Was the Legendary ‘WKRP In Cincinnati’ Turkey Drop Episode Based on a Real Event?
What To Know
- The famous “Turkeys Away” episode of WKRP in Cincinnati featured a disastrous Thanksgiving promotion where live turkeys were dropped from a helicopter.
- This iconic episode, known for its absurd humor and memorable lines, was actually inspired by a real-life incident.
- “Turkeys Away” became one of the most beloved and talked-about episodes in television history.
On October 20, 1978, WKRP in Cincinnati aired an episode from its first season titled “Turkeys Away,” in which radio station manager Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson (Gordon Jump) launches a Thanksgiving promotion gone terribly wrong. Believing the plan to be a festive crowd-pleaser, Carlson arranges for live turkeys to be dropped from a helicopter—under the misguided assumption that the birds will gracefully take flight and land, ready for lucky listeners to collect for their holiday feast.
They did not.
The result was one of the funniest and most beloved moments in television history, as man-on-the-scene Les Nessman (Richard Sanders) delivered a breathless play-by-play of the pandemonium that erupted in a news report hilariously reminiscent of the Hindenburg disaster.
As a helicopter began dropping the flightless birds on the crowd, panic and fear set in on the vet newscaster as he yelled, “Oh my God! They’re turkeys! Oh no! Johnny, can you get this?!? Oh, they’re crashing to the earth right in front of our eyes! One just went through the windshield of a parked car!”
As Les loses his composure at the scene in front of him, he utters, “Oh my goodness! Oh, the humanity!”
After the feathered fiasco, which also included angry mobs and a possible turkey counterattack, Carlson uttered the now-iconic line: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
The episode helped cement WKRP in Cincinnati‘s reputation for blending absurd humor with sharp, relatable workplace chaos. The insanity of the situation, Les Nessman’s frantic reaction, and the dawning realization of the utter mayhem created a holiday classic for the ages. And according to writer, director, and series creator Hugh Wilson, the episode was, in fact, based on a true story.
“Jerry Blum, who is the general manager of WQXI, told me that he had been fired from a Texas station for throwing turkeys out of a helicopter. And I said to Jerry, ‘You just won me an Emmy,” revealed Wilson in a Television Academy interview. “That was based on a true story, and it was just hilarious. It was just as funny as it could be.”
In several reports, WQXI general manager Blum’s promotion occurred in the late 1950s in Dallas when he dropped turkeys off a pickup truck (not a helicopter). In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his son, Gary Blum, said his dad never did anything like that again. “The public went nuts fighting over the turkeys, and it was a mess…That was about the whole story. Hugh Wilson, the writer of the series, was a friend of the station when he was in the ad business in Atlanta. He used that story, along with other funny stories, and embellished them to come up with the many storylines in WKRP. To my knowledge, the turkey drop was never repeated.”
“I think what it did [was at the time] we were getting very good writeups from the critics and the reviewers, who counted maybe a little more now than they do now,” explained Wilson.
The episode became so popular that when CBS rebroadcast it on December 13, 1980, over the Christmas season, they included an intro from Gary Sandy, who played program director Andy Travis.
“Hi, I’m Gary Sandy. You know, of all the shows we’ve done on WKRP in the first three seasons, not one show ever generated the amount of mail — the amount of interest — as a show we did our very first season. It was called ‘Turkeys Away.’ So we kind of thought she might like to see it again. It’s about Thanksgiving, so naturally, we’ve chosen the Christmas season to show it to you. Happy holidays. Drums, please.” Then the theme song kicked in.
To this day, “Turkeys Away” remains the best Thanksgiving episode ever created to feature free-falling fowl, jittery journalists, and a complete misunderstanding of the laws of aerodynamics when applied to flightless birds.
TV Insider