1973 was a particularly good
year for Thanksgiving specials. I mentioned B.C.: The First Thanksgiving
a few posts ago; this was its time. Abe Levitow of Looney Tunes fame directed
it, and it was made by his company, Levitow-Hanson Films. It premiered on NBC,
and in fact it originally opened with the turkey character doing a parody of
the NBC peacock logo, and B.C. smashing the ‘N’ off NBC, leaving the ‘BC’ to
morph into the show’s title. There is a short animation of ‘the boys’ chasing the
turkey, wherein B.C. announces (in a Jack Benny imitation) “You know … the only
reason we’re doing this … is because the supermarkets aren’t open on
Thanksgiving … you see.”
Since B.C. is set in the
Caveman Days, there are no Pilgrims or Native Americans, just the hunt for food.
After we see B.C. discover fire, cooking is invented, and the Fat Broad begins
preparing rock soup. Since the only way to flavor rock soup is with a dead
turkey, the hunt is on.
What follows is a series of
chase vignettes, reminiscent of the old Roadrunner cartoons, set up with and interspersed
with bits of schtick from the comic strip, including the Dookie Bird starting
the Turtle up like an engine and crashing him into a river, and B.C. as the
Midnight Skulker, who answers a heavy-breathing phone caller (now there’s a
Seventies trope for you!) that he says sounds just like a winded turkey (it
is). Meanwhile a passing dinosaur (Gronk) comes upon the kettle of rock soup,
drinks up most of the water, douses the fire, and spits the rocks back.
The boys return from the
futile hunt to find the rock soup even less ready than when they left. The Fat
Broad announces there is only one thing left to do: they will eat the rocks. After
she doles the rocks out, she declares they must pause and give thanks to ‘the
Great Provider.’ (Wylie: ‘That wouldn’t be you, would it?’) None of the cavemen
want to do it, but a mysterious voice pipes up and says it will lead them in
prayer. After declaring thanks for ‘these bountiful rocks’ to which the boys
echo ‘these miserable rocks’, the voice reveals that under its preachy tone, it
is the turkey. The boys rise in anger, and the chase is on again.
The turkey returns to the boulder
on which the Fat Broad is seated and announces (in Stan Laurel’s voice) “This
has been … the toughest day … of my whole life,” to which the Fat Broad replies
(a la Oliver Hardy) “Mine, too.” Then she actually takes a bite out of her Thanksgiving
rock. The turkey sneaks away past the Cute Chick who is going up the hill,
where she announces that it was nice of the Fat Broad to let the turkey go. Realizing
the situation, the angry cavewoman takes an enormous, frustrated bite out of
the boulder she was sitting on.
Once more the show was full
of famous voice actors. Daws Butler was B.C. (and others), with Bob Holt and Don
Messick rounding out the cast, and Joanie Sommers as the Cute Chick. The
special is available in several forms on YouTube. Another, more famous
Thanksgiving special also aired in 1973; we’ll be getting to that later.
I don’t recall it being
rerun much after that, but bits of it had already entered our common parlance.
We often recited ‘you know … and you see’ usually capped with childish
naughtiness ‘… and you make peepee.’ And many’s the time we would pause after
an epic chore to say to each other (with appropriate pauses) ‘This has been the
toughest day of my whole life.’ ‘Mine, too.’
