Thanksgiving is often overlooked.

N

Nihility

New member
It's interesting how many Halloween and Christmas specials are produced yet Thanksgiving is often overlooked. Is it because Thanksgiving is an American holiday and they feel like it won't work for an international audience. While Christmas is celebrated in almost every country and many of those also have their own version of Halloween?

Discuss.

NOTE: I am aware that numerous TV shows have had Thanksgiving episodes, but I am talking about specials. Like, you know, when was the last time you saw Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Ate the Last Turkey Leg? You know?
 
I always thought because it is an American holiday. Also you typically don't do anything exciting on Thanksgiving that would make a good plot for a TV special.
 
Thanksgiving is more about eating the food and being thankful, whereas the other two holidays focus on more of a " me me me" thing, at least until the character has some clarity at the end.
 
Maybe it's because I'm a non-American myself, but Thanksgiving doesn't seem nearly as much fun as either Halloween or Christmas, you just get together eat some turkey and that's it.
 
It's just a lot harder to make a Thanksgiving-styled plot. With Chirstmas, you can do something with Santa Clause, the true meaning of Chirstmas, or make you own 'adaption' of a well-known Christmas story. With Halloween, you can do a good plot about monsters, vampires, aliens and the like. But you can't much with Thanksgiving. :shrug:
 
I always thought that Thanksgiving was overlooked because it really isn't commercialized like Halloween and Christmas. There's candy and costumes for Halloween and, of course, presents on Christmas. While Thanksgiving does provide a whole being thankful with friends and family kind of message, there's not a lot of commercialized aspects that would urge people to make more Thanksgiving specials. Most channels just have marathons for Thanksgiving instead of actual holiday specials anyway.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. I was mainly thinking of commercialized for networks to make Thanksgiving specials for their shows, not so much about the grocery store aspect of the holiday. Even with that, I see much more commercials for Halloween and Christmas than I do for Thanksgiving every year.
 
Well, there's not much to Thanksgiving other than eating and watching the parade in New York. It's likely because of a lack of things to work with, and the fact that it's not an international holiday. Plus, outside of turkey farmers and the grocery store, you can't really commercialize it - it's simply a transitional holiday, in between Halloween and Christmas, to a lot of people :)
 
A good Thanksgiving story usually has to to do with a character learning about how much their family loves them. Just look at the Simpsons and Hey Arnold Thanksgiving episodes for instance. Both have to do with kids learning that food and decorations arn't the important part, but rather it's being with your family. It really should be a day to relflect on what you are grateful for and being with your loved ones.
 
I've thought about this subject for years. There also doesn't seem to be any thanksgiving movies. But there is A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, A Garfield Thanksgiving, and two Looney Tunes thanksgiving specials (though one of them hardly has any thanksgiving relevance, outside of the title).

There really should be a Muppet or Sesame Street thanksgiving special.
 
I noticed that too. Usually it revolves around a character garnering a love for a turkey and their quest to keep it from getting murdered and eaten, or one of the group is a vegan-type that don't eat meat, etc.
 
There was a Thanksgiving episode of Megas XLR titled "Thanksgiving Throwdown", in which Coop and Jamie take Kiva to see the Thanksgiving Day Parade (apparently, the people in Kiva's time are too busy to fighting the Gloft to celebrate the holiday anymore). The parade balloons come to life and the gang must use Megas to defeat them.
 
Turkey day is often overlooked in reguard to holiday specials but that one episode of Megas XLR comes to mind.

Turkey with pizza inside... awesome.
 
I always hated those, comes off as hippie propaganda to me.


Funny, there's a episode of The Real Ghostbusters that has similar plot. A ghost possessed a balloon of a cartoon mantis that ends up turning a giant monster that terrorizes New York. The Ghostbusters had to unleash the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the Containment Unit and a giant monster fight ensues.


Hmm... that does sound good.
 
Thanksgiving isn't as commercial or hyped a holiday; it just kind of sits there between Halloween and Christmas, and also there aren't a whole lot of Thanksgiving-themed songs, books, movies or stories for animators to capitalize on. You can do a "family gets together for Thanksgiving dinner" story, a "character tries to save a turkey from being cooked" story, or maybe once in a while a "re-enactment of the first Thanksgiving" story, but that's about it. Also, Thanksgiving isn't as universal as Christmas or Halloween; it's not celebrated in a lot of countries.

Basically, with Thanksgiving, you prepare a big dinner, get together with family, watch the parades, eat, watch football on TV and fall asleep. That's it. (Ironically, it's Thanksgiving's lack of hype and commercialism that makes it my favorite holiday.)
 
Back
Top