I dunno if I made it clear but the WKRP in Cincinnati episode with the turkeys is on TV Land this weekend. Depending on your time zone and cable company, it will probably air either at 9:30 Saturday evening or three hours after that. Speaking of which, my pal TV writer Michael Reaves sends the following info on it…
The justly-famous turkey episode of WKRP (right up there with "Chuckles the Clown", IMHO), was, as I'm sure you know, written by Bill Dial, a very nice man who was later a producer on Sliders. When I wrote for that show I asked him about the story's genesis, and he said the idea came from a PR man's plan for a stunt to advertise the opening of some public attraction. It was planned, but fortunately never executed (and I use the word in every possible sense here). Bill said the same guy also planned another stunt, in which there would be a small "farm" in the middle of a mall, with ducks who would dance to country music — they'd be inspired to "dance" by the electrical current heating the floor of the set. And they say American entrepreneurship is dead…
One other interesting thing about the "turkey" segment: It was only the seventh episode taped of WKRP, and I don't think the series had even gone on the air yet. Most long-running sitcoms do their most memorable episodes after the show has been around for a while and things have shaken down. The Mary Tyler Moore Show's infamous "Chuckles Bites the Dust," for instance, was a sixth season episode. If we were to compile a list of great episodes of shows, I'll bet very few of them would be from the first thirteen. Bill Dial and the folks at WKRP had their act together almost from day one.