6 Thanksgiving Sitcom Episodes for November, From Cheers' Food Fight to WKRP's Turkeys
Six holiday half hours worth queuing now, for the moment your relatives start discussing the election.
By the Heckle Desk · · 2 min read
Thanksgiving is the one day a year Americans gather to remember why they moved. The sitcom has understood this for half a century. A sitcom family is a group of people who can't leave the room, and on Thanksgiving so are you, so the television writers of this country have been filing the same report since the Carter administration: the turkey is ruined, somebody's lying, and nobody will be getting out early.
These six are the ones worth your time, and every one of them is shorter than the argument your brother-in-law is about to start. The platforms below come from TVLine's Thanksgiving guide, and the streaming business moves its catalog around the way a landlord moves a deposit, so check before you promise anything to your mother. Death and taxes are certain. Whether Cheers is on Hulu this year is a matter for the lawyers.
- 01
Cheers: "Thanksgiving Orphans" (Hulu, Paramount+)
Season 5, episode 9, in which the bar's strays spend the holiday together and Diane takes cranberry sauce to the face, starting a food fight. It's also where Norm's wife, Vera, finally makes her first appearance, after years of hearing about her. Most husbands would have held out longer.
- 02
WKRP in Cincinnati: "Turkeys Away" (Apple TV, purchase)
Season 1, episode 7, from 1978: a radio station promotion drops live turkeys over a parking lot, and it goes about the way you'd expect from people who don't know what a turkey can do. You have to pay for this one, which is fair. It's the only stunt in broadcasting history that ended the way every stunt in broadcasting history deserves to.
- 03
Friends: "The One With All the Thanksgivings" (HBO Max)
Season 5, episode 8, with Chandler's lost toe and Monica dancing with a turkey on her head. A flashback episode, which is how a show tells you that the characters have known each other too long to change. I've argued elsewhere that this show has been overpraised, but a turkey on the head is a turkey on the head.
- 04
Seinfeld: "The Mom & Pop Store" (Netflix)
Season 6, episode 8, built around the Macy's parade: Elaine helps her boss land a spot carrying a balloon, and a souvenir Jerry knocks loose ruins the plan. George, meanwhile, buys a car once owned by an actor. It's the only Thanksgiving episode on this list where nobody learns anything, which makes it the only accurate one.
- 05
Bob's Burgers: "Now We're Not Cooking With Gas" (Hulu)
The neighborhood gas goes out, Bob tries to cook his turkey in the alley, and the family ends up with sandwiches. This show has made a small industry of Thanksgiving episodes because its hero is the only man in American animation who still cares about anything. It hasn't done him a bit of good.
- 06
New Girl: "Parents" (Hulu)
Season 2, episode 8. Jess drafts Nick and Cece into a Parent Trap scheme to reunite her divorced parents, played by Rob Reiner and Jamie Lee Curtis. A grown woman tries to fix her mother and father over one dinner, and if you think that's far-fetched, you weren't at mine.