WKRP in Cincinnati “Turkeys Away” (October 30, 1978)

WKRP’s twisted Thanksgiving episode was an instant classic and makes all the “best-of” lists now, but I’d never heard of it the first time I came across a rerun and was floored by the audacity of its gore-drenched punchline.  Implied gore, that is.  The setup is that Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump), the station’s synaptically-challenged owner, resents the notion that he’s merely a figurehead and so plans a “special” holiday promotion.  Much of what follows is innocuous, as if to soften us up for the revelation – via Les Nessman’s (Richard Sanders) hilarious parody of the Hindenburg radio broadcast – that Carlson has contrived to bombard a store parking lot with live turkeys dropped from an airplane.  “As God is my witness, I would’ve sworn turkeys could fly,” is Carlson’s classic line explaining his miscalculation.  Such was the confidence of creator-producer Hugh Wilson and writer Bill Dial that most of the payoff (namely, the priceless array of shell-shocked expressions on the faces of the show’s peerless ensemble) plays out under the closing credits.