2004 Thanksgiving Programming, Reviewed and Ranked

There are real Turkeys here. But some real delights. I put up with the turkey because it comes with stuffing, potatoes, and pie. Sometimes it's like that on TV too.

#11 According to Jim, "Hunters"

If you polled tv critics in 2004 and asked them "what is the worst comedy on tv," According to Jim would have won. The sitcom was going through a serious rough patch in 2004, and According to Jim became the poster child for the crisis.

I cannot help but be contrarian in the face of this much criticism. Maybe it isn't that bad. But then I saw star Jim Belushi on Conan. The vibes were bad. Belushi was aggressive and unpleasant. He stuck around while Conan interviewed rapper and sitcom star Eve. It's been 20 years but Eve: I am so sorry you had to sit next to that man on national television.

But I still wanted to watch an episode of According to Jim. It occupied a unique place in the television landscape of 2004. This Thanksgiving list provides the perfect opportunity.

I hated this episode. I hate this show. I hate Jim. Knowing that there are real families like this all over the world makes me feel outright despondent. Jim makes fun of his children's art projects. He complains that his breakfast is cold, and when his wife points out that she's about to spend eight hours cooking Thanksgiving dinner he all but says who cares. By the way, she is packing lunches during this entire conversation, while he whines and eats the food she prepared. The episode's central conflict is introduced (Jim can't hunt and provide like a real man) and he protests "I reeled you in didn't I?" The "you" in question is his wife. He says this in front of his children.

The rest of the episode involves him going hunting for Turkey, failing, and getting shot in the ass. Then after he's embarrassed in front of his family, he manages his reckless driving kills a Turkey anyway. See Jim? You're a man after all. Just keep doing what you're doing.

Throughout, there is an undercurrent of nastiness. His in-laws literally throw each other around, it's violent. On another show, this might read as physical comedy. Here, it reads as abuse.

In 2009, Belushi recalled the production of the pilot and how it shaped the rest of the show:

"The original script called for Jim to go to the wife and apologize," he recalls. "I said to the writers 'Why do we have to do a show where the guy is going to apologize at the end of every episode? Was he really wrong? He's contrite, sure. But isn't he just being a man?'"

If your family looks anything like the one in According to Jim, don't go home for Thanksgiving. Seriously.

#10 One on One, "Who Brought the Jive Turkey?"

Watch on Pluto TV

I'd never even heard of One on One before starting this project, but the episodes I watched were such a pleasant surprise. Not this one.

I was excited when the show's father and daughter pair were split up into two different friendsgivings. TV needed more friendsgiving representation in 2004. But Dad Flex's friendsgiving is hosted by his hot therapist, and it's entirely populated with women he has wronged. All the jokes are at their expense, aren't they just sad losers, and it's mean! And the other storyline is about how daughter Breanna needs to chill and let her boyfriend hang out and be a dude. But he should have appreciated the effort she made to cook Thanksgiving, even if the meal did look bad! Especially because he didn't lift a finger to help.

All in all, a bummer.

#9 78th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

As she and (ugh) Matt Lauer prepare for the start of this year's parade, Katie Couric quips "believe it or not, the temperature is a balmy 64 degrees...Maybe it’s global warming, I’m not sure." I want to walk into the (rising) sea.

I can stomach bad video quality, but the quality on all the videos from this parade is really bad and that marred my experience. I was at least hoping to see some great Broadway performances, but none of the really cool musicals from that year (The Light in the Piazza, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Spamalot) brought floats. My favorite part was seeing the Rockettes perform to the hot chocolate song from The Polar Express.

#8 Half and Half "The Big Thanks for Nothing Episode"

Watch on Pluto TV

Half and Half is about two women who discover they're half sisters in young adulthood, so it's tailor-made for a chaotic Thanksgiving episode. And they deliver: lots of tension, sick burns, a cameo by a real life TV chef, and people drinking the cooking wine. I had fun.

#7 American Dreams "What Dreams May Come"

This episode featured the birth of a child, Vietnam war action, Milo Ventimiglia teaching Brittany Snow about stargazing, and Thanksgiving dinner. But my favorite storyline focused on the show's Black cast. Sam's new girlfriend is from old Black money, and Sam is attracted to that. But he's also ashamed of his own background: last episode he avoided inviting her to Thanksgiving and made things awkward back home. This episode he starts to gain access to her circles. But he doesn't like what he sees. He's thrilled that they have connections to Thurgood Marshall, less thrilled when they criticize Marshall for his desire to uplift "all negroes," even the ones backing bad decisions and disturbing the peace in those neighborhoods. Sam stands there silently, but later he goes to a track meet and has to spend hours finding a hotel that will let him in. When he tells his girlfriend about it, she wants to ignore it. That stuff happens "over there" and he shouldn't have to worry about it. He should join her in her bubble. He refuses, and it's very satisfying.

#6 Everybody Loves Raymond "Debra's Parents"

Available on Peacock and Paramount+

I'm jumping in in the ninth and final season of Everybody Loves Raymond. And so far it's been going great! The show is still in tip-top shape, and the stories are so episodic that I don't feel like I'm missing too much.

This is the first episode where I feel poorer for not having seen the previous eight seasons. The story concerns the arrival of Debra's parents for Thanksgiving, and the subsequent revelation that they're having casual sex post-divorce. The episode is hilarious, and builds beautifully to a gut-busting climax. But a lot of the jokes depend on your assumed familiarity with Debra's parents and their tension with Ray's parents. And the episode's emotional core is about Debra wishing her parents would get back together. And I'm sure that would hit a lot harder if I'd seen her heartbreak when her parents divorced.

#5 Girlfriends "Porn to Write

This episode takes place on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and it captures that unique vibe when you have to return to your regular problems after a long weekend.

I love Maya's publishing storyline, you can tell that someone in this writers' room spent time in the trenches. Maya thought she made it when she booked an agent, but what if her agent sucks. Now she's dealing bootleggers (e.g. Lynn) and struggling to find other work. Should she work for a porn mill? Should she work for this low-rent lawfirm? It's all very real! In the end, she is saved when Al Sharpton (who was truly everywhere this year, good grief) plugs her book. But she can always return to the porn mill. Her suspicion that "freaky Christian women" want porn is very correct and I wouldn't mind returning to the porn mill. It was a great setting.

Elsewhere, Joan and William have a big (and very funny) fight. I love the moment when she takes all the Thanksgiving stuff out of the freezer. And we're finally acknowledging how lazy Toni's pregnancy storylines have been.

Available on Netflix and for free on PlutoTV

#4 Listen Up! "Thanksgiving"

You know what? This episode of the final show afflicted by the Seinfeld curse is...good.

Listen Up! was based on the life of sports columnist and TV host Tony Kornheiser. Kornheiser was much better known for the ESPN show he co-hosted with Michael Wilbon than for his columns in the Washington Post focusing on his family life. But the rights to the columns were cheaper.

Thus, the early days of Listen Up! look like a bog-standard 2000s sitcom in which a famous comedian (Jason Alexander) plays a schlubby guy who yells a lot and has a hot wife. But people noticed that his work life looked more interesting. Not only did they have better source material, but Alexander's co-host was played by Malcolm Jamal-Warner, AKA Theo from The Cosby Show. Maybe these two sitcom veterans could give the show some life.

The Thanksgiving episode of Listen Up! brings the show's two worlds together, as Jamal-Warner comes over for the holiday. He brings his mother (Marla Gibbs from The Jeffersons), and the most proper woman he can find, all to convince his mother that he's a square and not a high-living playboy.¹ This charade involves wearing a Cosby sweater, and the show gets tons of good jokes out of that.

Meanwhile, Jason Alexander and Malcolm Jamal-Warner decide to bet on the big game, only Alexander doesn't know how to gamble, so he accidentally bets $20,000 dollars. There's also a c-story involving the kids, a broken table, and a bunch of plastic wrap.

It's all meat and potatoes sitcom storytelling, but it works, it's funny. The jokes are good, the running gags pay off, and Marla Gibbs adds a fresh energy to the proceedings, the way a good special guest star should (she gets some especially nice scenes with her Jamal-Warner and with Wendy McKenna as the wife). Most of all, Alexander and Jamal-Warner have really good friend chemistry and they're both fully dialed in. This is a quality sitcom episode.

#3 Late Night with Conan O'Brien (Nov. 25, 2004)

Maybe you're alone and sad, or recovering from dinner with the family, or avoiding talking to your Dad. But if you're watching a late-night talk show on Thanksgiving, you need it to be good.

So it's a good thing that Late Night with Conan O'Brien delivered one of the best episode I've seen since starting this project. The opening segments aren't promising (did you know that Ruben Studdard is fat?). But once Steve Irwin arrives, it's all bangers all the time. Steve Irwin brings tons of enthusiasm and a truly enormous snake that will not behave, it's chaotic and delightful. Then there's one of the best taped segments I've seen them do, starring Christ Gethard (!) about freshmen coming home for Thanksgiving. It rules.

The last guest of the night is Paul Giamatti, who had just hit the big time with Sideways. The fall of 2004 was a rough time for studio releases, and after weeks of hosting the stars of clunkers like After the Sunset and Alexander, Conan is clearly thrilled to give a movie his honest endorsement. And Giamatti is a great guest, their interview is irreverent and delightful.

The full episode is available on archive.org.

#2 The NFL Thanksgiving Halftime Show with Destiny's Child

Just watch it. It's amazing. Gorgeous acapella harmonies, crazy vocal runs, intense dancing, all three members ate at the top of their game. There are hordes of backup dancers and a ginormous marching band. "Lose My Breath" with its athletic subject matter and marching band orchestration, was pretty much made for this moment and it sounds amazing. It also marks an interesting moment in Beyonce's career.

This was the first major NFL halftime performance post-Janet and Justin. So there was a lot of pressure on both Destiny's Child and the NFL. The league had to approve their lyrics and outfits. But Destiny's Child delivered. The show is spectacular, and no one could argue that it wasn't All-American. Military salutes, a flyover, a song called "Soldier," they made the censors happy. And they made everyone happy because the show was amazing. There's some debate about the best Super Bowl Halftime show. But not with the Thanksgiving one. It's Destiny's Child.

It marked the beginning of Beyonce's relationship with the NFL. She would use that platform in more halftime performances at the Super Bowl, and those performances put forward a very different vision of America. Someone should really write an academic paper about this.

#1 King of the Hill "A Rover Runs Through It"

Available on Hulu

I honestly think I missed a lot here. It’s the first full episode of King of the Hill I’ve ever watched, and I was pretty tired. Everyone went to visit the family in Montana for Thanksgiving and there was a land dispute with Henry Winkler, simmering family tensions boiling over, a lot of film references I didn’t get, and a pretty complex political argument. A lot of it went right over my head, I could practically hear the whooshing sound.

And yet, I still loved this episode. The emotional throughline about the matriarch resenting her mother is pitch perfect. The animation is gorgeous, the Montana scenery is beautifully rendered. The score is gorgeous too, melodic and understated, and the show as a whole is surprisingly meditative and poetic. Even if I didn’t understand the satire, I could tell it was thoughtful and far from half-baked. The Henry Winkler cameo gives the show an opportunity to comment on out of touch Hollywood elites, but it never gets preachy. The climax at the end of the episode involves the main characters righteously driving cattle down main street to teach Henry Winkler a lesson about small-town justice. But even then, things are undercut by the name of the town: Osage. I’m willing to bet that choice of name is no accident, especially in a Thanksgiving episode, and it amounts to a sort of…land acknowledgement, undercutting the heroes’ righteousness.

Most of all, I’m surprised by how sweet the show is. I never expected that from a Mike Judge project! Underneath all the satire and silly jokes, you can tell that this family really does love each other. The end of the episode, when the parents look at their kid having the time of his life on a horse in the gorgeous Montana scenery...it made me feel things!