After a lovely Thanksgiving Day, I got the girls to bed (S. is working tonight), did some dishes, made some formula for the night, watched some random TV, and finally, around 11:30, got around to pouring myself a glass of Jameson and sitting down to watch the greatest episode of Cheers ever produced, The Thanksgiving Orphans. I got about ten minutes into it when I had a shocking revelation: this year marks the 20th anniversary of the episode. There should have been a commemorative edition on Nick at Night or TV Land. Instead, Cheers is no where to be found on their schedules these days. Although the local channel that airs Cheers slotted this episode in at 9:30 this morning, they usually run episodes at 2:30 AM or in random slots on the weekends. When Cheers starts disappearing from TV, you know you’re getting old. There ought to be a law that Cheers is aired at least once a day on at least one station in every market in the country.
I had another revelation while watching the show (Jameson is a fine Irish whisky, so it isn’t uncommon to have revelations when enjoying it): one day my girls will make fun of me for my little Thanksgiving tradition. Ten years, maybe more, from now, I’m always going to have a tape or DVD or whatever the medium is then of The Thanksgiving Orphans stocked away somewhere. On Thanksgiving night, after dinner and clean-up or traveling back to our house, depending on if we host or head to relatives’ for the day, I’ll pour myself a glass of something nice, nothing blended of course, grab the tape or DVD or whatever, and pop it in. As I laugh until the tears come, my girls will shake their heads and say, “There’s dad, watching his olde time TV programme.” (They won’t actually say that, but I like the way that looks on the screen.) Then they’ll run out to meet friends or go shopping or whatever it is they’ll want to do while their old man sits on the couch, watching a show that will then be over 30 years old, but be no less funny than the first time I taped it in 1986. (I had that tape for a long, long time, which had the added bonus of live coverage of the Plaza Lights in Kansas City being turned on.)
One funny side note, I caught a few minutes of the episode as it aired this morning. When Diane comes to Carla’s door in her pilgrim costume, M. said, “Trick or treat!” Poor girl is fixated on trick or treating now. When the UPS man rang the doorbell Tuesday, she said the same thing.
I hope all had happy and safe Thanksgivings. A little Thanksgiving music post is still to come, as I didn’t complete it before the holiday.
Now Playing: <strong>Out Of Touch</strong> by <a href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Hall%20&%20Oates%22″>Hall & Oates</a>