Thanksgiving Episode / Western Animation

• Action League NOW! had the episode, "Turkey of Terror", where The Mayor invites the Action League to his mansion for Thanksgiving dinner to form a truce. Stinky doesn't believe The Mayor has gone good and quits the Action League, and decides to spend Thanksgiving with his own family, who argue with each other when they found out Stinky quit his job. It later turns out that Stinky was right about The Mayor when Justice witnesses the event and brings him his badge, and Stinky decides to save the rest of the League from being cooked in The Mayor's turkey.
• Adventure Time's "Thank You", about a snow golem taking in a lost fire wolf pup.
• American Dad!:
  • In "There Will Be Bad Blood", Stan usually invites his half-brother Rusty to mostly show off how his home is better than Rusty's. Until Stan sees that Rusty inherited a grand wealth and tries to take Rusty's home for himself.
  • "Kung Pao Turkey" has Stan trying to celebrate his version of Thanksgiving while dealing with Francine's parents coming over for a visit.
• Animaniacs has the episode "Turkey Jerky," taking place during the first Thanksgiving where Captain Miles Standish attempts to hunt down a turkey for the pilgrims. Unfortunately for him, the turkey he's hunting is pals with the Warner Siblings, and they don't take kindly to their friend being hunted for food. The episode is best known for Standish and Yakko's "Give me the bird!" "We'd love to, really, but the FOX censors won't allow it!" exchange.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "The Dressing" had Frylock, Shake, and Meatwad having Thanksgiving dinner, a week after Thanksgiving, until they have to deal with The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From The Future who shows up as a robotic turkey to take back the turkey the group was eating, which was already cooked.
• Arthur: "Francine's Pilfered Paper" has some elements of both types of Thanksgiving Episode. Francine doesn't hand in a report on the Pilgrims on time. She overcompensates by plagiarizing content from the Internet, and her guilt ruins Thanksgiving dinner for her. Catherine convinces her to come clean. Of course, the episode ends with Francine telling Mr. Ratburn what happened, re-doing the assignment, and getting a reduced but respectable grade for doing good work herself.
  • The show would later have the one-hour special "An Arthur Thanksgiving" which is directly centered around Thanksgiving itself.
• The As Told by Ginger episode "Ten Chairs" has Ginger inviting her father to Thanksgiving dinner, making things awkward for everyone since Lois's fiancé and his mother are attending.
• A Winnie The Pooh Thanksgiving: Pooh and his friends all gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving at Rabbit's house, but when Rabbit disproves of their ideas, he comes up with a rather "organized" way to make the Thanksgiving dinner perfect.
• Big City Greens: "Big Deal", which is about the Greens spending Thanksgiving Day in a warehouse store for an all-day sale.
• Blue's Clues has the episode "Thankful" from season 3.
• Bobby's World: In "Generics and Indians", Bobby's family travels to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with Bobby's Grandparents. But Aunt Ruth accidentally kills the van's battery and they spend Thanksgiving with the Native Americans who run a nearby motel.
• Bob's Burgers has had one Thanksgiving special per season since its third, many of which are fan favorites. It's established that Thanksgiving is Bob's holiday in the Belcher family, as it allows him to really show off his cooking abilities.
  • Season 3: "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal". Mr. Fischoeder hires the Belcher family to pose as his own on Thanksgiving, hoping to win over an old flame who has a thing for married men.
  • Season 4: "Turkey in a Can". The turkey Bob was preparing winds up in the toilet, as do all of the replacement turkeys Bob buys, and everyone is a suspect: Louise (the family prankster), Gene (who's mad Bob mocked his attempts at writing a "Thanksgiving carol"), Tina (who's tired of sitting at the Dreaded Kids' Table), Gayle (who's mad Bob bad-mouthed her cats), and even Linda. The culprit turns out to be Bob himself; under the effect of allergy pills, he sleepwalks while dreaming about toilet training Tina, picks up the turkey thinking it's baby Tina.
  • Season 5: "Dawn of the Peck". The Belcher family sans Bob go to visit the town's new Thanksgiving festival, but things take a turn for the worse when a horde of captive fowl escape and attack the attendees. While Bob obliviously celebrates by himself, Linda and the kids try to escape the rampaging turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese.
  • Season 6: "Gayle Makin' Bob Sled". Bob goes to pick up Gayle, who has a broken ankle, for Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of a huge blizzard, and after his car gets buried in the snow he has to drag her (and Mr. Business) back to his apartment in an empty wading pool. Meanwhile, Linda and the kids try in vain to cook Bob's Thanksgiving dinner on their own.
  • Season 7: "The Quirkducers". Hoping to get a half-day, Gene and Louise attempt to sabotage Mr. Frond's annual boring Thanksgiving play by staging one of Tina's erotic friend fiction stories in the hopes that it will offend so many viewers that it'll be canceled immediately.
  • Season 8: "Thanks-Hoarding". Teddy is hosting his family's Thanksgiving dinner, but needs Bob to make everything. When Teddy still screws up, the Belchers have to fix everything and help Teddy address his hoarding problem.
  • Season 9: "I Bob Your Pardon". The city has a turkey-pardoning ceremony, but the kids learn the turkey is being taken to a slaughterhouse because the nearest animal sanctuary is full. With a reluctant Bob in tow and a reporter looking for a big scoop tagging along, the Belchers have to steal the turkey and take it to a farm.
  • Season 10: "Now We're Not Cooking with Gas". After years of being on a waiting list, Bob gets a gourmet "heritage turkey" from a local farm for Thanksgiving dinner. But a gas outage threatens the celebration and drives Bob to desperate measures.
  • Season 11: "Diarrhea of a Poopy Kid". Gene misses Thanksgiving thanks to a bout of stomach flu, so his father Bob and his sisters Tina and Louise try to cheer him up with a series of stories.
  • Season 12: "Stuck in the Kitchen With You". Bob volunteers to cook Thanksgiving dinner for a local retirement home, and Louise is shanghaied into helping him in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Tina and Gene help Zeke entertain the old folks when the TV goes out during the Thanksgiving parade, and Linda tries to patch things up between Sergeant Bosco and his mother.
• The 1953 Casper theatrical cartoon "Do or Diet" has the friendly ghost attempting to save a turkey with an insatiable appetite from becoming Thanksgiving dinner by trying to get the bird to lose weight before the farmer arrives.
• CatDog: The episode "Talking Turkey," in which Dog tries to save a turkey from being eaten by Rancid Rabbit (and Cat).
• The Cleveland Show's first Thanksgiving episode has the blended family struggling to get along, not entirely helped by the appearance of "Auntie Mama", an eccentric advice dispenser. There's also season 2's "Another Bad Thanksgiving", season 3's "A General Thanksgiving", and season 4's "Turkey Pot Die".
• "Dan Vs. the Family Thanksgiving" has Chris and Elise spending their Thanksgiving feast with Elise's parents and younger brother. To his surprise, Dan finds out that Elise's parents had decided to invite Dan over to the feast. But when Dan discovers the in-laws only wanted him over to steal his deviled egg recipe, he attempts to burn their house down, which happens inadvertently. In the end, the family ends up staying over at a motel for the rest of the holiday.
• A Doonesbury Special takes place on and around Thanksgiving, and first aired on Thanksgiving weekend in 1977.
• Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: In the fifth season, Jonathan's ex-wife visits for Thanksgiving so she and Ben can spend more time together. Ben burns the turkey, so they have microwave dinners.
• The Fairly OddParents! storybook In a Tizzy over Turkey! has Timmy refusing to eat Thanksgiving dinner with his parents because his mom made tofurkey (turkey-flavored tofu) instead of real turkey. Cosmo and Wanda eventually grant his wish for the perfect dinner, but he learns a lesson about the true meaning of the holiday from, of all people, Vicky.
• Thanksgiving on Family Guy sees everyone close to the Griffins come together for a heated discussion about the merits of the Iraq War.
  • There was also season 13's "Turkey Guys", featuring Peter and Brian having to go on a search for a new turkey after getting drunk and eating the one meant for the Griffins' Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile, Chris has to step up as man of the house while Peter is gone, with a little help from Stewie.
  • Season 14's "Peter's Sister", Peter's older sister Karen comes over for Thanksgiving and terrorizes Peter in the process.
  • In "Shanksgiving", Peter attempts to deliberately land in jail as a way of getting out of spending Thanksgiving with Lois' relatives.
• Garfield's Thanksgiving centers on Garfield being put on a diet by his vet shortly before Thanksgiving. Said vet comes to dinner the next day, but allows Garfield to go off his diet for now.
  • The TV version features Jon having trouble cooking the meal to the point that the turkey is put in the oven in a frozen state and he rubs butter all over his own body. Jon's Grandma saves the day with Garfield as her assistant while Jon bores the vet with a long-winded version of the history of Thanksgiving.
  • The comic-book version takes a different route: After being put on the diet, Garfield sabotages Jon's thanksgiving dinner out of bitterness, only for the vet to take him off the diet after it's too late.
• Hey Arnold! had Arnold and Helga leave their home due to respective family problems, then decide to visit their happy-go-lucky teacher Mr. Simmons, figuring that his holiday at least has to be pleasant. It turns out his holiday guests are worse than either of their families, but Mr. Simmons say he has to try to enjoy the holiday with them, because they're family. The two get the hint that they need to be thankful for their loved ones, no matter how screwed up they are.
• A short on The Huckleberry Hound Show titled "Grim Pilgrim" involved Huck's pursuit of a turkey, hindered by an Indian.
• The first season of Jackie Chan Adventures has "Enter the Viper" which has Jackie and Jade in New York City to retrieve the Snake Talisman (for the second time) by taking it out of a museum. The third act features the big parade in New York with the titular character fighting ninjas on top of a balloon float.
• Tex Avery did a one-shot cartoon "Jerky Turkey" where a big schnook of a pilgrim hunts a wise-guy turkey modeled after Jimmy Durante.
• King of the Hill had Thanksgiving episodes on three consecutive seasons.
  • Season 3's "Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men" begins with the Hills celebrating Thanksgiving, with the remainder of the episode set the day afterwards as Hank and his friends (as well as an uninvited Cotton) are invited to be part of a focus group for a new mower.
  • "Happy Hanks-giving" of Season 4 has the Hills get stranded at the airport when trying to fly out to Montana for Thanksgiving with Peggy's family.
  • In Season 5, "Spin the Choice" sees Bobby boycott Thanksgiving after learning from John Redcorn about what white settlers did to Native Americans, and instead come up with his own "Native American Thanksgiving" that only manages to offend everybody, John Redcorn included.
• Looney Tunes:
  • In February 1944's "Tom Turk and Daffy", Porky Pig is the P-p-p-pilgrim attempting to hunt the eponymous Tom. That's followed by the January 1949 Merrie Melodies short "Holiday for Drumsticks", which has Daffy tricking a redesigned Tom Turk destined for Thanksgiving dinner into dieting and exercising while Daffy stuffs himself with all the fattening food meant for the turkey.
    Daffy: It's too bad you can't have duck for Thanksgiving dinner...
    [the formerly deadpan farmer suddenly grins maniacally]
    Daffy: [gulps] ...or can ya?
  • Tex Avery's 1940 short "Holiday Highlights" features a Thanksgiving turkey clip among other blackout gags surrounding various American holidays.
  • In the 1956 short "Bugs' Bonnets", when Elmer Fudd is suddenly crowned with a steepled hat, he explains to an arresting officer that he was "just twying to shoot a tuhkey fow the fuhst Thanksgiving dinnuh"; Bugs, suddenly bedecked with a feather headdress and pair of braids, seizes Elmer's rifle and attempts to shoot him!
  • After Warner Bros. revived the Looney Tunes with new productions in the late 1970s, they produced two half hour Thanksgiving specials, combining clips from archival shorts with newly produced linking material. However, with Tom Turk not included in either, they had to get creative.
    • 1979's special was Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet, with Bugs working as a dietician helping Millicent Rabbit (from "Rabbit Romeo") and Sylvester with their food-related crises, typically by describing clips from old Looney Tunes shorts that involved food. Direct references to Thanksgiving were limited to cartoons that just happened to show or mention a cooked turkey (or chicken, or road runner... they couldn't afford to be choosy.)
    • The next year saw the release of Daffy Duck's Thanks-For-Giving Special, which had next to nothing to do with the holiday. Daffy spent the special pleading with Warner Bros. president J.L. (from The Scarlet Pumpernickel) to make a sequel to Duck Dodgers as a "thanks-for-giving" the studio so many cartoons in the past, with abbreviated versions of three old Daffy shorts shown to demonstrate his hard work and range. The premiere airing of "Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century" did indeed close this special, with nary a turkey or pilgrim in sight.
• The Loud House: "The Loudest Thanksgiving" focuses on the Louds and the Casagrandes having Thanksgiving together, while competing for who would be the better family to have Thanksgiving with.
• Megas XLR has the episode "Thanksgiving Throwdown" where Coop, Jamie, and Kiva have to battle against a Blob Monster controlling Thansgiving mascot balloons that are homages of characters like the Fabio Brothers, Deputy Duck, and Auggie the Adorable Aardvark.
• In the Rankin/Bass Productions holiday special The Mouse on the Mayflower, a mouse named Willem is among the Puritan founders. He makes friends with the native mice, and together the Indians and Pilgrims, human and murine, celebrate the first Thanksgiving.
• The series finale for My Gym Partner's a Monkey was called "A Thanksgiving Carol." The episode consisted of Adam telling his animal friends why he loves Thanksgiving so much and trying to figure out why his animals friends hate it so much—initially, it seems like the reason animals hate Thanksgiving is because of how humans eat turkey on that day (which be probably be the reason in most cases), but Adam's animal friends explain that the real reason they hate Thanksgiving is actually because of the parades that are held on that day.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: "Super Black Friday" is set on the equivalent to Thanksgiving, and also a pseudo-Christmas Episode, about Black Friday and how it more or less pits these holidays against each other for retail workers.
• Pac-Man has "Happy Pacsgiving", in which Pac-Baby's grandmother read a story about the Pac-Pilgrims and the Ghost Monster Indians.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "Blorpsgiving", Patrick and Squidina eat a giant Thanksgiving feast and then sleep it off while watching a movie. Said movie is a science-fiction story where space captain Quasar visits his Robot Buddy's family for the holidays, and struggles to adapt (such as eating a Thanksgiving dinner consisting of computing paper and RAM chips).
• The 1973 Peanuts special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, where the meal served to Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin consists of pretzels, popcorn, jelly beans, and toast. After the kids head on over to Grandma's house, Snoopy and Woodstock enjoy a more traditional meal.
  • Also, the "Mayflower Voyagers" episode, which aired as the premiere of This Is America, Charlie Brown in November 1988. This is a sanitized (but still somewhat grim) retelling of the pilgrims travelling on the Mayflower to the new world, settling the area, befriending native tribes, and hosting the first Thanksgiving, with the Peanuts gang cast as pilgrim children (with Snoopy and Woodstock tagging along as well.) An abbreviated version of this episode aired after A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on ABC to fill a one hour time slot.
• The Real Ghostbusters has "The Revenge of Murray the Mantis" where a ghost possesses a Thanksgiving float of a TV character called, well, Murray the Mantis, and threatens to put an end to the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Ghostbusters decide to fight fire with fire by summoning the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man (who has since joined the good guys) to fight it.
• Recess had "The Great Can Drive", where the Recess Gang try to beat the Ashleys in the Thanksgiving canned foods drive. Later released as part of the Direct to Video Christmas movie.
• Regular Show in its fifth season gives us The Thanksgiving Special, which begins with Mordecai and Rigby messing up worse than they -ever- have before...and ends with one of the sweetest, most sincerely happy moments in the show's history.
• Rick and Morty:
  • An early promo has the family sitting for Thanksgiving dinner, until Rick Breaks the Fourth Wall by telling its really is an advertisement for the show, and tells Jerry that the Beth and Summer sitting with them are alien hunters, causing Jerry to run out crying.
  • Played Straight in the Season 5 episode "Rick & Morty's Thanksploitation Spectacular", which revolves around Morty accidentally destroying the U.S. Constitution, and Rick trying to get them off the hook by turning himself into a turkey for the traditional presidential turkey pardon (which is something he apparently does on an annual basis).
  • Played Straight once more in the Season 6 episode "Bethic Twinstinct", although it has a lot less to do with the holiday than the previous, outside of the family eating a turkey dinner and a throwaway gag at the beginning showing Rick had to turn into a turkey again. It mostly just functions as an excuse for why Space Beth is staying over for a few days.
• A segment of Robot Chicken had the President pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey but, unfortunately, this one was a maniacal axe murder who goes on a rampage after being freed.
• Rocko's Modern Life had one called "Turkey Time," involving all the Thanksgiving turkeys in O-Town taking refuge at Rocko's house.^note Due to the fourth and final season ending before Thanksgiving proper, this wound up being the second-to-last episode of the series, despite the actual series finale, "Future Schlock," airing a few weeks earlier.
• Rugrats had the episode, "The Turkey Who Came to Dinner", where the babies play "Nakie Americans" after Didi tells them a story about pilgrims and Indians. Instead of buying a turkey like he was supposed to, Grandpa Lou wins what turns out to be a live turkey in a contest, which is delivered when none of the adults are paying attention. The babies befriend the turkey and try to save him from being eaten, but Angelica is determined to tell the parents about him.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the Season 2 episode "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", Bart is sent to his room without dinner as punishment for tossing Lisa's centerpiece into the fireplace. He sneaks out of his house and gets a meal at the homeless shelter.
  • The Itchy & Scratchy Show also has "Spherical on 34th Street" (from "Funeral for a Fiend"^note which is not a Thanksgiving Day episode itself, but involves Sideshow Bob and his family), complete with a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade fiasco.
  • Season 31 has "Thanksgiving of Horror", which is essentially the season's second Halloween Episode but themed around Thanksgiving.
• South Park:
  • "Starvin' Marvin" features the boys accidentally adopting an Ethiopean child as the town gets ready for Thanksgiving. During this, a group of mutant turkeys start attacking the citizens of South Park, while Cartman gets sent over to Ethiopia in Marvin's place.
  • "Helen Keller! The Musical" has the fourth-graders preparing to put on a Thanksgiving-themed muscial about Helen Keller in an attempt to outdo the kindergartners' play. Problems arise when Timmy chooses a disabled turkey to play the role of Keller's pet instead of a professionally trained bird.
  • "A History Channel Thanksgiving" has The History Channel proclaiming aliens were present during the very first Thanksgiving, which spurs out of control when the whole thing turns into a parody of Thor when wars between several planets breakout.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man had its first season finale, "Nurture vs. Nature," where Venom is created and attacks Spider-Man. The climax focuses on Spidey fighting Venom during the Thanksgiving Day Parade and Gwen Stacy being held hostage on one of the floats, with Flash Thompson doing his best to help Spidey save Gwen.
• Squidbillies in "Thanks-Taking". While Early and Granny and just gonna drink beer and eat a stray dog instead of a turkey, Rusty desires to have a proper thanksgiving with his family, his job at Ball-Mart unfortunately gives him a two hour break at 10 PM to work for Black Friday at midnight.
• Steven Universe: Even though the holiday isn't celebrated in the show's timeline, "Gem Harvest" has an obvious Thanksgiving theme: Steven reconnects with a long-lost relative, Greg's cousin Andy, and everyone gets together for a big dinner at the barn (which is spoiled somewhat by a long-standing family disagreement).
• SuperMansion: The Thanksgiving special was titled "A Prayer for Mr. T", where the main plot was about Titanium Rex attempting to prove he can cook a better Thanksgiving Turkey than Dr. Devizo. Sub-plots include American Ranger attempting to put on a play that romanticizes the events of the first Thanksgiving with the assistance of the Blue Menace and Johnny Rabdo, Black Saturn bringing the Groaner over to his parents' Thanksgiving feast and Titanium Lex being forced to watch over Cooch, Buster Nut, Chet and Robodino to keep them out of trouble.
• Teacher's Pet: "The Turkey That Came to Dinner" has Leonard's Grandma Rose come over for Thanksgiving dinner and bring over a live turkey named Lurkey who is intended to become the turkey dinner. Spot, Mr. Jolly and Pretty Boy are forced to spend the holiday away from the table because of Grandma Rose's assumed allergies and then try to do what they can to prevent Lurkey from becoming cooked.
• Teen Titans Go!: In "Thanksgiving", Robin tries to give Batman the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, but Trigon shows up and turns Cyborg into a turkey so he can he can eat him. In "Thanksgetting", the Titans get sick of Thanksgiving traditions and create a new holiday called Thanksgetting.
• The 1972 Hanna-Barbera special "The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't" focused on a squirrel rescuing a pair of lost boys (one a Pilgrim, the other a Native American), with the squirrel as a result becoming the guest of honor at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
• While the Thomas & Friends episode, "Thomas and Percy's Christmas Adventure" was a Christmas Episode in the UK, it was dubbed into a Thanksgiving Episode in the US, entitled "Thomas and Percy's Mountain Adventure". This is evidenced in the ending scene, where the engine sheds are decorated with Christmas decorations.
• The Tom and Jerry short, "The Little Orphan", took one of the basic concepts of "The Milky Waif" (always-hungry orphan Nibbles appears at Jerry's doorstep), and turns it into a Thanksgiving story by showing that Jerry had volunteered to host an orphan mouse for the holiday. Less lion-roaring Papa Wolf Jerry, more Food Fighting.
• The Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "Funsgiving" involves a holiday based on Thanksgiving.
• T.O.T.S. has a variant of this with Totsgiving. It's essentially traditional Thanksgiving with everyone delivering meals to families, and it ends with a feast for the TOTS workers. The episode of the same name is about making sure that Marty's family gets a Totsgiving meal when Lucky hides the food. He eventually feels bad and gives everyone at TOTS the meals.
• One story arc in Underdog has Simon Barsinister go back in time to sabotage the founding of Plymouth Plantation so that there will be no Thanksgiving. Why? Because his plan to conquer the city depended on him accessing a certain device at a certain time, which he couldn't because the Thanksgiving Day Parade was blocking the street. Given that he had a time machine, there were much simpler ways to solve the problem (such as going back in time to earlier that morning and crossing the street before the parade started), but he never considers them.
• The Wild Thornberrys had the episode "A Family Tradition," in which Grandma Sophie asks for the Thornberrys to give up their filming fossas in Madagascar and come back to America for Thanksgiving. However, Nigel and Marianne decide to just send an eager Debbie and Eliza back so they can complete their work, but chaos ensues when the girls change their minds at the last minute.
• Work It Out Wombats!: "The Treeborhood Harvest Day / The Treeborhood Thankfulness Stew" contains a multi-part story about Harvest Day, a holiday about thankfulness and gathering to eat.

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