Will & Grace: "Queens for a Day"
While the earlier Thanksgiving episodes such as the one where they spend Thanksgiving for 10 minutes with each person's family, or the one where Jack's mom comes to dinner and she doesn't know Jack is gay (they sound like Friends episodes when I describe them) might be more classic, one of my favorite Thanksgiving Will & Grace episode is "Queens for a Day" from Season 7. In this episode, the gang all goes to Queens for the day (as you might have guessed) to spend Thanksgiving with Will's boyfriend Vince's family. Will spends the day trying to impress Vince's mom with the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, while Grace and Karen both hook up with Vince's teenage cousin and Jack discovers that Vince's engaged sister is secretly a lesbian. This is how the big Thanksgiving dinner goes down:
Boy Meets World: "Turkey Day"
Cory is from a middle class family, and his best friend Shawn lives in a trailer park. Shawn decides it would be fun if Cory's family came over to the trailer park for Thanksgiving. But even though their difference in social class was never much of an issue for Cory and Shawn as friends, they'll soon learn that it'll be more difficult than they thought for their parents to get along. Here's what happens:
South Park: "Helen Keller! The Musical"
While most TV shows have Thanksgiving episodes about families coming together at a Thanksgiving dinner, this episode of South Park features the boys putting on a Thanksgiving musical about Helen Keller. The boys all want the show to feature a great turkey in honor of Thanksgiving, but Timmy, the handicapped kid who plays Helen Keller in the show, insists on using Gobbles, a handicapped turkey.
After Timmy realizes that the Broadway turkey trainer tricked him and sent Gobbles away to be slaughtered, Timmy leaves the show to save Gobbles. The play's director, the guy who starred in Les Miz on Broadway, steps in to save the show. It's a Thanksgiving miracle!
Everybody Loves Raymond: "The Bird"
My favorite Thanksgiving episode of Everybody Loves Raymond is called "The Bird", and involves the Barones having Thanksgiving with Amy's family. They're all getting along fine, until a bird flies into the window, and instead of trying to help save the bird, Amy's mother kills it to put it out of its misery, much to the shock of the Barones. A classic Thanksgiving episode ensues. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a clip of that episode anywhere on the Internet, nor can I find a clip from any of of the other classic Thanksgiving episodes (The one where Debra decides to serve fish instead of turkey, the one where Marie decides to make a tofu turkey instead of a real one, etc.). The only Thanksgiving clip I could find online is the one that follows. Still funny, but not the one I wanted to show. If anyone can find a better Everybody Loves Raymond Thanksgiving clip, please comment here and let us know!
Friends: "The One with all the Thanksgivings"
Friends has kind of been known for their Thanksgiving episodes, as it's a great opportunity to have all 6 characters in one room for one crazy meal. While there has been a great Thanksgiving episode nearly each of the 10 seasons the show was on the air, (including the ones where Underdog escapes, they play football, and Brad Pitt shows up to Thanksgiving and confesses he and Ross had an "I Hate Rachel Club" in high school), my favorite would have to be "The One with all the Thanksgivings". This episode had the friends sitting around and reminiscing about all the worst Thanksgivings that they've had, and is filled with tons of flashbacks to various Thanksgivings throughout their lives. Here are some of my favorite clips from that episode:
Hope you all had a restful Thanksgiving weekend!
