenger hunts that involved things like making a traffic stop for fraudulent registration then finding meth on the driver who also happens to have a warrant. Reno's scavenger hunt sought after good looking hookers and tall Jews. What makes this a memorable moment is the grand prize--tickets to an execution. Why? Because as Junior eloquently puts it, "having 2 tickets to an execution is like having 2 tickets to NASCAR except you KNOW Jeff Gordon is gonna die."

9. TRUDY AND HER MOM. Here we see Trudy spreading a picnic blanket in front of a cemetary headstone as she introduces us to her mom and shows us her own cemetary plot. It's a lovely picnic for two and we learn that Trudy's mom "started collecting Beanie Babies about 4 years after she died." We also learn about Trudy's heritage with this happy tale about how her mom wandered onto an indian reservation "and bam, they raped her." I don't know what I find more disturbing, the picnic in the cemetary or the Beanie Babie collection for a dead person.

10. FIREFIGHTERS ARE JERKS II. The deputies, at the scene of a fire, make themselves instant heroes by rescuing a dog from the fire. Overjoyed that they have done a better job that the firemen, they are speechless when the firefighters rescue a PERSON from the flames. This proves once again that firefighters are the REAL American heroes and the Reno Sheriff's Department should stick to uh, law enforcement.

11. AVENGE MY DEATH II. In Sheriff Chechekevitch's will, he left specific instructions for his funeral. We find out that the sheriff hated mexicans and was afraid that they would steal from him. Therefore, Garcia is not allowed to be one of the pallbearers at the funeral. Garcia gets his revenge by greasing the handles of the casket so that the other deputies drop it several times trying to get it in the hearse.