The cops of Reno 911!, who began their careers in law and disorder back in 2003, are now celebrating Christmas in their original home, Comedy Central, with a feature-length special, Reno 911!: It’s a Wonderful Heist. Nevada’s finest, the men and women of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department, have bounced around from Quibi to Paramount+ to the Roku Channel for their last three seasons (2020-22), so this marks their comeback to Comedy Central after a 13-year hiatus.
Reno 911!: It’s a Wonderful Heist, directed by Christian Hoffman, who helmed ten episodes of the show, is the third feature outside the series following Reno 911: Miami (2007) and Reno 911: The Hunt for QAnon (2021). Here’s the lowdown on what one can expect these parody police’s latest mockumentary spectacular to deliver.
Reno 911: It’s a Wonderful Heist: The Plot
As one can guess from the title, our incredibly politically incorrect, bumbling, cursing cops’ Christmas story does a number on the 1946 Frank Capra classic, It's a Wonderful Life, as it opens with an extended riff dealing with Lt. Dangle contemplating suicide after losing money thanks to crypto.com's commercial with Matt Damon. A wish upon a star summons his guardian angel, the roller-skating Terry, who takes him on a journey to see what life would’ve been like had he never been born.
Following the Jimmy Stewart route, Dangle finds that his fellow officers are indeed better off without him as Trudy is a successful glass harpist, Clementine develops iPad-enabled caskets, and Jones owns Reno’s hottest fondue restaurant, The Melting Crock.
The other part of the film’s title, Heist, is contained in strands involving a caper at the Sierra Nugget Mall. Another intertwined thread involves a Christmas pageant scenario in "The Biggest Little City in the World."
Reno 911: It’s a Wonderful Heist: The Cast
Thomas Lennon (Reno 911! co-creator and co-writer) as the hot pants-wearing Lieutenant Jim Dangle again heads the cast of incompetent cops that includes the also returning Kerri Kenney-Silver (also co-creator/co-writer) as Deputy Trudy Wiegel, Cedric Yarbrough as Deputy Sven Jones, Carlos Alazraqui as Deputy James Oswaldo Garcia, and Wendi McLendon-Covey as Deputy Clementine Johnson.
Other familiar faces include Niecy Nash as Deputy Raineesha Williams, Mary Birdsong as Deputy Cherisha Kimball, Ian Roberts as Sergeant Jack Declan, Joe Lo Truglio as Deputy Frank Salvatore Rizzo, and fan favorite Nick Swardson as Terry Bernadino.
Release Date
Reno 911!: It’s a Wonderful Heist will debut on Saturday, December 3, on Comedy Central.
Reno 911: It’s a Wonderful Heist: Everything Else We Know
Apart from the leopard Jesus diaper that Lennon promised would be seen in the new feature, the show’s co-creator and star went on Good Day Sacramento to talk up the project with Birdsong, who said viewers are going to:
“clearly see some hot pants, and some boots, and Santa, and Jesus, and all the shepherds, just kind of mixed together in one sort of sad mall, and basically every Christmas special you’ve ever seen, like as if you’re dreaming, all mixed – it’s kind of a nightmare. There’s a lot of coal in this stocking.”
Lennon summed up by saying that it’s “a very upbeat Christmas hallucination with the Reno 911 characters, yeah.”
This third feature coming so soon after the eighth season on the Roku Channel premiered earlier this year, was a pleasant surprise for fans when it was announced only a month ago on October 28. It’s so new that its IMDb page is incomplete, and a Wikipedia entry hasn’t even appeared. Still, the film/special’s promotion has been in full bloom since before Thanksgiving on Comedy Central, other channels, and streaming services. There haven’t been many reviews so far, either.
One of the only critical notices to drop online so far comes from one of the show’s most prominent supporters, the AV Club, who wrote:
“Wonderful Heist won’t change the way anyone sees Reno 911!, and if not for the absence of Ben Garant’s Deputy Junior and the dialing back of Deputy Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui) and Deputy Rizzo (Joe Le Truglio), any lingering channel surfers might mistake it for a Christmas special from the late 2000s. That isn’t a knock. Reno 911! has persevered by being itself, and no amount of holiday cheer is going to change that.”
So with a new full-length Christmas event film (albeit made for TV) under their belt, Nevada’s finest, the men and women of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department, continue their patrol into their 20th year (the show will celebrate its two-decade existence on July 23, 2023). It still falls 14 years behind the actual documentary program it savagely satirizes, Cops, which is still running on Fox Nation, but with the abundance of Yuletide chuckles Wonderful Heist looks to give viewers, Reno 911 is way ahead of their real-life inspiration with laughter.