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5 Essential Thanksgiving Specials From Our Childhood

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When it comes to Holiday specials, Halloween and Christmas seem to take the lead over all other holidays- and I mean, I’m never opposed to an over-saturation of Halloween TV for my eyeholes. However, Thanksgiving, which is certainly underrated as far as good TV is concerned, has had its fair share of quality holiday-themed episodes and specials that aren’t given as much love as the aforementioned celebratory occasions that come before and after Turkey Day.

Talk about middle child syndrome, eh?

I thought it was always kind of weird no one talks about these specials a lot because what else are you doing on Thanksgiving after eating yourself into a turkey coma? You lay on the couch, snuggled up in your favorite blanket, and zombie out on some TV. Now, when I was a kid, Thanksgiving Day was all about sports and of course, the all-important Survivor Series. But I gotta give some of these other holiday boob-tube feasts their due for amping us up for the upcoming day of gluttony, which has become a November tradition for myself the week leading up to the big day.

So in no particular order, let’s get to it!

Let’s start with the obvious…

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

To be perfectly honest, no other special gets me quite in the mood for a jelly bean and popcorn feast quite like the 1973 Charlie Brown fiasco. As a matter of fact, I almost prefer watching this over the “Great Pumpkin”. This installment is everything that is so right about a Charlie Brown special, with the added bonus of Snoopy fighting with a lawn chair, which is probably my favorite thing in that whole episode. I can’t go to long into Turkey Day without humming that soulful tune, of “Little Birdie”, while wanting to strangle a few family members at the dinner table. It’s also brought about my own little tradition of recreating the Snoopy a La Thanksgiving feast every year, and it’s definitely a highlight among the madness throughout the day.

The Simpsons – “Bart vs. Thanksgiving”

In The Simpsons’ very first Thanksgiving episode back in 1990, the animated family were peaking into superstardom and Bart’s antics that “ruin” the holiday and lead him into his own Thanksgiving adventure on the streets of Springfield live in my mind rent-free all year ’round. Also, from the moment I saw this, I always refer to that jellied can of blob as Cranberry Sauce A La Bart.

Roseanne- “Thanksgiving” (1991)

Roseanne undoubtedly for years, was the Queen of Halloween in the sitcom world and when Thanksgiving rolled around, this was no different as several seasons of the show made sure to make a Thanksgiving episode full of chaos and smart-ass remarks at the dinner table. Out of the few they’ve done, my personal favorite was from Season 4 simply entitled “Thanksgiving” where Roseanne’s grandmother, played by Shelly Winters and her now husbandless mother are the guests of honor among teenage Becky strife, Darlene’s emo goth phase, and a couple of secrets that come to light. Just another day in the Connor household.

The Star Wars Holiday Special

I’m not an overly enthusiastic Star Wars fan, but I can always appreciate it for what it is, and what I can appreciate the most is this bastardizing, kooky-ass special that ran the week before Thanksgiving in 1978 on CBS. I watch it yearly, mainly because it’s just so batshit crazy as most everything that came out of the 70s usually was… a drug-fueled mish-mosh of chaos, and this is no exception. We got a couple of wookies, Jefferson Starship, and the magnificent Bea Arthur belting out in song at the Cantina, which is obviously the greatest part about this whole thing. I wonder if Bea’s back hurt carrying this entire special?

Garfield’s Thanksgiving

Garfield’s Thanksgiving Special from 1989 doesn’t nearly get the love it deserves, as his Halloween Adventure four years prior seems to remain the nostalgic favorite. But there’s one thing here that this special has, the other doesn’t: and that’s mother fucking Grandma Arbuckle. Voiced by Pat Carroll (Ursula/ The Little Mermaid), only briefly appears, not even staying for dinner but she steals the whole show. Grandma Arbuckle’s ability to make croquettes out of a ruined turkey is inspiring to say the least for those of us who burn shit on the regular.

And with that, my Thanksgiving gift to you my turkey nuggets is the cartoon shown here in full. Now Do the mashed potato, do the candied yam. Do the funky turkey, cause it’s time to jam.

Editorials

Sonic BOOM! It’s The 1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade

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As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. KIDDING, but hey, I couldn’t help myself. But seriously, as far back as I can recall, many Turkey Day moons ago, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was always a tradition in our house on Turkey Day. Waking up every year as a kid to my grandmother already roasting the turkey and my dad shucking clams in the kitchen for Clams Oreganata as the Macy’s parade began on the television, is one of my favorite pieces of memory nostalgia. I’m forever a Halloween girl, but Thanksgiving is really not far behind as the day was a huge event for our large New York, bred-mouthy Italian family. And it was never complete without, of course, said parade here at least serving as background noise.

Also, my brother and I could never watch the parade without this Charlie Brown junk food feast being served promptly at 10 AM; as per tradition and to this very day, I still put together this monstrosity for nostalgia’s sake and per the request of my own brilliant children from their blockhead of a mother.

For the past few years, I’ve selectively talked about a couple of Macy’s parades here on the blog for November, and this year ain’t no different folks. Today, we’re rewinding 30 years back to 1993 and the 67th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade held on November 25th, 1993 on a very windy Turkey Day morning that ended up causing a bit of chaos on the parade balloon front that would make this one of the more memorable parades of the past few decades for those that witnessed it.

Joining the alumni balloons of Ronald McDonald, Garfield, and Bart Simpson were parade first-timers Rex (We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story), that loveable Saint Bernard Beethoven, and of course, the newly crowned console king-Sonic the Hedgehog as SEGA was massively outperforming Nintendo in 1993. However, the hedgehog’s huge head over the console war domination would be deflated courtesy of strong winds blowing over 6th Avenue, leaving spectators scrambling out of fear and injuring two people in the process.

Of course, this was never shown on live TV, but most people knew about the incident and saw pictures via the news of the deflated balloon on the ground. However, footage of the big pop itself went mysteriously missing for years up until 2019 when ABC7NY released archival footage showing the pop that really did sound like a sonic boom, ironically.

Another fatality of the weather that day was ol’ boy Rex. Fate would have it that Rex’s inclusion in the parade would be a perfect example of irony because the movie’s main set piece is a musical number set during the Macy’s Parade where Rex pops a dinosaur balloon. Hilariously enough, the Macy’s Rex head popped at pretty much the beginning of the parade route and instead of removing the balloon entirely, those determined bastards at Macy’s let a headless Rex roam down 6th Avenue and beyond, not giving any fucks about it. The live program swapped in footage from the test flight prior to the parade (notice the complete lack of buildings and different color sky?) and towards the end, cut to a live shot carefully framed to try and hide the deflated noggin of the cartoon dinosaur.

Fantastic.

I mean, the whole parade wasn’t a complete nightmare. We had world-renowned singing artists Shari Lewis with Lambchop and Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas singing Christmas songs!?

Umm, Ok. Maybe it was pretty bad. But hey, let’s watch the shit show together, shall we? At least Bart Simpson rode those winds like the pro he was, even though the winds carved through his ribs like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Grab your plate of popcorn, toast, and jellybeans for this one!

Editorials

Tainted Candy: The Most Unnerving Scene In “Halloween II”

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I’ve said it a million times. HALLOWEEN II is by far, in my humble opinion anyway, the scariest of the franchise and is rightfully so for many reasons. HALLOWEEN II goes harder in just about every aspect, from the angrier music as a metaphor for a more pissed-off Myers, to the minute details scattered around the film. One in particular, shoved in by John Carpenter that is brief in nature, but perhaps the most fucked up moment in the whole movie.

And it had nothing to do with Michael Myers.

While Laurie Strode is being tended to her wounds by a drunken Dr. Mixter inside Haddonfield Memorial, a car pulls up to the front of the entrance with a frantic mother gently easing her son dressed as a pirate, out of the car and the kid is gushing blood from his mouth as we can see something shiny stuck up in there good. ‘m going to be completely honest because when I saw this as a kid, I thought it was a fuckin’ ice cube. Maybe it was the low definition on my crappy TV, but I went for YEARS thinking this kid had an ice cube stuck in his mouth. Did it make sense? Not a bit. Did I ever question it? Hell no. All I understood was that shit looked like it hurt and when I finally found out it was an actual razor blade from a piece of candy, it was like an emphatic moment of HOLY SHIT for me, and it just made that movie so much scarier.

We only see the mom and son duo two more times-once checking in and being told to wait as the frustrated mom is putting pressure on her kid’s jaw, and then again upon discharge outside the hospital where Gary French (yes, the kid actually has a name) and mom Leigh, (hey, so does the mom!) attempt to have a conversation, but the kid’s words are muddled from the injury and although Gary lives to see another Halloween, he’s obviously scarred for life.

Watching (and realizing) what I was seeing within that scene as a child, and now a parent myself, just makes it that much more chilling knowing these things have absolutely happened. The genius of John Carpenter sticking this out-of-pocket, non-essential plot point in HALLOWEEN II, comes on the heels of mass hysteria of stories of crazed people tainting candy for trick-or-treaters with poison and, of course, razor blades. The first documented incidents go back to the 1950s, where a California dentist laced over 400 pieces of candy with laxatives, sickening over 30 kids. As if kids aren’t scared enough of the dentist! Another incident came in the 1960s where a mother in New York handed out bags of treats containing arsenic-laced ant traps, metal mesh scrubbing pads and dog biscuits. In the 70s, a boy was killed by ingesting a pixie stick laced with cyanide by his own father, who used the legend of poisoned treated on Halloween to attempt to thwart the suspicion away from him. In Minneapolis, in 2000, James J. Smith, 49, was charged with felony adulteration after four teenagers told police they received chocolate bars that were later found to contain needles. As recent as 2022, a child in New York found a razor blade inside a candy bar she got while trick-or-treating. Bringing this John Carpenter’s horrifying scene here, full circle.

PSAs began in the early 70s, warning children and parents about Halloween dangers in the form of educational videos, and after the infamous Tylenol murders of 1982, one year after the release of HALLOWEEN II, the fears of product tampering reached an all-time high, especially around Halloween, and in 1985, another national PSA video was made containing fifteen-minutes beginning with glorious Ben Cooper masks dancing across the screen to some serious disco music. It tackles such pressing issues as the importance of safe pumpkin carving, costume dos and don’ts, and the all-important candy inspection before digging into your sugar haul for the night. 

Seriously, this thing rocks. Sure, it’s slightly dated, but the message still applies.

Many people shrug off the Halloween candy story as just that, a scary story. And while it’s true, most cases of reports seem to be unfounded and the biggest threat of a kid’s Halloween bucket is a sugar-induced stomachache, urban legends notoriously become reality in the minds of crazed folks where the myth turned into a real-life danger for unknowing innocents. Knowing that John Carpenter really didn’t want to do a sequel to his immortal classic and had a vision of his Halloween films exploring the horror holiday’s urban legends and cautionary tales of lore, this scene in itself, doesn’t seem so, out-of-pocket after all. Speaking plainly now, it truly is the most unnerving part of the entire film as the reality lines blur from Terminator Myers hunting down Laurie in a hospital, into something we know has, can, and may happen again somewhere; and that’s what makes it so terrifying.

So, is this scene the most messed up in the movie? I’ll let Dr. Loomis answer that one…