It's time to hit the "Wayback" button on the ol' time machine and revisit one of my all time favorite Thanksgiving treats! It's the Thanksgiving episode of WKRP...In Cincinnati! It's really the last 5 minutes or so that make this episode such a standout classic, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.
The episode begins with Mr. Carlson, the station manager, feeling rather out of place and useless after the station's change of format to rock & roll. He decides to put on a large publicity stunt for Thanksgiving, though he won't tell anyone what he's up to. All they know is that he's sent Herb to get 20 live turkeys.
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| Jennifer doesn't take dictation or get coffee..... |
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| One of the few....if not the only time you'll hear Pink Floyd's "Dogs" on a sitcom on CBS! |
The day before Thanksgiving, Les is sent out to the shopping plaza to cover the event and what unfolds is absolutely hysterical. Mr. Carlson and Herb arrive in a helicopter flying a banner behind then reading "HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM WKRP". Carlson then proceeds to start throwing turkeys out of the helicopter, which then in turn start to plummet to the earth, hitting the ground like "bags of wet cement" as Les puts it. Chaos in the parking lot ensues and the feed is lost.
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| Venus Flytrap and Les Nessman complain about Carlson |
What makes that scene so hilarious is the fact that we don't see any of it. We are simply watching Les reporting from in front of a store and his reactions to what is going on. Hands down, it truly is one of the funniest moments in TV history.
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| Just watching Les' reaction and listening to his commentary on the turkeys dropping is priceless |
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| The rest of the gang at the station listen....mortified! |
The final scene in the show finds Carlson and Herb get back to the station looking like they've been in a major tussle. The gang tries to cheer up Carlson, to no avail. When Les shows up, we get the rest of the story: Carlson tried to land the helicopter and toss out the rest of the turkeys to "save the day", but the turkeys organized themselves and seemingly mounted a counter attack! Of course this is after a man and his two children try to kill Les and he narrowly escapes with his life by jamming himself in a phone booth. Again, we never actually get to see any of this, but it's the way that Les describes it that truly makes it funny.
Also a fun side note, we get to hear an excerpt from Pink Floyd's "Dogs" during the show.
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| "As God as my witness....I thought turkeys could fly!" |
"As God is my witness....I thought turkeys could fly!"
ReplyDeleteTV comedies just don't get much better than that. One of a very few holiday episodes of anything that doesn't set my teeth on edge.
"They're hitting the ground like bags of wet cement!"
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