Nickelodeon's Thanksgiving Feast review

Let's face it, few people care for Thanksgiving nowadays, at least when it comes to a marketing standpoint. People are pushing for Christmas now more than ever, which is why we're getting promotions for the latter as early as mid-October. The only thing keeping Christmas alive is the monetary gain, to hell with family gathering and eating yourself to a diabetic demise. But as long as my family's around, I'll be around to pick up the pieces.

Anyway, Nicktoons, they began the the same year the Cold War ended, and I believe they don't need any introduction. But, did you know that there were some predecessors that would lay the groundwork for Nicktoons as we know them? Nickelodeon's Thanksgiving Feast is the catalyst that led to Nicktoons, coming out in 1989 (there was another special that came out the year before, but for another day.) It was produced by Vanessa Coffey, a name you may recognize from the first few Nicktoons. You can thank her for paving the way for those shows.

The special remained in circulation until 1996, later resurfacing on The Splat. Unfortunately, that's as much as I could dig up on the special's history. Good for you, not for me, let's carve this turkey.

Structure

This special contains two stories, with interludes between each of them. The interludes, visually, may look familiar to people who grew up with Nickelodeon up to that point. They were directed by Joey Ahlbum, who directed the singing dinosaurs bumper, among others. For these, they are comedic looks into the ins and outs of Thanksgiving, mainly focusing on how turkeys celebrate the holiday. Gee, I wonder what the twist will be? I wonder I wonder I- humans. Enough said. Can't be mad over something from the late-80s with a young audience. That's where the first story comes in, more on that in a bit.

The interludes were directed by Ahlbum, but the stories were handled by a different studio down in the Philippines. Apparently, their prints came back corrupted, leading to otherwise iffy results. This is apparent in the second story, where for the first quarter, it's presented through still images. But, for the times where the animation is proper, it's okay, it lacks a unique style but I give them props for trying something to shake things up for the special.

The Stories

Both stories are essentially polar opposites, told from different periods and obviously different execution.

Thanksgiving Nightmare is set in a modern period and really pushes the envelope on the food aspect. We start with a fat family finishing off a meal, and they don't want anything to go to waste, which is why the mother loses her shit when a bone lands near her cat. This is the making of a decent dark comedy, but that's nothing compared to a war between rats and cockroaches.

And most of you know the aesthetic by now, both teams are against one another but find a common enemy, this is all to get something valuable to the humans, they get what they need, the enemy is blamed and the humans are non the wiser to what happened.

Name a rats against coackroaches, a cat, the thanksgiving meal, both teams getting it, the cat is caught in the crime scene and is kicked out. This annoys the hell out of me, maybe I just hate guilt by association, or I've seen Tom and Jerry too many times (and that cartoon is cliche as hell.) The cat snags a piece of turkey upon getting out, but to me it feels kinda hollow, and leaves me in a rare instance where I expect something bad to happen to the family (they're an ice cream away from a coronary.)

Thanksgiving Dreams is set in the depression. Let's see, we're told about what everyone didn't have back in the day, we center on a family who's going through turmoil, the tone is mellow dramatic, the kids are optimistic. What, you expected a joke? This is how the first quarter goes, and as I said, this is where the animation quality dips. I can't even cap it to do it justice. Anyways, it's nearing Thanksgiving, and the kids realize that they will be without a proper meal come that day, all they have to salvage are cans of beans.

It picks up when the kids go to bed. They shrink down and begin interacting with anthropomorphic food, and that's not a throwaway line, that's an actual summary. Nothing interesting happens until the boy knocks yeast into the dough and creates a bread-based monster. From there, a fight occurs and that finishes out the dream.

I know I'm slacking here, but this special gives me nothing to work with. For something that's meant to be outrageous, it's ironically played straight.

Anyhow, the kids wake from their dream, but apparently it wasn't. They go downstairs and find that a feast has been prepared, but it wasn't at the hands of the mother. We get an implication that the dream was real, given by a clue where the mother sneezes due to how peppery most of the food is... I'm stumped, how did we go from there to this? Did the kids sleepwalk and steal food for themselves? Was the monster meant to symbolize something? Is it just magic and nothing else?

Conclusion

I don't know what I could say. It's not weird enough to be memorable, it's not spectacular, but I guess it did play a part in Nicktoons becoming a thing. Not good enough? Maybe Thanksgiving is best left to bottle episodes.