Over the years, the start of the Christmas season has crept up earlier and earlier. Now, dust doesn’t have a chance to settle on the Halloween pumpkin, as November 1st marks the kick-off for all things Christmas.
Within this, the once starting point of the Holidays, Thanksgiving, has gotten somewhat lost. But there are still opportunities for animation fans to celebrate this day of turkey, parades, and football, as there have been numerous TV specials and episodes dedicated to Thanksgiving.
For many who love animation, there are the standards – A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973), Garfield’s Thanksgiving (1989), and, maybe even, The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn’t (1972) – but there are others – specials, episodes, and cartoon shorts – that could also add to the holiday.
Here is one of each:
Casper the Friendly Ghost, Do or Diet (1953)
As he celebrates the 80th anniversary of his film debut this year, it’s fitting to spend Thanksgiving with Casper by looking back at this short subject.
It opens with Casper (Alan Shay) waking on Thanksgiving morning at a farm, where he scares the pilgrims in the photo on his calendar and a mule out in the yard. Someone not afraid of Casper is Timothy Turkey (Sid Raymond), who’s too busy crying because it’s Thanksgiving Day and he’s on the menu.
Casper comes up with an idea: run Timothy through an exercise regimen, so he will be too skinny to eat. However, as Casper acts as coach, Timothy continues to eat and loses no weight.
In desperation, Casper sees a girdle hanging on a clothesline. He squeezes Timothy into it and covers it in feathers, so he appears thin. When the farmer comes out with his ax, he’s initially depressed, until Timothy munches on an apple that bursts the girdle.
Just as the farmer ties Timothy up and wields his ax, Casper appears and scares the farmer away. Casper takes this opportunity to get Timothy in shape for next Thanksgiving, but as the turkey tries to cheat by eating corn, Casper ties up Timothy’s beak with the snood (the red flap of flesh that hangs over a turkey’s beak – fun fact!).
Directed by I. Sparber, Do Or Diet is pretty standard Casper fare. Still, the comic premise of attempting to save a Thanksgiving turkey by making him thin provides for some nice, humorous moments, especially through Casper’s frustrations. If you’re hungry for some classic animation on Thanksgiving, this hits the spot.
Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz (1980)
This special, a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, is set against the backdrop of Thanksgiving. As the special opens, Dorothy’s Auntie Em (the voice of Lurene Tuttle) and Uncle Henry (Charles Woolf) are getting things ready on the farm for Thanksgiving. But, there’s a sadness hanging over them, as it looks as if Dorothy (Mischa Bond) and her aunt and uncle are going to have to split up, as they are about to lose the farm to the bank.
Auntie Em has just baked a mince pie and placed it on the windowsill to cool, when Dorothy spots someone stealing it. She follows the thief and finds it’s the Wizard of Oz (Sid Caesar), who apologizes, as times have been tough. He has, however, created a large turkey balloon for the local Thanksgiving Day parade. Once inflated, the balloon drifts away into the sky with Dorothy and Toto, hanging on to its tethers, and it winds up taking them back to the land of Oz.
Here she meets a new trio of characters, Jack Pumpkinhead (Robert Ridgely), Tic-Toc, the mechanical man (Joan Gerber), and The Hungry Tiger (Frank Nelson). They all go up against the villain, Tyrone, the Terrible Toy Tinker (Ridgeley), who brings the turkey balloon to life and looks to take over the Emerald City.
In the process, Auntie Em’s mince pie, which was brought to Oz by Dorothy, is also brought to life. As it’s made up of different ingredients, it speaks in various accents and goes by the name of U.N. Krust (Ceasar again, having a ball, switching up the different dialects).
Spoiler alert! – all works out well, and Dorothy and her friends return to the Kansas farm, just in time to have Thanksgiving dinner.
Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz is based on several of L. Frank Baum’s books in a script crafted by Romeo Muller, the writer who brought audiences a number of Rankin/Bass’ beloved holiday specials, including 1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman (1969).
The special does admirable work of crafting an Oz adventure that feels familiar without being a complete retread, and, with Fred Wolf as one of the producers, it takes on the comforting tone of many other specials his studio produced, including 1978’s Puff the Magic Dragon.
Airing on CBS on November 15, 1980, Thanksgiving in the special happens, for the most part, on the periphery of the adventure (which may explain why it was re-broadcast in 1981 as Dorothy in the Land of Oz, with the Thanksgiving sections deleted).
Still, if you’re in the mood for a different, and overlooked holiday special, spend Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz.
Animaniacs, “Turkey Jerky” (1993)
In the grand tradition of classic, screwball cartoons comes this Animaniacs episode – a funny, breakneck-paced look at the first Thanksgiving.
It opens with the pilgrims sitting around the table, wondering what to serve at their first Thanksgiving. After quiche and Cajun curly fries are shot down, a muscular Miles Standish (Maurice LaMarche) comes in to announce that he will hunt a turkey for them to eat.
He ventures into the woods (running across Elmer Fudd) and does indeed find a turkey, who is “gobbling” the song “Turkey in the Straw.” Soon after, the Animaniacs – Yakko (Rob Paulsen), Wakko (Jess Harnell), and Dot (Tres MacNeille) – appear, dressed as Native Americans, to save their pet turkey, named Mr. Gobbles, from Miles’ musket.
The rest of the episode is in grand, cartoony style, with Yakko, Wakko, and Dot driving Miles Standish crazy and preventing him from shooting Mr. Gobbles. Along the way, the trio does everything from putting Miles through psychotherapy to leaving him stranded against a blank, white screen, a la Duck Amuck.
He’s driven to such extremeness that, in the end, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot wind up, placing a crazed Miles, on a platter, wearing a red glove on his head, in the middle of the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving table.
Directed by Gary Hartle and written by Peter Hastings and Tom Ruegger, the humor in “Turkey Jerky” isn’t just rapid fire; it’s sharp and hysterical. As Dot cries dramatically to Miles about her pet turkey, a message flashes on the screen: “Academy Members Vote Now.” When she receives an award, Dot accepts it and says, “It pays to overact.”
As with many of their episodes, this Animaniacs installment features a banquet of memorable lines to add something extra to your holiday. One of the best is when Miles shouts, “Begone, pests, and give me the bird!” To which Yakko replies, “We’d love to, but the Fox censors won’t allow it!”
There are just three of so many Thanksgiving shorts, specials, and episodes to add as a nice, animated side dish to your holiday. As always, there are plenty of others. Feel free to drop some of your favorites in the comments below.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
The titular turkey in “Turkey Jerky” was voiced by the great Frank Welker, who also did the narration in the opening of the episode. Welker, one of the most prolific voice artists of all time, has had few singing roles, but his gobbling rendition of “Turkey in the Straw” shows that the man possesses an awesome set of pipes.
I’m a big fan of the Total Television Productions cartoons of the 1960s, which had a couple of memorable Thanksgiving episodes.
“Simon Says No Thanksgiving” (The Underdog Show, 1965): The Thanksgiving Day parade is interfering with Simon Bar Sinister’s plans to take over the city, because he can’t cross the street to push the two buttons that will put his plan into action. So he travels back in time to the Plymouth Colony and tries to sow discord between the pilgrims and the Indians in order to keep Thanksgiving from ever happening. No Thanksgiving, no parade, and no obstacles to his ambitions. Underdog saves the day, as always. A clever cartoon with an inventive premise and many hilarious moments.
“The Romance of Plymouth Rock” (Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, 1964): Tennessee is directing a play about the pilgrims starring himself as John Alden, Chumley the walrus as Miles Standish, and Baldy the eagle in drag as Priscilla Mullins. Mr. Whoopee tells the story of the first Thanksgiving. Jerboa Jump and Tiger Tornado try to sabotage the production, but as always, “Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail!”
Even though “Tom Turk and Daffy” doesn’t specifically mention Thanksgiving, I’ve always felt it belonged to the holiday, between Porky’s getup and his desire for a turkey dinner with all sorts of stereotypical Thanksgiving trimmings (“IT WAS THE YAMS! It was the ya-ha-haams…”). Even the use of “Jingle Bells” to open the cartoon may point in that direction, if the story of that song being initially written for Thanksgiving was circulating at the time the Jones unit made that cartoon.
Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz has the hallmarks of a Rankin/Bass production, although it is not. This is probably mostly due to the writing of Romeo Muller. It does have a cozy, comfortable Oz feel to it, probably due to much of its being based on characters and scenes from the later Oz books. Apart from Dorothy, Uncle Henry, Aunt Em, and the Wizard, the character designs of the Oz characters are all derived from the work of John R. Neill and W. W. Denslow. The song “Christmas, Toys, and Oz” is a reference to the early years of the 20th Century when an Oz book under the Christmas tree was an annual treat. There were new Oz books published annually between 1913 (The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum) and 1942 (Lucky Bucky in Oz by John R. Neill). The writers of the songs were doubtless aware of this when they linked Oz, toys, and Christmas together. The characters and situations in Thanksgiving are not always a one-to-one correspondence to their book counterparts–for instance, Tyrone the Terrible Toymaker is designed to look like the Nome (Gnome) King, although his semi-villainous, semi-comic personality is preserved. But the spirit of the Oz books comes through even when the characters are only shadows of the originals from the books.
It was an unwise move to edit the original film, because without the context of Thanksgiving, the giant turkey. balloon and the references to mince pies don’t really make sense. I have seen “Dorothy in the Land of Oz” and couldn’t make heads or tails of it, despite having seen it first as “Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz.” It really only works as a Thanksgiving special. And if it seems odd that Dorothy and her aunt and uncle should lose their farm and come to Oz to live, check out The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum and you will see where this idea originated.
Don’t forget the Thanksgiving episode (“The Romance of Plymouth Rock”) of Tennessee Tuxedo!
https://youtu.be/XaiIbSpH55c?si=aMMgPA_O6Y75FMNg
While Rankin/Bass did not produce “Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz,” they did produce a special for Thanksgiving in 1968. This was “The Mouse on the Mayflower” narrated and sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and featuring voice work by June Foray, Paul Frees, Eddie Albert, and others. This was likewise written by Romeo Muller. The special is a little bit slow-moving and the romance between John and Priscilla is heavy-handed, driven home by a pile driver, so probably most kids tioday couldn’t sit through it, but as I recall our entire family watched and was enthralled. The mice characters are fun. There is also a villainous bear who “bears’ more than a passing resemblance to Disney’s Baloo character from “The Jungle Book.”
Another Thanksgiving feast that deserves mention is “Pilgrims on the Rocks,” a Gumby and Pokey stop-motion adventure involving time-travel. I haven’t seen it in years, but as a kid I enjoyed it greatly. It was broadcast on Thanksgiving Day.
I expected a mention of the turkey character depicted at the top of this post. It comes from the live-action musical “Holiday Inn” starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. The film purports to cover “alll” of the holidays (it overlooks a few) and when it comes to Thanksgiving there is a delightful bit of animation. There was a bit of controversy regarding whether Thanksgiving should be celebrated on the third or fourth Thursday of November, and this dilemma is reflected in the animated turkey, who goes back and forth between the two dates. Since the film was a Paramount production, I’m guessing the animation was supplied by the Fleischer Studio.
And while Mr. Magoo does not seem to have noticeably observed Thanksgiving, in the cartoon special “Uncle Sam Magoo” there is a scene that depicts the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock and the supposed attractiveness of Priscilla.
One more Thanksgiving tidbit deserves mention, although this never made it into animation. There was a story titled “Pilgrim’s Party” produced by Disney, which features Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Pluto traveling to Plymouth to celebrate a re-creation of the first Thanksgiving. Though it includes lots of interesting factoids, there is almost no conflict, so it’s not surprising that it didn’t make it into film. But the illustrations give a good idea of what might have been, and if the story had been rendered in animation, it would have been stunning. The story was reprinted (I don’t know the original source) in a book titled “Walt Disney’s Story Land.”
Tex Avery’s “Jerky Turkey” is pretty much forgotten today, although it appears on Vol. 3 of the Screwball Classics Blu-ray collection.
It’s been a favorite of mine ever since it came out on a VHS tape (if I remember right, that was also around 1620). I love it for showcasing Tex’s animators at their dynamic best, and besides— why shouldn’t a turkey talk like Jimmy Durante? Whoever the Schnozz imitator is, he’s spot-on.
However, it’s also jam-packed with WWII rationing gags that would be lost on any modern audience— so it’s very, very dated. Even so, there’s the opening pan shot that shows Olde Plymouth with a stone wall dividing the town into “Ye Republicans” and “Ye Democrats.” Far from being dated, this image reflects the American political climate in 2025 with complete and utter accuracy!
As an aside, I’ve personally seen Plymouth Rock, and it’s about the least impressive U. S. historical monument of them all. Don’t expect anything like the Statue of Liberty or Mt. Rushmore, it’s just— a rock. Distinguished only by the fact that it has “1620” carved into it, but that was apparently done at some later date.
Oh, and by the way, DON’T eat at Joe’s!
The Mouse on the Mayflower is also seldom seen mostly because those who own the Rankin/Bass catalog mostly forgot it exists year after year
How about “Toyland Premiere”? It’s an Oswald cartoon (1934) on the first “Woody Woodpecker and Friends” set. Santa comes to the big city for a parade with giant balloons, followed by a party at a department store. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade naturally springs to mind, although other cities had similar holiday events.
As a tail-end boomer I remember Thanksgiving as the opening of the cartoon special season. After Rudolph and Charlie Brown set the pattern there’d be a batch of new ones every year, accumulating until some were crowded off the networks onto local stations, or had to wait for cable and home video.
B.C. The First Thanksgiving…I enjoyed watching it many years ago on TV. Now I watch it on YouTube. Better than most turkey day specials.
the Berenstain Bears Meet Big Paw, Davey and Goliath in “The Pilgrim Boy”