Thanksgiving Episodes

I can’t believe it’s that time of the year again.

I’ve never been into sports that much, so I usually watch other things on Thanksgiving if I’m not with the rest of my family. There are Thanksgiving episodes of shows that I love so much that it’s become a real tradition to watch at least once every year.

For starters, it’s been a yearly tradition for I don’t know how long to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That never, ever gets old for me.

Then there’s the episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, “Turkeys Away” where “The Big Guy” Carlson and Herb Tarlek learn the hard (and hilarious) way that turkeys don’t know how to fly. That episode is a true classic.

My true absolute favorites though are the Friends Thanksgiving episodes. I pretty much enjoy all of them to a degree. But season 6’s episode is the one I enjoy the most, “The One Where Ross Got High,” because of the secrets everyone were keeping from each other and about how in 60 seconds everything was revealed. Other favorites of mine include “The One Where Underdog Gets Away” from season 1, "The One With Chandler In A Box" from season 4, and I remember being so disappointed in most of season 9, but the Thanksgiving episode “The One With Rachel’s Other Sister” turned out really good in my opinion.

Will & Grace has made some really good ones too, I think. Even when I felt the show was no longer in its prime, season 7 did have an enjoyable Thanksgiving show, “Queens for a Day.” Although my favorites include season 2’s “Homo for the Holidays” where Jack comes out to his mother, and season 4’s “Moveable Feast.”

With some of these episodes and the Newhart marathon on WGN, there will be plenty to enjoy while dinner’s being made! I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving will be truly great!

WGN: Thanksgiving Newhart Marathon

Yay! We’ll be seeing a 26 episode marathon of Newhart on Thanksgiving Day on WGN America, starting at 2 pm!

I was wondering when we’d see a marathon of this show on WGN. I’ve been watching Newhart every week on WGN America and it’s been so great to see that the show is rewatchable after all these years, as with some shows I watched as a kid (i.e. Full House), I just can’t enjoy them as an adult. I missed about 99% of the Nick @ Nite and TNN airings, and over the years I only had about three episodes to enjoy until now, two which came from an old MTM VHS release, and the finale recorded from a TVLand marathon special.

In seeing the series again, I notice how much the show seemed to take off over time. Season one I think has it’s good episodes and moments, but I don’t think the show was anywhere near its stride yet. I think it started to get better with the permanent addition of Julia Duffy as Stephanie in season two, and even better with the addition of Peter Scolari and more appearances by Larry, Darryl, and Darryl. To this day, “Lady and the Tramps” is one of my all time favorite episodes of the series. After enjoying the show so much lately -- finding out that there will be a really decent sized marathon of this show really got me excited.

WGN: Lost '80's Week

WGN America is doing it again! From October 27-30, WGN is airing a two hour marathon of 4 different shows on 4 different nights, all apart of a marathon called "The Lost '80's Week!" It'll be as follows, from 8-10 PM eastern time:

Monday, October 27th: Three's a Crowd
Tuesday, October 28th: The Ropers
Wednesday, October 29th: Too Close For Comfort
Thursday, October 30th: Check It Out

Oh. My. God. I am SO excited about this like you can't believe. I've always wanted to see more of The Ropers and Three's a Crowd out of curiosity besides the about two or three of each that I've seen on Nick@Nite and TVLand a couple years back. In fact, I've always thought that they should have just gone ahead and released both shows instead of doing best of Jack and Janet Three's Company sets. I've never seen Check it Out and I'm definitely interested in it after reading more about the show. I have also waited for years to see a full episode of Too Close for Comfort.

With the expansion of the Outta Sight Retro Nights to include ALF, Coach, Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie, and also, The Munsters Halloween marathon coming up, there's so much for classic sitcom fans to look forward to this month.

ALF Starts Tonight!

In case you haven’t heard, the classic ‘80’s alien sitcom ALF is being added to the WGN America Sunday night line-up from 6-7 PM eastern! But that’s not all, it’s also airing on Monday nights as well from 9-10 PM eastern!

I remember that it had been a long time since I had seen this show before the first marathon a few months back, and in seeing that one, I don’t love the show as much as I did when I was a kid but I do find it to be pretty enjoyable still.

This is great news and everything, but I do think it’s odd that the show doesn’t seem to be airing in order and that starting next week the same Monday episodes will air again on Sunday… well, as far as order goes, maybe it‘s like with WKRP in Cincinnati and they‘re airing the show in airdate order. But in spite of that, I do love that a new classic is being added to WGN’s schedule. When changes were announced for this network I did cringe at first, since these days when most networks do some sort of identity change, it’s really for the worse. But WGN has so much variety now. Comedies, dramas, movies, they still have baseball for the Cubs and Sox fans, and the local WGN News. Sunday evening’s line-up is now practically filled with classics, with the exception of the 10 PM news. And there is programming from multiple eras. I may not like every show airing (for instance, 7th Heaven) but there’s still plenty of things to interest many people.

I miss the days when cable had a bit more variety and now it’s coming back, at least with this channel, and networks like AmericanLife and RTN (now if I could only get AmericanLife). So while networks like TVLand and ION are busy keeping inconsistent schedules, not airing fan favorites and kissing 18-39 derriere, I’ll be sitting back watching a station that has more to offer, and WGN America is one of them.

Mork & Mindy: Mini-Marathon

Caught a promo for this during WKRP and Newhart last night. WGN America’s done it again; we’ll be seeing more classic TV in primetime, this time a mini-marathon of Mork & Mindy this Tuesday night, from 8-10 PM Eastern!

The episode rundown is as follows:

8:00 PM “Mork Moves In”
8:30 PM “Mork in Love”
9:00 PM “Mork's Greatest Hit”
9:30 PM “Long Before We Met…”

Most of the episodes are going to be from season one, with the exception of “Long Before We Met…” which is from season 4; and I’m kind of happy about that. It has been a while since I’ve seen the majority of the show, but I remember the first season being the real favorite. I thought season two was okay as well, but all the cast changes and so forth didn’t exactly make the show any better for me. I liked that Tom Poston became a regular in season two, but I didn’t like Elizabeth Kerr and Conrad Janis being dropped.

Either way, cheers to WGN for adding another night of retro fun!

Another Retro Week Coming from WGN America

WGN America’s got another Retro Theme Week planned. This one airs from August 4-7th, and focuses on “The Golden Oldies.” It’s as follows:

Monday, August 4th: The Honeymooners
Tuesday, August 5th: The Beverly Hillbillies
Wednesday, August 6th: Bewitched
Thursday, August 7th: I Dream of Jeannie

Well, while it’s still only four days out of the week instead of five, I find this to be much less of a disappointment than the ‘80’s week; at least there are four different shows. Friday they’re airing a movie. I hadn’t seen much of The Honeymooners in the longest time until the show came to WGN America, and I must say I’m enjoying it and boy, do I see the inspiration The Flintstones had. I haven’t seen Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie since TVLand dropped them, so it’ll be nice seeing them again. I’m not a fan of The Beverly Hillbillies. I could never get into it, but I’m sure the show’s fans are excited about it.

It's really nice to see WGN's continuing with these theme weeks; they must be doing pretty decently in the ratings.

WGN's '80's Retro Week

Here is the layout for WGN America's 1980's Retro Week. This will air from July 7-11, and is follows:

Monday: ALF
Tuesday: Family Ties
Wednesday: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Thursday: The Cosby Show
Friday: ALF (again, but with different episodes)

I was hoping that they'd do an '80's themed week, but I honestly have to say this particular week's plans are a real disappointment for the most part; especially when compared to the 1970's week. I mean, seriously, why a movie? And even though The Cosby Show has been rerun a LOT in the past few years, I can't say that I'm surprised that it's been included, and since that was a very popular (if not the most popular) sitcom of the 1980's, it should be. I must say that it will be nice seeing ALF and Family Ties, but I'm not looking forward to much else.

There are so many 1980's shows that could be used for this particular week. Is it that hard these days to acquire 4 episodes of Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Kate & Allie, Mr. Belvedere, or Charles in Charge? They're also airing Newhart on Sunday nights and they easily could have also put that in; it would have been a great way to see later episodes of the series since it'll take a while to get to that point. I've read that they tried to get two other series, one of which being Mork & Mindy, but those plans fell through. I would have much rather them wait until they could have acquired five different shows.

More Retro Goodness from WGN

I could not be more excited for Sunday night. It marks the second night of Outta Sight Retro Night on WGN America.

The schedule consists of the following (all times eastern):

7:00 PM - 8:00 PM WKRP in Cincinnati
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM Newhart
9:00 PM - 10:00 PM The Honeymooners

There are a number of things to be impressed about with this for me. Firstly, I was impressed at how good the episodes look... they've all been restored. It's interesting seeing the first season of Newhart, since that was shot on videotape. The pilot looked like it was taped yesterday. And speaking of Newhart, it's been years since I've seen most of this show so I can't wait to see more of it. Secondly all the episodes shown were uncut! I noticed there was footage that was definitely left in on WKRP in Cincinnati that was cut out on TVLand airings. Footage from the actual episodes as well as commercial bumpers. That was one of the things that had me so impressed with the '70's week that aired right before. This is so great, especially for WKRP since the first season DVD's are rather neutered, and also for when they finally get into season 2 of Newhart, since Fox is so slow with classic DVD releases nowadays.

It's so nice having variety on the regular schedule as well. Whenever a network starts airing stuff that's seen on one or multiple other channels multiple times a day, one example being ION these days, picking up The Steve Harvey Show and ER, I always say "there's other shows in the vault that don't get as much exposure these days." So I commend WGN America for airing shows that are not as seen on TV much these days anymore, since some people don't get good networks like AmericanLife or RTN yet. And I hope the Outta Sight Retro Nights continue!