If parts of Joan and Melissa Rivers' new reality series seem incredible, well, that's just how they live.

"It's a normal life in very extraordinary circumstances," Melissa Rivers told us when the mother-daughter duo stopped by our office. "So what is normal is heightened. It's a cracked-out Norman Rockwell."

'Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?' (premiering Tuesday at 9PM ET on WE) follows Joan as she moves into Melissa's California home. And as close as they have been, mother and daughter soon realize that living together as adults is a pain in the you-know-what.

We talked to Joan and Melissa about what they learned living together, their thoughts on Ricky Gervais and the retiring Regis Philbin, and the confrontation they had with a certain 'Fashion Police' victim ...

So what was it like being housemates?
Joan: We're not housemates. That's such a college term.
Melissa: It's not really housemates. It's like the houseguest that will never leave.

Where there are any quirks or annoying habits that you discovered about each other?
Joan: When you live separately and you're both adults and you run your own households, you find your own ways of doing things. I'm totally a night person, I sleep with the lights on and the TV going ...
Melissa: ... I'm a night person too, but I actually turn off my lights ... I have my dogs one way and they eat one way, and my mother's dogs eat another way. And you can't come into my house and start feeding my dogs from the counter and out of the refrigerator, because it disrupts my household. But there's total lack of respect that it might disrupt my life ...
Joan: ... You don't respect your children and your children don't respect you."
Melissa: I respect you, I don't have a choice!
Joan: You don't respect me
Melissa: How do I not respect you?
Joan: If you respected me, I'd be in your bedroom and you'd be in that stupid guestroom. That would be respect.
Melissa: That's a new one. 'You want my bedroom? Take my bedroom.' 'I don't want your bedroom.' 'Take my bedroom.' 'I don't want your bedroom.'

Did you learn anything new about each other?
Joan: I learned what an amazing mother Melissa is ... I learned that she has a complete life out in California and she is very much in charge of it, which makes you feel terrific as a parent as you know, she is a whole, adult separate entity. That was wonderful. It was terrific to watch her in action.
Melissa: I always knew that I did certain things that were very similar to what my parents did ... I think I didn't realize how many are the same, and how much the roles have reversed through the years. Because my mother is now the disruptive teenager and I'm the adult.




How real is the show? The previews seem so outlandish.
Joan: I was coming off of a documentary where they followed me around for 14 months, so it was just a continuation of this.
Melissa: That was a discussion that was had with the network ... there was a list of certain things that seemed to them not staged, and every single one of them were things that had actually happened. There's a situation with Cooper, my son, that they do a type of party -- I don't want to give it away -- and they said no parent would ever let their child do that and the joke is it is what we do and ... what my parents did every Halloween for me. All these things that people thought were so far [out] ... are all factual. It's a normal life in very extraordinary circumstances. So what is normal is heightened, it's a cracked-out Norman Rockwell.

Speaking of the documentary, 'Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work' got favorable critical reviews but was snubbed by some awards groups. Were you upset by that?
Joan: Roger Ebert just put it on his top 10 list. What we were told by two documentarian boards was that we weren't "socially significant" enough, so we didn't expect anything going in. So we're thrilled at what's going on.
Melissa: I think the top 10 lists mean more to you ...
Joan: Well, 'Academy Award winner' would be fabulous.
Melissa: When you're talking what is really thought of as a "documentary" and what awards groups gravitate towards it's usually pretty much death and destruction, which I guess if you watch it a certain way ...
Joan: I would've amputated my leg and done the same documentary ... If I knew that would get me on the Academy Award list.

What did you think about Ricky Gervais's job hosting the Golden Globes?
Joan: I think they threw him under the bus ... You don't hire Ricky Gervais, who is edgy, and then you're shocked that he does a joke about you.
Melissa: We were watching at home so it's very easy to sit and laugh ... a couple of the celebrities that we've talked to that were there said it was very hard because they knew the cameras were on them. So, they really did want to laugh, but everybody knew it was such a boundary being pushed that it made people in the room nervous to be caught laughing.

Regis Philbin recently announced his retirement. What was your reaction to that?
Joan: Well, I'm going to announce my retirement, which will be two days after my death ... Everybody has a different kind of lifestyle, and I guess he's just had it.
Melissa: He's also had the hip surgery, he's had the heart surgery. He's also at a time when he's done it all. He's a cultural icon.
Joan: I think he's probably being pushed out by the network and he's being gracious.I don't think anybody that loves this business wants to retire. This is your life, this is your business -- why would you want to retire?
Melissa: I think he just wants a different pace ... [that] would be my gut [feeling] having known him for so many years. It is a daily show.
Joan: You see Larry King's fingermarks on the side of CNN in California as they drug that poor son of a bitch out.

Any thoughts on who should replace Regis?
Melissa: RuPaul
Joan: I think he replaced Regis and Kelly
Melissa: Oh, Brett Favre is going to be available for a job.
Joan: I thought anderson cooper would be great, but he's got his own show now.
Melissa: Ricky Gervais might be available!

Who's your favorite target on 'Fashion Police' right now?
Melissa: Leighton Meester just continuously makes us happy because of her absolutely horrific sense of style. But I like to think of her as a bright spot in my week ... Courtney Love. A week without Courtney Love is like a week without sunshine.
Joan: Helena [Bonham Carter] now is absolutely coming up there.

Do celebrities ever confront you about what you said on 'Fashion Police'?
Joan: We were talking about the golden globes ...
Melissa: And we had talked a lot about Sandra Bullock's bangs ...
Joan: Erf erf erf!
Melissa: ... and that she was there and Scarlett Johansson was there, and they were both in pink ... And there jokes about how she was wearing bangs so that Scarlett doesn't recognize her ...
Joan: ... and that she looked like a Pekinese. You couldn't see her! You wanted to put down wee wee pads! Now we get on the plane ...
Melissa: ... and guess who's also sitting right with us? Sandy! She's right there! And she says, 'Oh god not you.' But again, everybody goes back so many years. and when you're making 20 million dollars a picture, and she has a baby and she's happy -- what we say for 'entertainment' doesn't matter. She's one of those people, I have a feeling, knowing her, was trying not to laugh in the room.
Joan: And may I add, the bangs were pushed back.
Melissa: She looked really cute on the plane.