Oh my God! They're Turkeys!

Last night we were watching the first season of E.R. off Netflix and they had a Thanksgiving episode. For some reason, totally out of the blue I remembered the Thanksgiving episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, which I haven't seen or thought about for over 25 years.

In it the radio station hosts a promotion at an outdoor mall where they plan to drop turkeys from a helicopter on to the waiting crowd. Les Nessman is on site to describe the events to listeners, but Mr. Carlson made two mistakes in planning the promotion: a) he didn't tell Les what was going to happen and b) he forgot that turkeys can't fly.

After describing it to Barb and Simon (cracking them up) I thought I'd see if it was on Youtube. Sure enough... here it is... and it is as funny as I remember it.



I have two favorite memories of WKRP: this one and the one where Bailey Quarters is being wooed by a Russian diplomat who tries to seduce her with an Elton John song. Near the end of the episode he pulls her close and says: "Hold me closer tiny dancer." To this day I can't hear that song without thinking of Bailey who, for a few years in the late 1970's, embodied the perfect woman to the pre-pubescent Hawksbill.

It turns out that I'm not the only one. I stumbled across this fansite from a guy about my age who felt the same way about Jan Smithers. And he had the same memories about that Elton John song. Go figure.

Anyway, Simon loved the Youtube video above and I can keep cracking him up today by exclaiming:

Oh My God! They're Turkeys!!!