'A 7 Minute Reno 911 Is Kind Of Perfect': Thomas Lennon On 'Reno 911,' Weird Al Yankovic, Ben Stiller
(CBS Local)-- "Reno 911" is coming back to television and that means Thomas Lennon gets to put on the Lieutenant Jim Dangle short shorts again.
25 new episodes will be on the new mobile streaming service Quibi and each episode is around six to eight minutes long.
"We have always talked about doing more Reno 911," said Lennon in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "The blessing and the curse is that everybody got so successful that they all have their own shows. We had dinner before last Christmas and just to get everyone in the same room at the same time is a lot of emails. We talked about it for quite a while and never found a scenario where it would work. We've sold Reno 911 to the same guy like three or four times. Doug Herzog went to Quibi and he said why don't you guys come do Reno 911. The episodes are six to eight minutes range now and I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't do an episode in this era with my attention span."
FULL INTERVIEW:
"Reno 911" premieres on Quibi on May 4. One major addition to the cast is Weird Al Yankovic, who will be playing Ted Nugent on the series. Lennon and Yankovic first became friends when they randomly ran into each other at a Staples office supplies store in Los Angeles.
"I showed Al all the episodes when they were done because I respect his opinion a lot and he wrote me back and said he missed nothing, said Lennon. "A seven minute Reno 911 is kind of perfect. There's no fat to it. When Al got his star on the Walk of Fame, the people that presented it were Dr. Demento and me. It's a slightly bizarre story and inspirational that this kind of thing can happen. One morning about 11 years ago, I was at the Staples Office supply store on Sunset Boulevard. There was nobody there and there two people looking for printer toner, one dude with really bizarre hair and me. It's Weird Al and I said are you weird Al Yankovic. He said I am and I had the mustache, and he said are you Lieutenant Dangle, and I said yes I am. Then I said as a joke, should we just decide to best friends now and he said good by me."
Watch all of DJ Sixsmith's interviews from "The Sit-Down" series here.