80s culture · 80s nostalgia · 80s tv · holidays · thanksgiving ·Nov 14, 2026

Thanksgiving in the 80s: The Parade, the Table, the Football and the One Great Movie

by Newretro.Net

In 1986 the American Farm Bureau priced out a Thanksgiving dinner for ten people for the first time. Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls and butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, coffee and milk. The total came to $28.74. The next year it came in at $24.51, so the holiday actually got cheaper.

The menu has barely moved since. Everything around it has: who was hosting the parade, who was yelling about the football game, which sitcom threw a pie at whom, and how long you'd be stuck in an airport. Most of the day happened in front of the TV.

The morning: balloons, hosts and the occasional casualty

The Macy's parade had been on NBC since 1953, and in the 80s the network kept changing who sat in the booth. Ed McMahon hosted through 1981. Then came Bryant Gumbel, Sarah Purcell and, from 1984 to 1986, Pat Sajak. Since 1982 NBC has put at least one Today show host in the co-host chair, which is why the parade still feels like a long episode of morning TV.

The balloons got a new maker in 1984. Raven Industries of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, built them from then until 2019, and its first two for the parade were Garfield and Raggedy Ann. Spider-Man became the first Marvel balloon in 1987, taking over from a retired Superman. Big Bird arrived in 1988, and Bugs Bunny showed up in 1989 riding a gold star for his 50th birthday.

Big balloons in Manhattan wind do not always make it. In 1985 Kermit the Frog snagged on trees and limped to the end of the route before going flat. At some point in the decade Olive Oyl's hand caught at 72nd Street and Central Park West and came off. Superman lost an arm to a tree branch in the middle of the decade, though nobody agrees on the year.

The worst parade day was the last one of the decade. On November 23, 1989, the parade marched through a wind-driven snowstorm with roughly five inches of snow in Central Park. The Daily News called it the first Thanksgiving snowstorm in 51 years. Snoopy's nose got punctured and the brand-new Bugs Bunny tore along one side. Turnout was described as "light to medium."

Illustration of a giant parade balloon floating between tall city buildings above a crowd

The table: what was actually on it

Most of the 80s Thanksgiving table was older than the decade. Stove Top stuffing launched in 1972, invented by Ruth Siems at General Foods. Green bean casserole was created in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly in Campbell's test kitchen in Camden, New Jersey, and first printed on cans as "Green Bean Bake." Canned cranberry sauce had been national since 1941, ridges and all.

The new thing was help. In the 1981 holiday season Butterball opened its Turkey Talk-Line, a toll-free number staffed by six home economists. They answered about 11,000 questions that first year. The most common one is how long a frozen turkey takes to thaw. If you've ever stood in a kitchen on Wednesday night staring at a rock-hard bird, you understand why the line still exists.

Not every 80s pantry staple was doing well, though. Jell-O sales had been sliding since the 1960s, and a 1986 study found that mothers of young kids rarely bought it. Sugar-free Jell-O replaced D-Zerta in 1984, and a late-80s push for Jigglers helped bring sales back.

The afternoon: Madden, the Lions and the Cowboys

The football schedule was already fixed. The Detroit Lions have hosted a Thanksgiving game since 1934, and the Dallas Cowboys have hosted since 1966. In the 80s CBS carried the NFC games, and that meant John Madden, who started calling Thanksgiving games in 1981. In 1989 he started handing out a turkey leg to the game's best player. Reggie White got the first one.

Two games stand out. On November 27, 1980, the Bears trailed the Lions 17-3 in the fourth quarter at the Pontiac Silverdome. Vince Evans ran in a touchdown as time expired, Bob Thomas tied it, and Dave Williams returned the overtime kickoff 95 yards to win it 23-17. The overtime lasted about 13 seconds, the shortest in NFL history at the time, and it was the first Thanksgiving game ever to go to overtime.

The other one was nastier. On Thanksgiving 1989 the Eagles beat the Cowboys 27-0 in what became known as the Bounty Bowl. Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson accused Philadelphia's Buddy Ryan of putting a $200 bounty on his kicker, Luis Zendejas, and on Troy Aikman. Ryan denied it. At the rematch in Philadelphia that December, fans threw snowballs, ice and beer, and the stadium later banned beer sales.

Illustration of sliced canned cranberry sauce on a plate beside a green bean casserole

The evening: Thanksgiving on TV

The best-known Thanksgiving sitcom episode of the decade is Cheers, "Thanksgiving Orphans," which aired November 27, 1986. It ends in a food fight. Sam throws cranberry sauce at Diane, and Diane's pumpkin pie hits Vera, and that's the joke: Vera's face is never shown on the show, so it arrives covered in pie. The fight was filmed twice and only partly planned. The leftover food went to charity, and the crew still got angry letters about wasting food. It pulled a 38 share, and TV Guide later ranked it seventh on its list of the 100 greatest episodes.

Other 80s shows did their own versions. Family Ties had a 1982 episode where Steven and Elyse end up in jail after an anti-nuclear rally and the family brings the turkey to them. Full House did "The Miracle of Thanksgiving" in 1987, and A Different World had "If You Like Pilgrim Coladas" in 1988. The WKRP turkey drop that everyone remembers aired in 1978, so it belongs to the 70s.

The movie: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The 80s Thanksgiving movie people still watch came out on November 25, 1987. John Hughes wrote, produced and directed it after a real trip: as an ad executive he got stranded by snow, diverted to Phoenix, and turned a one-day trip into five. He wrote the first 60 pages in six hours.

Steve Martin plays Neal Page, trying to get home to Chicago. John Candy plays Del Griffith, a shower-curtain-ring salesman who will not leave him alone. The production had its own travel problem: Chicago didn't have enough snow, so the shoot moved to Buffalo, back to Chicago, to New York, and finally to Los Angeles for the highway scenes. The first cut ran somewhere between three and three-quarter and four and a half hours, depending on who tells it.

The car rental counter scene, where Martin swears at Edie McClurg for about a minute straight, earned the film its R rating. McClurg improvised her whole phone call at the counter. It opened third, made about $49.5 million in the US, and Roger Ebert later put it on his Great Movies list.

The next morning: Black Friday gets a name

"Black Friday" started as Philadelphia police slang in the 1950s for the traffic and crowds the day after Thanksgiving. The New York Times first used it in 1975, still about Philadelphia. The explanation everyone repeats, that stores go from red ink to black, first showed up in print in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1981. The Inquirer printed that explanation decades after the police slang. The term spread across the country in the early 80s, though as late as 1985 retailers in Cincinnati and Los Angeles told the Inquirer they had never heard it.

How to do an 80s Thanksgiving this year

Use the 1986 menu. The Farm Bureau list above is a ready-made shopping list. Canned cranberry with the ridges is mandatory.
Put the parade on early. Spot the characters that were already flying in the 80s.
Watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles after dinner. Then put on Cheers for dessert, and keep the pie away from the guests.
Dress like you're the cool uncle. A jacket you can keep on for the backyard football game and a tee that looks good on the couch.

On the couch, our Stand By T-Shirt 1983 ($34.99) fits a day spent in front of the TV, and the Retro Winter Jacket ($84.99) goes on for the backyard game. If you want a statement for dinner, there's the Color Film Bomber 1983 ($149.99). For more food from the decade, read the craziest 80s food fads we loved, and if you're hosting a themed get-together later in the season, try our 80s party food ideas.

Questions we get

What did people eat at Thanksgiving in the 80s? Roughly what the Farm Bureau priced in 1986: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray and pumpkin pie. Stove Top, green bean casserole and canned cranberry sauce were already standard.

How much did Thanksgiving dinner cost in the 1980s? The first Farm Bureau survey in 1986 put a meal for ten at $28.74. In 1987 it was $24.51.

When did the Butterball hotline start? In the 1981 holiday season, with six home economists who answered about 11,000 questions.

Who hosted the Macy's parade in the 80s? NBC rotated hosts: Ed McMahon through 1981, then Bryant Gumbel, Sarah Purcell and, from 1984 to 1986, Pat Sajak, among others.

Is Planes, Trains and Automobiles a Thanksgiving movie? Yes. It follows two men trying to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving and was released on November 25, 1987.

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