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Thanksgiving Episodes

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The One with the Football. Slapsgiving. The One with Chandler in a Box. Blitzgiving. The One with All the Thanksgiving.  A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving.  Every year a sitcom or drama television show covers the ever eventful holiday of Thanksgiving. The most popular is probably Friends with everything from a family flag football tradition to a person in a box to Brad Pitt.  Friends did it all.  How I Met Your Mother took it even further with slaps, more slaps and a blitz bad luck charm.  Thanksgiving seems to bring out the funniest concoction of family and friend dynamics.  There is fighting, physical violence (albeit funny and ridiculous), romance and relationships rekindled.  Even Gilmore Girls had a Thanksgiving episode in season 3 where there was a Korean Thanksgiving, a Gilmore Thanksgiving and a deep-friend turkey Thanksgiving. They had it all in the little eccentric town of Stars Hollow.  What is it about turkey, stuffing mashed potatoes, gravy and pies that make television and people go crazy?

Friends started off their Thanksgiving episodes with The One Where the Underdog Gets Away.  The Underdog float gets loose in the Thanksgiving Day parade and everyone goes to watch from the roof of their apartment building only to be locked out of the building with the dinner cooking and ultimately burning in Monica’s apartment.  My favorite Thanksgiving episode is a tie between The One with the Football and The One with the Rumor.  The One with the Rumor though would not be as funny if Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt stayed together. The fact that they broke up just makes that episode funnier.

Even though the Friends episodes are classics to me and very good, How I Met Your Mother takes the Thanksgiving theme to a whole new level of absurd and ridiculous.  For example, 2 of the Thanksgiving episodes revolve around Barney being slapped across the face and the hilarity that the friends get from performing the slap act and torturing him beforehand.  Another  episode finds the gang trying to get the perfect location for Thanksgiving dinner and grabbing people on the way – except one of the people they pick up is a “blitz” who whenever they leave a room or is not looking, they miss out on an amazing even that takes place.  The “blitz” gets passed around to everyone in the gang and hysterics ensues.  Some may call this show this generation’s Friends and they might be right. But How I Met Your Mother has something that Friends didn’t.   When I find out what that is, I will be sure to share it.

No matter which episode you enjoy the most, there is one theme evident in all shows – love and friendship.  Thanksgiving is about being grateful for the things you have – not preoccupied with the things you don’t. In Friends and How I Met Your Mother, they all have friends who are there for them no matter what. That is love.  This writer is thankful every day that I am still here, able to write about whatever I want. I am thankful to have the people in my life today and in the past because they help me become who I am today.  That is really what these shows are about – having the right people in your life at the right time.

Be thankful this holiday season and every season!

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