Talking turkey with Judge Judy

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, Judge Judy Sheindlin has a lot for which to be thankful.

Not only is Sheindlin’s “Intimate Portrait” premiering tonight (7 p.m.) on Lifetime, but the “Judge Judy” host is shopping a syndicated, kids-oriented court show hosted by her grandson, Casey.

And “Judge Judy,” now in its sixth season, continues to score big numbers on Ch. 4 at 4 p.m., consistently beating “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and ranking as TV’s top-rated syndicated court show.

“If you find something you like to do, and something you’re naturally adept at and came make a living at it, then you don’t have to work another day in your life,” says Sheindlin when asked how she keeps focused on “Judge Judy.”

“The connotation of ‘work’ used to be negative – ‘I have to go to work on Monday’ – but I always found I was a ‘Monday’ person. Unless I had something really hot doing on the weekend, I loved being at work. I like going to work now – it’s an adventure, and that hasn’t worn off.”

Sheindlin points to the end of the second year of “Judge Judy” as the show’s turning point, when it went from near invisibility to one of the hottest shows in syndication – and transformed Sheindlin, a former New York City family court judge, into a household name (her husband, Judge Jerry Sheindlin, hosted “People’s Court” for a few seasons).

“Our show started out as an over-the-fence program on some lousy stations in some very lousy time periods,” Sheindlin says. “And it was syndicated by World Vision, which had me and ‘Jim J. [Bullock] and Tammy Faye [Bakker].’ That was it.

“But then people started to watch it and one person told another person. I really believe it took that long for people to wake up and say, ‘Who is that upstart?’ “

Sheindlin has “about a year and some months” remaining on her “Judge Judy” contract and says she doesn’t yet know if she will re-sign with the show, syndicated by Paramount.

“They would like me to re-sign for another few years, but a lot has to do with the details of that,” she says. “I think there is still an appetite for reason and responsibility coupled with a little entertainment and directness – I think probably even more so today in light of Sept. 11.

“Today, the word ‘responsibility’ takes on a whole new meaning,” says Sheindlin, referring to the government’s pledge to hold anyone harboring and/or aiding terrorists accountable for their actions.

“I’ve always been a big responsibility person, and I think that’s one of the messages our program gets across.

“People will say, look, she may not have soft-soaped it, but she was right. Maybe she could have said it nicer, but the bottom line is, she was right.”