CBS took viewers back to L. Frank Baum's magical world in 1980's Thanksgiving in The Land of Oz, which was re-edited and retitled a year later because someone at the network wanted the story to be more of a year-round entry.
Dorothy (Mischa Bond) heads back to Oz with the Wizard (Sid Caesar), who lures her in by stealing Aunt Em's pie. It gets silly after that. Our voice cast also includes Frank Welker, Joan Gerber, Frank Nelson, and Robert Ridgely.
The special, in its original form, aired again on Showtime in the mid-80's.
Disney Junior is no longer available on cable systems run by Spectrum after an agreement with Disney two months ago. That means that if you have Disney+, that may be the only way to see Mickey & The Roadster Racers, which had its title changed to Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures in its final season. 3 seasons in all, spread out over 4 years.
This was the final series for actress Russi Taylor (Minnie), who passed away in 2019, prior to season 3 going on the air. Katelyn Roblock succeeded Taylor, and is heard in this Thanksgiving episode. If the race announcer's voice sounds familiar, it should. It's Jay Leno, doing his first toon work since The Fairly OddParents:
CGI works for Mickey and the gang. If you can get the DVD's, it'll make great Christmas gifts for the wee ones.
Two Thanksgiving themed shorts from the 2003 Berenstain Bears series kicks off this year's Thanksgiving Toons.
The first, "Bad Habit", admittedly, isn't so much about the holiday, though the children are drawing pictures of pies, but, rather, Sister's sudden nervous habit of biting her nails. "The Big Pumpkin", on the other hand, shows how friendship can be put aside when competition and greed get in the way.
After debuting in skits on Chuck Jones' ABC series, Curiosity Shop, Johnny Hart's B. C. made its primetime debut in 1973 in this NBC special, B. C.: The First Thanksgiving, produced by frequent Jones collaborator Abe Levitow.
Daws Butler voices the title character, and does a Jack Benny mimic at the start, as B. C. discovers fire. From that point, it's a series of gags that could just as easily have been lifted from the strip itself. Singer-actress Joanie Sommers joins Butler and fellow voice vets Bob Holt and Don Messick in rounding out the cast.
No real plot, just a showcase for the strip. However, it'd take 8 years before these cave people would return to TV.
Bill Hutten & Tony Love's Chucklewood Critters, starring Buttons & Rusty, returned in the Thanksgiving special, "The Turkey Caper". We had this up before a ways back, but it was taken down. Luckily, with Thanksgiving 2 1/2 weeks away, it's back.
Nelvana's Intergalactic Thanksgiving mixes science fiction with absurd comedy, and features the voices of Catherine O'Hara (SCTV), Derek McGrath, Al Waxman, & Sid Caesar, a year removed from "Grease". Music, as usual, was composed by former Lovin' Spoonful frontman John Sebastian, with the John Hall Band, featuring the former (at the time) vocalist for Orleans, performing Sebastian's compositions.
I think there's a reason why no American channel has picked this up in recent years.
Two years before the debut of their Nicktoons line, Nickelodeon put together a Thanksgiving special that, sadly, hasn't seen the light of day in years.
There are two short subjects, "Thanksgiving Nightmare", in which a cat gets caught in between a mouse (of course) and a roach in trying to avoid ruining his owner's holiday dinner. Written & directed by Kevin Altieri, who'd later move to WB.
"Thanksgiving Dreams" plays like it was pulled from a storybook. The wraparound segments, "Thanksgiving Stops", are drawn in the familiar at the time house style.
Over the last few years, there've been short, animated vignettes on SportsCenter. Don't know whose idea it was, but this short piece offers the origins of the NFL's Thanksgiving Day football traditions in Detroit & Dallas.
Sure, the animation is crude, only because they couldn't be bothered to ask Disney to do the animation.
Part of ABC's One Saturday Morning block, Pepper Ann chronicled the misadventures of the titular 7th grader (Kathleen Wilhoite), at home and at school.
The series also spent some time as part of UPN's Disney's One Too weekday block in 2000, but once the series hit 65 episodes total, Disney ended the series. The supporting cast included Jeff Bennett (Johnny Bravo), voicing multiple characters, and, as the school principal, Don Adams (ex-Inspector Gadget, Tennessee Tuxedo, Get Smart).
In "Thanksgiving Dad", from season 1, Pepper Ann frets about whether or not her dad will come home for the holiday.
If the designs look familiar, they were created by artist Tom Warburton, who'd later create Codename: Kids Next Door for Cartoon Network.
The tech giant will repurpose A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which will begin streaming on Apple TV+ next week, on PBS & PBS Kids on Sunday. Three weeks later, A Charlie Brown Christmas, marking its 55th anniversary, will air on both channels.
Now, you have to believe that if this works out as well as we all think it should, Apple & PBS will team next year to bring It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown back to broadcast television, or maybe have more specials & movies show up on PBS Kids.
Finally, Charlie Brown and friends get a break they deserve.
When the Care Bears changed animation studios from DIC to Nelvana in season 2, there came with it two bigger changes. One was a title change to Care Bears Family. The other was shifting from 1st run syndication to ABC, where it spent 1 1/2 seasons before being cancelled in the winter of 1988.
From that 1st ABC season comes this Thanksgiving episode, "Grams Bear's Thanksgiving Surprise", in which a human enemy, Sour Sam, schemes to ruin the holiday.
ABC's association with Nelvana began a year earlier when the Canadian studio was given a license for a pair of Star Wars animated series, Ewoks & Droids, and continued into the early 90's.
Terrytoons is known for iconic characters such as Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle. However, there were the occasions where the studio tried to emulate rivals like WB and the Fleischers.
One such instance is 1940's "The Landing of The Pilgrims", a satirical twist on the traditional account of the Pilgrims' arrival in America in 1620.
This hasn't seen the light of day on TV in Lord knows when, especially in today's hyper-sensitive culture, which would claim the Native Americans depicted here were stereotypes.
I'd say they were the forerunners to the Hekawis from F-Troop, which came along 25 years later.
I had this next entry up before, but the episodes I was using were getting deleted, so I took it down, figuring to bring it back again another day. Today being Thanksgiving, this is the perfect time.
Chris & Martin Kratt have been a part of PBS' children's programming for several years now, starting with Kratts' Creatures. Their current series, the 1/2-live action, 1/2-animated Wild Kratts, has just begun its 5th season, spread out over a 6 year period.
The brothers voice their own animated selves, and also write and/or direct episodes. If they're thinking of being a pair of modern day Marlin Perkins clones, they're fooling themselves.
Anyway, the gimmick here is that the brothers use some special suits to mimic the abilities of certain animals. Kind of like DC Comics' Vixen, but nowhere near close to her level. There is a recurring villain, too, a gourmet chef who serves as a parody of real life celebrity chefs (i.e. Justin Wilson).
Fittingly, for Thanksgiving, we present "Happy Turkey Day":
Edit, 11/3/2020: Had to change the video. Complete episodes are no longer available, so we'll settle for this excerpt.
Parents, you might want to give your kids some Wild Kingdom DVD's, if they want to learn more in depth about the animal kingdom, rather than buy into these clowns' lessons as gospel.
By all rights, Thanksgiving should be Garfield's favorite holiday, since he'd probably have license to gorge on turkey, mashed potatoes, etc., leaving little in the way of leftovers.
However, as this primetime special shows, Garfield (Lorenzo Music) is not exactly making a first impression on Jon's new girlfriend......
Of course, Garfield's whole schtick is being lazy and interested only in eating. Today, that wouldn't be so well received.
Hanna-Barbera partnered with Avco-Embassy for a pair of holiday specials in the early 70's. The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't is a loose retelling of the first Thanksgiving, as seen through the eyes of a squirrel.
A modern day family of squirrels are gathering for Thanksgiving, and the father spins the yarn of his great-great-great-great grandfather, who helped rescue a Native American brave and a young Pilgrim when they get lost in the woods.
Voice talent includes Vic Perrin, Don Messick, June Foray, Hal Smith, and long-time H-B music supervisor Paul DeKorte. I'd swear, though, that the chorus includes an uncredited Thurl Ravenscroft.
The copyright says this was from 1971, and that's what we're going with.
The Berenstain Bears made their television debut in 1979, as NBC acquired the rights to the children's book series, and the end result was a series of 5 primetime specials all produced by Joseph Cates.
In The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw, we're introduced to a Bear Country Thanksgiving legend, which also is a satire on the legendary Bigfoot, who had become a pop culture icon back in those days. Bigpaw would be a regular player in the Berenstain Bears' subsequent series on CBS a few years later.
Scholastic published an adaptation of the special several years later, which may have ultimately led to the subsequent PBS series.
With Thanksgiving 2-plus weeks away as I write, let's take a look back at how Calvin & The Colonel marked the occasion back in 1961.
Seems the Colonel, a year prior, had declared he would host Thanksgiving dinner for 36 relatives the following year, thinking no one would remember. Well.........
Writer-producers Joe Connolly & Bob Mosher (Leave it to Beaver) also worked on Amos & Andy, and adapted some radio scripts for this series. I think this might've been one of them....
