I saw it live and almost died of laughter:
The CBS sitcom aired from 1978 to 1982 and built a devoted audience, but no episode became as iconic as this one. In “Turkeys Away,” station manager Arthur Carlson (Gordon Jump) attempts a top-secret holiday promotion that goes terribly, hilariously wrong: dropping live turkeys out of a helicopter in a shopping mall parking lot. On-the-ground reporter Les Nessman (Richard Sanders) provides the now-famous play-by-play, including his dead-serious tribute to the Hindenburg disaster: “Oh, the humanity!”
Fans still search for it every year — “WKRP turkey drop full episode,” “WKRP Turkeys Away streaming,” “As God is my witness WKRP,” “Can turkeys fly?” are all searched en masse on Turkey Day, proving the episode remains one of TV’s most enduring Thanksgiving traditions.
As unbelievable as the episode sounds, it was actually rooted in real radio-world lore.
Series creator Hugh Wilson, who began his career in Atlanta advertising, based fictional station WKRP on “Quixie in Dixie,” the real top-40 station WQXI-AM. Many characters were inspired by station personalities, including Dr. Johnny Fever (loosely based on Bobby Harper), Herb Tarlek (influenced by salesman Clarke Brown), and Arthur Carlson (drawn partly from station manager Jerry Blum).
And according to multiple people who were there? Something like the turkey drop did happen.
Wilson said that Blum told him about a disastrous turkey giveaway he orchestrated in Texas — throwing turkeys from a helicopter, only to learn (too late) that turkeys don’t exactly soar. Others later insisted the incident happened in Atlanta, and that the birds were tossed from a truck instead. Either way, the stories all ended the same: absolute chaos, confused crowds and stunned radio staffers discovering firsthand that turkeys cannot fly.
Wilson immediately knew the tale was sitcom gold. “Jerry said it was a horrible disaster,” Wilson recalled. “So I said to him at the time, ‘Jerry, I think you just won me an Emmy.’”
Unfortunately, WKRP in Cincinnati did not win an Emmy for this episode, though it was nominated for 10 Emmys over its run, winning once for editing.
When “Turkeys Away” aired on October 30, 1978, it was meant to be a simple Thanksgiving episode — until it unexpectedly turned WKRP into something of a pop-culture phenomenon. Much of the comedy comes from what viewers don’t see: the turkeys themselves never appear on camera. Instead, Les Nessman’s breathless narration paints the entire catastrophe with radio-drama intensity:
- “One just went through the windshield of a parked car!”
- “This is terrible! Oh, the humanity!”
- “The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!”
Back at the station, Johnny Fever, Bailey, Venus and Andy listen in horror as the carnage unfolds live on-air.
And then comes the line — famous enough to be printed on T-shirts, mugs and Thanksgiving memes for 45 years and counting. As Carlson returns, dazed and feather-covered, he delivers the single most quoted moment in WKRP history:
“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
Classic.
Update: More goo to go…