Happy Thanksgiving, sitcom-style!
Why not spend some time today with your old friends from 'WKRP' and 'Cheers'?
Les Nessman (Richard Sanders) reports on a "WKRP in Cincinnati" Thanksgiving tragedy.
Happy Thanksgiving, to all my American readers! (And happy Thursday morning to everyone else.) In what's become something of an annual blog tradition for me, I'm going to embed two of the all-time classic sitcom episodes about Thanksgiving: "Turkeys Away," from "WKRP in Cincinnati" and "Thanksgiving Orphans" from "Cheers." If you have some time to kill before football, turkey, or whatever your family's Thanksgiving plans entail, enjoy some retro laughter, particularly in the climax of each episode.
Here's "Turkeys Away":
And here's a good chunk of "Thanksgiving Orphans" in three parts (if you want the whole thing, Netflix Instant has every "Cheers" episode ever, and I can't think of many finer ways to spend the day than hanging with Sam, Diane and company):
And just for the heck of it, here's "The West Wing" scene where President Bartlet calls the Butterball hotline for turkey advice:
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About This Blog
All through his childhood, Alan Sepinwall's relatives told his parents, "All that boy does is watch television! How's he going to make a living doing that?" His career as a TV critic has been 15 years and counting of his attempt to answer their concerns. "What's Alan Watching" is a blog whose title is self-explanatory: Alan watches TV shows, then writes about what he watched. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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November 24, 2011 at 11:10AM EST Reply to Comment"Friends" had some great Thanksgiving episodes.
sajid anwar I agree. The episode where they played football is perhaps my most favorite episode of the entire series.
November 24, 2011 at 12:01PM ESTthanksgiBing Despite generally agreeing with most of the commentors below that the show's reruns don't seem to hold up well, I think the Thanksgiving episodes still do. Credit the writers of that show for deciding to create a new episode each year for a holiday other than Christmas, as most sitcoms tend to do. Maybe they thought by doing that the reruns would hold up better over time.
November 25, 2011 at 12:33PM ESTThere's no such thing...
November 24, 2011 at 11:21AM EST Reply to Commentas a great episode of "Friends."
Oh I forgot... it's "cool" to hate "Friends" now.
November 24, 2011 at 11:47AM ESTKensington It's not a question of cool. The show does not hold up. The fact that it was once a cultural phenomenon, in retrospect, is ridiculous.
November 24, 2011 at 1:38PM ESTbunson it was never cool.
November 24, 2011 at 3:46PM ESTsrpad
November 24, 2011 at 11:33AM EST Reply to CommentHappy Thanksgiving All!
Lisa
November 24, 2011 at 11:48AM EST Reply to CommentAs God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Happy Thanksgiving, Alan!
clueless Thought of this line watching the news last night, when I saw a report that while someone was trying to scare a wild turkey off their lawn, it wound up crashing into a bay window which was above a garage on a split-level home. Seems like the only way it could have hit that window was to fly.
November 25, 2011 at 12:26PM ESTRick
November 24, 2011 at 2:12PM EST Reply to CommentAlways been a fan of Just Shoot Me's "The First Thanksgiving":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcanK2vNkwY
Also, if you've got the time, go see The Muppets. Fantastic.
odessasteps
November 24, 2011 at 5:45PM EST Reply to CommentWatching a classic episode of Cheers makes it even more annoying to see that state farm commercial during football using the Cheers theme.
Haik Mendelovich
November 25, 2011 at 1:21AM EST Reply to CommentThanks, Alan!
WKRP, good as I remembered it.
Sure wish that they'd been able to obtain rights for the original songs that the jocks "played".
The generic rock overdubs are pretty bad.
TMB You are so right! If the original music had be retained by KRP's producers I would be buying those DVDs in a heartbeat - so would a lot of other fans, I imagine.
November 25, 2011 at 12:29PM ESTAnother classic KRP episode was the softball game against their rival station WPIG, featuring Les' attempt to be one of the guys despite having taken violin lessons as a kid instead of playing baseball.
prettik If the original music had been retained, nobody could afford those DVDs.
November 25, 2011 at 9:00PM ESTAL I know it's a dead horse, but I'll keep beating it if only to remind the dunces that prevent WKRP (and other shows) from being on DVD in uncut form: HEY!!! Listen, myself and many others would BUY this ENTIRE series if you would just Stop. The. Insanity. that is overpriced rights to music!! Surely you can find a way to PROMOTE the music on the show instead of just hiding it away in your greedy vaults for no one to hear or discover!
November 28, 2011 at 9:13AM ESTTheRudeDog
November 25, 2011 at 1:57PM EST Reply to CommentI know this is really subjective, but my favorite Thanksgiving episode of all TV was the Bob Newhart ep where Emily was visiting her relatives & Bob hosted The Guys. Funniest thing I've ever seen, and that includes the 1st time my daughter ever tried to walk with shoes on.
Terry
November 28, 2011 at 5:12PM EST Reply to CommentNext year you should show the Thanksgiving episode from "The Bob Newhart Show", when the guys get hammered watching football and ordering Chinese food.
thehobbystudios
November 30, 2011 at 12:58PM EST Reply to CommentI respectfully disagree on the majority of comments about Friends not holding up. I enjoyed the show greatly when it was on, though I admit a slide in quality beginning around season 7 (though the Monica/Chandler romance/marriage was great). I think most episodes are fine when viewed within the context of the times, like listening to pre-Joshua Tree U2 records. Though outside that context, there are still timeless classics, like John Lovitt's high food critic, the first prom flashback, Chandler stuck in an ATM with a supermodel, etc.