Thaaaaaank You!

I'm normally a little skeptical of pop culture lists found on the internet, since they often seem to be gathered up by people whose memories seem to stop somewhere around 1998. But the TV Squad hits things just about right in this list of the Top 10 Thanksgiving TV episodes.

Sure, someone older than me might quibble with the "Top 10 Ever" part and insist that the list's failure to include something from My Mother the Car makes it meaningless. Although I don't know if that show did a Thanksgiving episode in its only season.

Anyway, a misfire for me is the inclusion of a Roseanne entry -- her show began kind of fun, thanks mostly to John Goodman, but got old quickly, thanks mostly to Roseanne. Also getting a down-check is the Gilmore Girls show at number 6 -- I have no real dislike for that show, but I could never find an entry point that made me want to watch it, so I don't much care that Rory and Lorelai have to attend four Thanksgivings because they're too much a pair of enablers to stand up and say "no" once in awhile.

On the upside, we find the often overlooked The Bob Newhart Show making the list. I myself would drop the Friends episode to number 3 and bump Cheers to the second spot, but both are definitely in the right place by being in the top 3.

And as is only right in a world in which we expect natural laws to make sense, the great "Turkeys Away" from WKRP in Cincinnati comes in at number one. Of course, because natural laws make sense, turkeys can't fly, and therein lies the problem for one Arthur C. Carlson, and the laughs for for the rest of us, even 22 years later.