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CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS

Interview with Judge Reinhold

Aired November 22, 2003 - 09:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Checking the weekend TV listings, "National Lampoon's Thanksgiving Reunion" airs tomorrow night on our sister network, TBS Superstation.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: It is the latest in a string of wacky -- love that word -- National Lampoon comedies starring actor Judge Reinhold, who joins us live from Los Angeles this morning.

Thanks very much for being with us this morning.

JUDGE REINHOLD, ACTOR: Oh, you're welcome. There's no one here but me and the camera lady.

SAVIDGE: I didn't realize that.

REINHOLD: It's like it's a ghost town.

SAVIDGE: It is dedication beyond the realm of what we normally ask. But thank you very much for being here.

REINHOLD: You're welcome.

SAVIDGE: Tell us -- what's the story line about the show?

REINHOLD: Well, I play an (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- a Hollywood anesthesiologist who thinks he has no living relatives, and is annually very depressed about it when Thanksgiving rolls around. And he gets a letter from a long-lost relative he didn't know he had.

So very impulsively and without any investigation, he throws his family in the car. And we drive up to Pinkney, Idaho, to find this family that makes our life a living hell, basically.

KOPPEL: You play a character in the film, Dr. Mitch Snider, who is an anesthesiologist to the stars. What exactly is that?

REINHOLD: A Hollywood anesthesiologist who puts a lot of famous people under.

KOPPEL: Aha.

REINHOLD: And luckily, wakes them up.

SAVIDGE: Right, that's the best part, I guess. This... REINHOLD: Yes, that's the most important part is to wake them up, yes.

SAVIDGE: Did you know anything about National Lampoon before you got involved with this?

REINHOLD: Well, I'd read the magazine growing up and I liked it a lot. And I saw "Animal House" about five or six times and could do all the lines from "Animal House," you know.

But I never got the chance to see any of the "Vacation" movies, not by choice. I just -- they just passed me by. And I guess it's a good thing. So -- you know...

KOPPEL: So why (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

REINHOLD: ... because I wasn't intimidated by them or anything.

SAVIDGE: Right.

KOPPEL: Yes. So why do you think people should come out and see this one? There have been so many of these movies. What's going to be different about this one, or the same?

REINHOLD: Well, we have the signature Lampoon gags, but we also have some very original comic circumstance. I think it holds up as a good farce, just on its own, you know, along with the signature Lampoon gags.

KOPPEL: Well, we hope folks are going to go out and see it this Thanksgiving. What are you doing for Thanksgiving, Judge?

REINHOLD: We're flying home to Little Rock, to my wife's family, to have a traditional Southern Thanksgiving and Grandmother Walker's Coca-Cola pie.

KOPPEL: All right.

REINHOLD: You eat too much of that stuff, it will probably kill you. So they -- you know. But it's very good. I'm looking forward to it.

SAVIDGE: All right, well, we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We know that the program airing on TBS is going to be -- it could become an annual tradition at all turkey dinners.

REINHOLD: Right.

SAVIDGE: And thanks very much. And be sure to thank the camera person for showing up as well out there.

REINHOLD: Thanks.

SAVIDGE: Thanks, Judge Reinhold, very much, for being with us.

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