The Best '80s Thanksgiving TV Episodes, Ranked — Including Cheers' Legendary Food Fight

The holiday season invites food, family, friends, and evenings spent watching themed episodes of our favorite TV shows. But while Christmas calls for warm and fuzzy fare — and, yes, all those outdated Hallmark Channel Christmas movie tropes about big-city girls falling for small-town tree farmers — Thanksgiving hits a little differently on the small screen. Mixed in with the messaging about the importance of gratitude are episodes that poke fun at familial relationships, the stress of maintaining traditions, and the kitchen mishaps that threaten to ruin the big feast. 

The 1980s brought us a veritable cornucopia of sitcoms and hour-long dramas, many of which covered the joys and pitfalls of Thanksgiving at one point or another. We sorted through them all and picked out the best nine, based on their IMDb ratings (and a little favoritism on our part). One classic episode — the "Stairway to Heaven" of Turkey Day offerings, if you will — stands out, as technically it should have been included in our best Thanksgiving TV episodes of the '70s. But it was pipped to the post. There are other great examples that aren't too far behind on the list too. So, set your streaming playlist now and enjoy watching these retro faves as the turkey cooks.

Family get-togethers for the holidays tend to be either heartwarming or drama-filled. In the case of this Season 7 Thanksgiving episode of "Alice," viewers were treated to the latter. Waitress/aspiring performer Alice Hyatt (Linda Lavin) gets an unexpected holiday visit from her mother, who promptly tries to run her life. Things get even more fraught when Mom announces she wants to move to Phoenix and live with Alice! Doris Roberts in her pre-"Everybody Loves Raymond" days guested as the overbearing mother, a role she was born to play. This episode currently has a 6.7/10 user rating on IMDb.

Behind the humor of this Season 1 holiday episode (turkey burned to charcoal, a smashed pumpkin pie, a bottle stuck to Joey's tongue) lay the heart of this beloved family sitcom. It's the first Thanksgiving since the death of Pam (Christie Mossman) — Danny's (John Posey) wife and Jesse's (John Stamos) sister — and both men are grieving as they try to make the day happy for Danny's daughters. Rather than gloss over this huge family loss, "Full House" acknowledged it and showed that we can still find joy and gratitude even through pain. This episode holds a 7.2/10 ranking on IMDb, at the time of writing. 

Season 3 of the divorced-mom-roommates comedy "Kate & Allie" finds Allie (Jane Curtin) frantically preparing a big Thanksgiving dinner for a hungry crowd and discovering she accidentally added cleanser to the turkey baste. With all the supermarkets out of birds, she turns to a soup kitchen for a last-minute donation. Adding to the stress, most of the guests drop out, leaving Allie alone with Claire (Wendie Malick), the new wife her ex left her for. The tension between the women is thicker than cold gravy, but they finally come to an understanding — just in time for dinner — once Allie realizes she's better off single. This classic episode is currently rated 7.4/10 by fans on IMDb.

The quirkiness of the show's small-town Vermont residents came out in full force during this Season 5 holiday offering of "Newhart." Dick Loudon's (Bob Newhart) plans for dinner at home with wife Joanna (Mary Frann) are thwarted when their electricity is cut off. Next stop: The Vanderkellens, where a family quarrel leaves everyone hungry again. Everyone reluctantly heads to the Minuteman Cafe to face the questionable culinary skills of Larry, Darryl and Darryl. Dick says grace, noting, "We thank you for the abundance in our lives, and for the food we are about to eat [...] please protect us," (via YouTube). At the time of writing, this installment has a 7.6/10 rating on IMDb.

Who doesn't love a little intrigue to go with the cranberry sauce? The first season of the Southern girl-power sitcom "Designing Women" found the Sugarbaker sisters welcoming their mother, Perky (Louise Latham), and her friend, Bernice (Alice Ghostley), who later became a recurring character, to their Thanksgiving table. But when Julia (Dixie Carter) spots a newspaper headline about the murder of one of their clients, the women wonder whether Anthony (Meshach Taylor), their handyman with a prison past, could have done it. Of course, Anthony is innocent, and he hints that the guilt-ridden Sugarbakers owe him a raise by way of an apology. This fan-favorite episode currently has an impressive 8.0/10 rating on IMDb from 149 users.

This episode of "WKRP in Cincinnati" received an impressive 8.0/10 from 13,000 IMDb users, making it easily the most-reviewed entry on this list. Though it first aired in 1978, we're cheating a little because no Thanksgiving roundup would be complete without a mention of the WKRP turkey-drop promotion gone horribly awry. As the chaos unfolds, news reporter Les Nessman (Richard Sanders) helplessly stands by and describes the birds landing "like sacks of wet cement," (per YouTube). Afterwards, all the dazed station owner Mr. Carlson (Gordon Jump) can say is, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

You think your holidays are a disaster? Tell that to the Harper family, whose Thanksgiving was nearly ruined by a tornado in Season 3 of "Mama's Family." Trapped in the basement — the wind wedges an ironing board against the door — Mama (Vicki Lawrence) and her kin snipe at one another while Iola (Beverly Archer) gets progressively snookered on Aunt Effie's (Dorothy Van) potent rum balls. Worse, Mama is horrified to discover that Naomi (Dorothy Lyman) accidentally broke her favorite gravy boat. But, like all good sitcom episodes, this one ends happily with the family back upstairs, sitting down to enjoy their turkey meal. On IMDb, 117 fans have rated this episode of "Mama's Family" 8.6/10. 

This howler from Season 5 of legendary sitcom "Cheers" has been called not just one of the best Thanksgiving episodes, but one of the best moments in TV, period. The Boston bar gang assembles at Carla's (Rhea Perlman) for a Thanksgiving potluck, but patience wears thin and tempers rise when Norm's (George Wendt) "Birdzilla" takes forever to cook. One flicked pea is all it takes to set off a no-holds-barred food-flinging free-for-all. They actually filmed the scene twice(!!), which created an, um, aromatic situation. "The smell of the food fight was unbelievable," Shelley Long, who played Diane, complained to Yahoo! TV in 2015, though she quickly added, "But it was worth it." On IMDb, 871 fans have rated this episode 8.6/10, placing it slightly ahead of "Mama's Family" (we also prefer it, personally). 

Denzel Washington once said he never wanted to give up his role on "St. Elsewhere," and it's easy to see why. As Dr. Philip Chandler, the Oscar winner was an integral part of the celebrated medical drama, including the Season 2 episode "A Wing and a Prayer." The exciting Thanksgiving plotline features some gut-wrenching moments, such as a young boy with leukemia symptoms and Dr. Auschlander's (Norman Lloyd) own tough battle with cancer, but the day takes a happier turn as the staff arrange their own Thanksgiving dinner at the hospital. The gut-wrenching installment holds an 8.7/10 rating on IMDb at the time of writing, so it nabs the top spot on our list by a percentage point.