TV’s 21 best Thanksgiving episodes
From classics like The West Wing and The Sopranos to lighter fare like WKRP In Cincinnati and Friends, here's how our favorite TV families celebrate turkey day
TV Features Thanksgiving
Turkey pretty much has a lock on the biggest Thanksgiving tradition, but TV might just come in a sneaky second place. Whether you’re watching football, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, or a holiday film, there’s almost always something on in the background of your holiday gathering. So, this year, why not try some of these Thanksgiving-themed TV episodes? Much like at the dinner table, there’s something for everyone on our list: comedies like Friends, New Girl, and Bob’s Burgers for the affable folks, Succession for people who find even the mention of the holiday triggering, and The Sopranos for those who’d rather commit a serious crime than semi-politely socialize with friends and family for half a day. Whatever your holiday vibe, here are 20 great TV episodes about Thanksgiving, listed alphabetically, because who needs another pointless argument at this time of year?
This list was updated on November 21, 2023, to include WKRP In Cincinnati.
88 Comments
Are you fucking kidding me with this? Ignoring WKRP in Cincinnati?
I had to double back thru the list to make sure I didn’t miss WKRP’s Thanksgiving episode. Inconceivable it is not on there, had to make room for two New Girl episodes.
The 20 Best Thanksgiving Episodes That Aren’t ‘Turkeys Away’…….
I only read the list to see whether they made the mistake of not ranking it number one. To leave it off the list entirely is unfathomable. “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” is one of the greatest lines ever.
Youth really is wasted on the wrong people.
Shame on AV Club! Thanksgiving is all about tradition, and no Thanksgiving is complete until we gather around the family TV and watch “Turkeys Away”. Not only the greatest Thanksgiving episode ever, but one of the funniest TV episodes ever.
It’s a generational cliff now; not much tracks in popular culture here pre-1990 unless it’s a visible-from-all-corners mountain. Hell, in the pre-Kinja AV Club, there was a generational divide between the site writers and the commentariat about WKRP and the Thanksgiving episode, and that was back in 2013:
https://www.avclub.com/the-tv-roundtable-readers-choice-wishes-to-see-by-how-1798241826https://www.avclub.com/wkrp-celebrates-thanksgiving-by-tossing-turkeys-out-of-1798242197
I feel like people who are paid to be pop culture writers should have at least some deeper knowledge of TV’s past than your average person that age. Like I wouldn’t trust a film critic who’d never seen a silent movie.
I feel like people who are paid to be pop culture writers should have at least some deeper knowledge of TV’s past than your average person that age. Like I wouldn’t trust a film critic who’d never seen a silent movie.I believe a similar sentiment was brought up in 2013. Time is a flat circle! (Which will be a TV reference lost to future generations of AV Club writers circa 2044, if the cutoff holds.)
If this site still exists in 2044, we are most certainly in the darkest timeline.
Yet another reason that streaming is so inferior to physical media (and the video stores that came with it). It’s WAY harder to discover old movies when there’s fucking algorithms constantly pushing stuff from the last ten minutes in front of your eyeballs. Unless you actively research older stuff, it probably won’t come to you.
Growing up in the late ‘90s, I had the good fortune to grow up with a mom who made us watch every episode. “Scum of the Earth” is still a favorite.
1st thing I thought of. Fuck these 20-30 year olds for not knowing about this! This is the fucking best!
I showed this to my son starting when he was little (he’s 23 now), to make sure he knows about one of the all time great Thanksgiving episodes.
This is the episode to beat.It was also ep 7 of season 1, setting up just what this show was capable of.
I know I’m old(63) because I’ve never seen a ton of these shows, but doesn’t anyone at AV Club remember TV before Friends? It’s stunning that WKRP isn’t here, let alone any number of episodes of older shows.
I have only seen four of these shows and I don’t gaf. I just don’t like tv very much.
And that’s ok.
As God is my witness I thought AV clubs could fly.
Man, I was pissed they left off “Pangs” but you’re right, this is ri-god-man-diculous!
Only came here to see if this was #1 or not. Awful list without it.
In fairness, since a lot of other people have talked about ranking, they’ve largely moved away from ranking — going alphabetically — unless the article says “ranking the…” (i.e. the MCU movies, Elton John songs, etc.)
This. Any list without the WKRP Turkey Drop is immediately suspect. Oh the Humanity…!
The turkeys who staged a counter-attack were smarter than the AV Club reviewers. At least those turkeys were ORGANIZED…
To be fair, ignoring WKRP is an AV Club Thanksgiving tradition.
“Thanks for that on-the-spot report, Les. For those of you who’ve just tuned in, the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been bombed with live turkeys—film at eleven.”
I scrolled through the list to find it and was dismayed at its absence.In fact, the lack of anything before the ‘90s is a shock. Outside of this, there’s also some memorable M*A*S*H and Cheers Thanksgiving episodes.
This list is sadly incomplete without “Rififi” from the final season of The Americans.
This list was rendered immediately invalid when they forgot to include The Bob Newhart Show’s “Over the River and Through the Woods”, hands-down one of the funniest half-hours in TV history.
MORE GOO TO GO!
I know most people don’t give it a second thought, but Just Shoot Me’s Thanksgiving episode where Elliot finds out Jack slept with his mother is great.“You touched my mommy!” *tackles Jack*
I am too young for Cheers and even I know that Thanksgiving Orphans belongs at the top of this list.
Thank you. I dropped in here to say this (although I’m old enough that I watched it when the episode originally aired).
annual
viewing
gobble gobble
The Buffy episode “Pangs” is a Thanksgiving classic
Not including “Pangs” is an unforgivable omission.
Just for Spike’s take alone, but also Xander’s, ahem, problem … and it’s also a pivotal ep in the season, and has one of the weirdest shots (that closing fish-eye pov) in the whole series. Love it.
Came here to say this. Simply for James Marsters’ delivery alone. “Bear! You made a bear! Undo it! Undo it!”
It’s a ritual. With pie.
There are a Thanksgiving episode or two from The Middle that I would add.
So this list was tailored by and for people who were in college in the early aughts? The exclusion of the “Cheers,” “WKRP” and “The Bob Newhart Show” episodes is mind-boggling. I can’t wait for the Christmas list that excludes “Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid II.”
What is the “I” in (BIPNOTY) for? Is it just so you can pronounce “bip-knotty”?
Should be written out as BiPNOTY
But we are pronouncing it that way, right?
I wonder what people did for fun before they invented television. In 1989. Apparently.
TV didn’t exist before 1990, apparently.
I was pleased to find that “Slapsgiving” made the list.
This list is a travesty. WKRP in Cincinnati: “As God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly.” One of the funniest episodes of TV ever. Cheers: Bereft friends with nowhere else to go on Thanksgiving suffer through a delayed, horrible meal and then redeem everything with a joyous food fight. Hilarious and touching.
And we get multiple episodes of The New Girl? WTF?
The food fight is one of the all time great sitcom scenes. Just so good.
And it’s Vera’s one and only appearance!
Damn that pie getting thrown in her face. We were so close.
I love New Girl and HIMYM but none of their Thanksgiving episodes stands up to what is truly the best Thanksgiving episode ever, King of the Hill’s “Happy Hank’s Giving” wherein everyone has to deal with airport madness.
how dare you
My friend John Redcorn has taught me how important the history of his
people is, especially on this day. And I am the only one who saw fit to
prepare a feast that honors the Native American culture – not my
land-grabbing ancestors.
According to many expensive books I studied at
the bookstore, the Anasazi tribe from this region celebrated their most
festive occasions by eating the body of their enemies. Anthropologists
have found the leftovers of these sacred meals: human bones with shiny
patches, as if rubbed smooth against the walls of cooking pots.
So
today, we salute the Native American cannibal, or, “people-eater.” In that
spirit, I invite you to enjoy a Native American cannibal feast. Mr.
Redcorn: this head’s for you.
I should add, King of the Hill went 4 for 4 on Thanksgiving episodes, in addition to “Spin the Choice”:
– “The Hank’s Giving Episode” (The one where Hank & Co. get stranded at DFW on the day before Thanksgiving)
– “Goodbye Normal Jeans” (Bobby excels at Home Ec and Hank wants him to prepare Thanksgiving dinner, leading Peggy to fear that she’s being “replaced” in the home)
– “Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men” (An edge case, since it’s about Hank & Co. attending a focus group for a
riding mower on Black Friday – which is, in Peggy’s opinion, the
busiest shopping day of the year. But the timing is right and the gags are solid.)
Coincidentally, I just rewatched “Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men” yesterday. It holds up great, other than that it cranks Cotton’s antipathy and assholery way way higher than usual.
Since the obvious omissions have already been pointed out, I will add that one of my personal favorite shows – Spin City – has made a couple great Thanksgiving episodes. Both “The Competition” (guest starring Stephen Colbert in one of his earliest TV roles) and “Gobbles the Wonder Turkey Saves the Day” get a rewatch from me this time of year
10. Turkeys Away
9. Turkeys Away
8. Turkeys Away
7. Turkeys Away
6. Turkeys Away
5. Turkeys Away
4. Turkeys Away
3. Turkeys Away
2. Slapsgiving
1. Turkeys Away
The OC’s season one Thanksgiving episode with Ryan going to prison to see Trey and Seth’s love triangle with Anna and Summer is an all-timer and should be on this list.
Folks is rightly wound up about missing really great episodes (no WKRP, really!?) but I will ask, how can folks watch these older shows now?What’s the best way to see the old shows?I know music rights hosed a number of them, but can we find them? Some are out there but is there a “best” way to watch them?I wouldn’t mind watching Bailey Quarters just be Bailey. (sigh)
Lots of comments complaining about pre-1990 episodes being left off the list, so I thought I’d be different — and complain about an episode from the past few years being left off. “Gem Harvest” from Steven Universe doesn’t even mention the holiday, yet encapsulates it as well as any sitcom episode I’ve seen.
No Cheers? And not Frasier’s “The Apparent Trap”? That one is a top-tier Lilith episode.“That’s a very clever little boy we have. Remember when he was a baby, the bottle at the end of the maze?”“Still feel kinda bad about that.”
There’s also the episode where Frasier and Lilith torment the headmaster of a prep school they want to get Frederick into as the poor man tries to prepare his Thanksgiving dinner. It has this classic Lilith/Niles exchange:N: Where’s your turkey?L: In the fridge. I’m almost done defrosting.N: (beat) And the turkey?L: Might I suggest you stuff it?
Meh. I always felt that headmaster episode was just a beat-for-beat ripoff of the far better John Cleese episode of Cheers.
I can’t believe you left out This Is Us, with Pilgrim Rick and hot dogs. Jack makes something like lemonade from a disastrous Thanksgiving, and his family re-enacts it every year. There are several Thanksgiving episodes – actually one per year for six seasons.
For shame. Cheers Ep 509
No Northern Exposure Thanksgiving episode? Thanksgiving from the Native perspective? How Rude!
No episode of That 70’s Show belongs on any “Best of” list, unless that list is “Best Of Unfunny Sitcoms Primarily Populated by Hardcore Sci-Tis and/or Sex Pests”
Oh boy I agree with you. The only character on that show to get a laugh out of me was the mom. My least favorite part of the show was everyone holding for laughs all the fucking time. Danny Masterson was the worst at doing this. Deliver a line, wait for fucking forever for a laugh that’s short at best, deliver the next line.
Helen Hunt throwing a turkey out the window is probably the single funniest thing that ever happened on Mad About You.
It Was A Short Memory, Charlie Brown
Hard to remember since it was… UGH… 15 years ago, and because of how the show ended, but that HIMYM Slapsgiving episode was in the middle of an insane run for that show. I don’t think you can really do much better as a multi-camera, laughtracked sitcom than those 7 or 8 eps around the Slapsgiving episode. I was recently on a flight where I didn’t want to pay $30 for wifi, and I tore through the middle of that season and was kind of astounded how good it was. Just firing on all cylinders.
When that show was good, it was really good.
P.S. I Love You was pure brilliance.
I love “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal”, primarily for this exchange between Bob and Fischoeder:“Now I’m going to get drunk for dinner.”“Don’t you mean dressed?”“Oh yeah. Dressed out of my mind.”
I stopped watching Friends after about the second or maybe third season because I found it endlessly bland with some of the softest, hackiest “joke” writing in sitcom history.But, hey, an episode with an Emmy-award winning performance by Christina Applegate as a mean sister? Sure, I’ll give it a try….Boy, was my initial assessment spot on. I gave up about halfway through. In the first half of the episode, there were maybe three actual “jokes.” And a whole lot of hacky bullshit.
-goes thru list to see where WKRP and Cheers are ranked-Well then…..glad we got those two New Girl ones listed though.
The absence of WKRP renders this list meaningless.
Every single reviewer for the AV Club who submitted to this article, every single one of you should hang your heads in shame for missing “Turkeys Away” on WKRP.
It’s like you a-holes didn’t even pay attention when Venus taught us the atom. SHAME ON YOU. SHAME!!!!!!!!!
I wasn’t sure if that image was from Master Of None but I totally clicked on this to see if Master Of None would get mentioned. I straight up cried a bit watching that Thanksgiving episode. Incredibly moving.
Wow, all of these tv shows and I’ve only ever seen four of them. I think I should get a place in the Guinness World’s Records.
This is my favorite though:
Lol, this year after our yelling, they put the correct #1 at #1.
I guess you did include WKRP, but did not include Cheers’ famous Thanksgiving episode and still have room for TWO New Girl Thanksgiving episodes?
How soon we forget the Veep Thanksgiving, featuring the salmonella outbreak that leads to Jonah running for the House at the urging of his uncle, Peter MacNicol.
The ones I’ve seen, I agree with though I’d put Bob’s Burgers a little higher and I would have had the football episode of Friends (I believe season 1) instead of the other Friends episode.
Well, in the interest of AV occasionally updating these lists (as evidenced by this year’s correction at #1) I’d like to advocate for Season 4 episode 9 of Dexter. “Hungry Man” came out in 2009. This was the “Trinity Killer” season guest starring John Lithgow as the big bad. Dexter spends Thanksgiving with Arthur (Lithgow) and his family, and things go phenomenally batshit. It plays like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” except, you know, with serial killers. It’s a great episode in arguably the show’s best season.