Turkeys Away: WKRP's legendary Thanksgiving episode.

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Calarogus Shark Media, Happy Thanksgiving and
welcome to TV in the Basement, I'm

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Journey Joe Mitchell and Today, let's
revisit one of the all time greatest sitcom

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episodes. Plenty of beloved TV comedies
have great Thanksgiving episodes. The episode of

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Cheers that devolves into a food fight
is an all timer, but the most

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quintessential, uproarious Thanksgiving episode of a
sitcom remains Turkeys Away, the WKRP and

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Cincinnati masterpiece of bird dropping pandemonium that
first aired in nineteen seventy eight. For

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those who have not seen it,
Turkeys Away starts off with a straightforward plot

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that carenes abruptly into dark comedy.
Mister Carlson, who runs the station owned

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by his wealthy, domineering mother,
decides he needs to get more involved in

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day to day operations and comes up
with an idea for a publicity stunt that

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will shine more attention on WKRP,
which is re simply changed formats from easy

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listening to rock. But he keeps
the details of his plan a secret from

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his employees, with the exception of
Herb Tarlik Frank Bonner. The Skeezy ad

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sales guy who becomes his right hand
man in this Thanksgiving fiasco, as his

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taste in leisure suits attests Herb's judgment
is no better than Carlson's. In the

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episode's second act, as WKRP newsman
list nessman Richard Sanders broadcasts live from the

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Pinedale Mall, what mister Carlson has
done becomes clear in real time. Mister

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Carlson has chosen to drop twenty live
turkeys from a helicopter with a happy Thanksgiving

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from WKRP banner attached to it,
above a busy shopping center parking lot.

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This does not go well. The
turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of

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wet cement less shouts, while bystanders
can be seen fleeing around him When his

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feed cuts out during the mayhem,
Johnny Fever, the disc jockey running the

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boards back in the studio, segues
back to the music with a rye perfectly

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delivered thanks for that on the spot
report les for those who just tuned in,

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the Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been
bombed with live turkeys. There are

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a number of amazing things about this
whole sequence, but I'll start with this.

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It's actually based on a true story. According to this oral history of

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Turkeys Away, not just one true
story, but two. Hugh Wilson,

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the WKRP creator, said he based
the plot on a similar promotion spearheaded by

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a station in Dallas, while staffers
at the Atlanta station on which WKRP was

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based said they also once threw turkeys
out of the back of a truck in

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a promotion that shocker went awry.
The fact that two radio stations, and

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those are just the ones we know
about, actually executed some version of a

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live turkey drop lends this episode credibility. But what makes it funny is how

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incredible it is. It's also funny
because it does such a masterful job of

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withholding information. Because mister Carlson is
so insistent on handling the promotion himself,

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the reveal that his grand scheme involves
shoving turkeys out of an aircraft comes as

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a shock when we share with poor
Less as he narrates the entire thing,

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not to mention Johnny program director Andy
Travis, Gary Sandy, DJ Venus,

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Flytrap, Tim Reid, and staffer
Bailey quarters Jan Smithers, all of whom

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are listening in horror back at the
station. Observing their reactions to Less's report

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heightens our own response. We're not
just watching these characters, We're sharing in

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their baffled amusement. Crucially, we
never actually see a helicopter or any turkeys

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hitting the ground like sacks of wet
cement. The entire picture of this scene

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is painted through Less's words and tone, which escalate quickly from calm and newsman

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like to absolutely panic stricken. This
is necessary for obvious reasons. It would

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have been problematic from an animal rights
perspective, not to mention prohibitively expensive for

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a network sitcom to stage this scene, but it works better without us witnessing

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what happens, as we would if
we were listening to Les on the actual

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radio. We are guided through this
story primarily by Sanders's vocal expression. A

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deeper look at the real life inspiration
for this story. One version ties it

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back to nineteen seventy one, where
during the Hull Centennial Queen Contest, KHMO

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Farm director Dick mccargue found himself with
some spare time to fill before the crowning

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of the Queen. To entertain the
crowd, he shared an intriguing story.

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The tale he recounted harked back to
a radio station in Decatur, Illinois,

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which had an audacious idea for a
Thanksgiving promotion at a local shopping center.

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The plan was to drop turkeys from
an airplane, assuming that these domesticated birds

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would gracefully take flight and safely land. However, there was one significant issue.

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Domesticated turkeys are not known for their
flying abilities. As a result,

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these hapless turkeys plummeted from the sky, landing in the shopping center's parking lot,

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smashing through windshields and even crashing into
the roofs of nearby houses. Despite

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that tale, the creators of WKARP
revealed in an interview that this memorable episode

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drew inspiration from a real life Thanksgiving
promotion that occurred at a shopping center in

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Atlanta. Some quick trivia. When
aired in syndication, mister Carlson comes into

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the radio booth with an unknown song
playing in the background. The unknown song

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features the sound of dogs barking.
When WKRP originally aired, the song playing

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in the background was Pink Floyd's Dogs. Due to licensing issues, the Pink

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Floyd's song was removed after the original
air date, and even though the episode

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features turkeys, all Things Thanksgiving,
and more. It actually came out before

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Halloween. Its original air date was
October thirtieth, nineteen seventy eight. Following

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the broadcast of Turkeys Away, numerous
radio stations across the nation adopted a similar

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Thanksgiving promotion as the one showcased in
the show. These radio states began offering

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coupons and certificates to their listeners,
allowing them to collect a turkey from their

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nearby supermarkets as part of the promotion. It's important to note that these were

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not live turkeys. Richard Sanders,
renowned for his role as les Nessman,

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frequently received compensation for making live appearances
and broadcasting the event as less Nessman.

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Enjoy your holiday and I hope you
get to binge watch some shows. I'm

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Journey Joe Mitchell and until next time, I'll be watching TV in the basement.