Thanksgiving specials

Last year we saw some articles about forgotten Thanksgiving specials and started making an effort to watch them. 

Some were harder to find and a lot of them weren't that great. We did not finish last year, but I kept a list. 

I made it through the others now, for what it's worth.

I couldn't find the exact articles. I will list some that cover them, but am not sure they are quite right. I only found one list by searching on the name of a show that wasn't coming up anymore. I don't remember the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) coming up so much. I did see that when it originally aired, but I always thought of it as more for Christmas.

It is time to watch Christmas specials again.

I want to go over the things that I watched and how I felt about them. I will do that, but I need to add that I know too much about colonialism and the origins of Thanksgiving to view them as I would have then.

I had already seen them, if you were wondering...

Of course I had already seen A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973); who hasn't? But in fact I had also already seen Garfield's Thanksgiving (1989) and Grams Bear's Thanksgiving Surprise (1986). Actually, you might be surprised at some of the Garfield and Charlie Brown things that I have seen. (I have not seen as much Care Bear-themed entertainment.) Of these three, none of them are terrible, but I don't really need to watch any of them again.

Well, I saw part of it:

Looking for Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet (1978), I only found the clips that went between the already existing cartoons. That really comes down to Dr. Bugs getting two clients, one large bunny who comes onto him, and he rejects, and one svelte bunny whom he decides is worth the potential ethical snags. Not great.

Similarly, with Pooh Corner Thanksgiving (1983), I found a clip of Rabbit with many of his relatives, celebrating but not specifically Thanksgiving. Well, the 100 Acre Wood was in England.

It did not really stick with me:

I know that I watched Q*bert: Thanksgiving for the Memories (1983) and that is about all I remember. They were in class to start with, talking about the first Thanksgiving, I guess. Then it went into the story and Coily was a jerk.

B.C.: The First Thanksgiving (1973) was just scattered attempts of the men trying to find a turkey, and all mumbling. My strongest memory was B.C. being harder to understand than Mushmouth.

Really didn't stick the landing:

The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw (1980) starts with a legend that if the bears get too selfish, Bigpaw will com. You can see that the bears are in fact getting more selfish. That is except for Mama Bear, of course, who has a kind of weird musical number. 

Anyway, Bigpaw comes and everyone is scared and preparing to fight, but then see that Bigpaw saves Brother and Sister, so they can all be friends. Shouldn't there have been something about selfishness?

Pretty typical:

In The Thanksgiving that Almost Wasn't (1972), the threat that nearly stops it is that two little boys (one Pilgrim, one not) are lost in the woods. There is a wolf who wants to eat them, but a squirrel saves the day so everyone still gets to feast. 

Maybe it's better to forget:

Underdog: Simon Says... No Thanksgiving (1965) is kind of racist. The most racist depiction is of gophers standing in for Native Americans. They keep winning, so I get it could be worse, but it was just uncomfortable. There is a kind of fun absurdity to the Simon Bar Sinister plots, but I can live without it.

Then Nick's Thanksgiving Fest (1989) is not terribly focused on the colonizing, which is nice, I guess. It's just that everything is kind of stupid and drawn ugly.

But I hated this one most of all:

Intergalactic Thanksgiving (1979) starts out with pioneers from Earth in space. One family stops on one planet where the natives are so focused on joking that they don't notice that their harvesting and eating practices are destroying the planet. The earthlings fix it with their superior agriculture. That is so Canadian.

I will say that while I do not remember this from my childhood, I remember other Nelvana things and they are always worse than I remembered when I go back.

They could have been worse:

The funny thing about This is America, Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers (1988) is that I had tried watching it before and just couldn't get into it. On trying again, it really wasn't that bad, and had some information that is often missed. 

Turkey Hollow (2015) was very much designed as a family film. There is juvenile humor for younger children, snark for adolescents, and older references for adults. None of it is great, but there were some smiles and nothing that made me really angry. The monster Muppets were cute.

I had seen these before, long ago:

I knew that I had seen The Mouse on the Mayflower (1968) before but could not remember much about it, except for the John Alden/Priscilla Mullens angle. It is very colonial. For more of a historical background, the Charlie Brown one is better.

I had these vague memories of Bill Cosby in a balloon with some kids watching Dorothy through a telescope. It must have played around the commercials for Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz (1980). I don't really remember the cartoon, but then watching it now the characters and plot lines are familiar because they come from the books. It's like Return to Oz (1985) all over again, where familiar elements are changed around, but less nightmarish.

As long as we are being nostalgic...

Without remembering any other details, I remembered two things: the melody of the theme song for Miss Peach of the Kelly School (1982), and one of the kids sharing his room with a turkey who told him "Your parents are my kind of people: vegetarians."

It looks like that was episode two of the short series, and it is more complicated than that. The turkey is staying with them prior to the raffle for which he is the prize. Once Arthur understands that the turkey will not be a dinner guest, but dinner itself, he works to save the turkey's life. This involves showing his value by getting him first a part in the school play, and then a bigger part. 

Cute, but could be shorter.

I don't regret watching them, but I am fine being done with it. 

Obviously, the most important Thanksgiving viewing is the "Turkeys Away" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati (1987).

Happy Holidays!

https://www.metv.com/lists/8-forgotten-animated-thanksgiving-specials-of-the-1980s

https://movieweb.com/forgotten-thanksgiving-tv-specials-nostalgia/ 

https://www.metv.com/lists/these-nine-thanksgiving-specials-will-take-you-back-to-childhood