7 Disastrous TV Thanksgivings — No, Thanks! (PHOTOS)
Thanksgiving Live
We all screw up our Thanksgiving dinners, but at least we don’t have millions of TV viewers watching live. Poor Giada De Laurentiis, seen here on Today afterwards, cut her finger while carving the turkey during a commercial break of Food Network’s live special in 2013 and needed to get stitches.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Pangs”
The Scooby Gang’s Turkey Day festivities get interrupted by the vengeful spirits of the Chumash tribe. Joss Whedon & Co. may have been illuminating the holiday’s complicated history, but the episode’s portrayal of Native Americans was controversial, to say the least.
Gossip Girl, “Blair Waldorf Must Pie!”
Rufus (Matthew Settle) and Lily (Kelly Rutherford) make the Upper East Siders’ Thanksgiving dinner awkward when their children learn of their romantic history. And on top of that, Howard (Sam Robards) suffers an overdose son Nate (Chace Crawford) doesn’t think was accidental.
Dexter, “Hungry Man”
Dexter (Michael C. Hall) attends a terrifying dinner at the home of Arthur Mitchell (John Lithgow), a.k.a. the show’s Trinity Killer, who spends the holiday locking his daughter in her room breaking his son’s finger, and calling his wife a nasty word.
Felicity, “Thanksgiving”
No sooner do Felicity (Keri Russell) and Noel (Scott Foley) share their first kiss than Noel’s girlfriend, Hannah—played by Foley’s future ex-wife, the one and only Jennifer Garner—shows up to crash the college pals’ dorm-room Thanksgiving.
Seinfeld, “The Mom & Pop Store”
Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) wins a radio contest on behalf of her boss, Mr. Pitt (Ian Abercrombie), getting him a spot under the Woody Woodpecker balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) ruins that experience, though, by knocking his dentist’s Empire State Building sculpture out of a window and popping the balloon.
Friends, “The One With All the Thanksgivings”
Not just one disastrous Thanksgiving, but many, which play out in flashbacks: Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) describes losing an arm in a past life, Joey (Matt LeBlanc) gets a turkey stuck on his head, and Monica (Courteney Cox) overhears Chandler (Matthew Perry) call her overweight and later severs his toe—accidentally!
As much as your Thanksgiving airfare might cost, as dry as your turkey might turn out, and as awkward as your dinner table conversations might be, Turkey Days probably won’t be as bad as the televised Thanksgivings in this gallery.
See Also
Which TV Family Should You Spend Thanksgiving With? (QUIZ)
From Buffy to Friends, and from Dexter to Gossip Girl, here are the times Thanksgivings went awry on TV.
Relive the unfortunate twists of fate (and twists of the carving knife) in the gallery above!
