67 Fun Facts About Thanksgiving Movies

In Planes, Trains and Automobiles, what does John Candy's character Del Griffith sell for a living?

Shower curtain rings: Del sells them for a living, and when he and Neal run out of money he raises cash by passing his samples off to strangers as exotic jewellery.

Which actor has a cameo racing Neal Page for a taxi at the start of Planes, Trains and Automobiles?

Kevin Bacon, billed only as 'Taxi Racer', is briefly on screen in the opening scene; he had already shot the lead in John Hughes's She's Having a Baby, released a few months later.

In Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Neal and Del's flight to Chicago is diverted to which city?

Wichita, Kansas: a snowstorm has shut Chicago's airport, and with only one room left at the motel the two strangers end up sharing a double bed.

Which comedian plays uptight ad man Neal Page, stranded with John Candy's Del Griffith, in Planes, Trains and Automobiles?

Steve Martin and Candy improvised so much, on top of John Hughes's constant rewrites, that the first cut ran three hours or more, about twice the length of the film released.

At the end of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, what does Neal realise about Del's wife, Marie?

She died years earlier: Del admits Marie has been dead for eight years and that he has no home to go to, so Neal brings him back to share his family's Thanksgiving dinner.

Whose hit cover of 'Everytime You Go Away' did John Hughes want for the ending of Planes, Trains and Automobiles?

Paul Young's number-one version was refused by his record company, so the film ends on a cover of the song recorded by Blue Room instead.

Who directed the 1995 Thanksgiving comedy-drama Home for the Holidays?

Jodie Foster had starred in her first film as director, Little Man Tate, but for her second she stayed off screen entirely and spent ten weeks shooting on location in Baltimore.

Which actress plays Claudia, who flies home for Thanksgiving in Home for the Holidays?

Holly Hunter's Claudia is a Chicago art restorer who is fired, kisses her boss and learns her teenage daughter has plans of her own, all before she boards the plane.

In which superhero film does a Thanksgiving dinner end with the villain working out the hero's secret identity?

Spider-Man: at the Parkers' Thanksgiving table in the 2002 film, Norman Osborn spots the fresh gash on Peter's arm and realises it is the wound he gave the hero as the Green Goblin.

Which actor plays Claudia's brother Tommy in Home for the Holidays, largely improvising?

Robert Downey Jr.'s Tommy sends the turkey flying into the lap of his prim sister Joanne, and in the row that follows she blurts out that he has secretly married his boyfriend.

What does Snoopy serve the guests in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?

Toast and popcorn, with pretzel sticks and jelly beans on the side. One guest is outraged and demands to know where the turkey, the mashed potatoes and the pumpkin pie are.

Which Peanuts character invites herself, Marcie and Franklin to Charlie Brown's house for Thanksgiving?

Peppermint Patty. She then blasts the meal Charlie Brown serves, until Marcie reminds her that nobody actually invited them.

In 2020, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving moved to streaming exclusively on which service?

Apple TV+. The special had aired every November on ABC since 2001, though Apple agreed to let PBS show it ad-free in 2020 and 2021.

Who composed the music for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?

Vince Guaraldi. The jazz pianist also sings on the soundtrack himself, crooning 'Little Birdie' while Snoopy battles a stubborn lawn chair.

Miracle on 34th Street opens with the Macy's parade Santa in what condition?

Drunk. Kris Kringle complains about the tipsy Santa to parade organizer Doris Walker, who talks him into taking the man's place on the float.

In Miracle on 34th Street, what arrives in court to prove Kris Kringle is Santa Claus?

Sacks of mail. The Post Office delivers its undeliverable letters to Santa to Kris at the courthouse, so his lawyer argues that the federal government itself recognizes him.

Which child star plays Susan, the girl who doubts Santa Claus, in Miracle on 34th Street?

Natalie Wood. Studio chief Darryl Zanuck had the film released months before the holidays, so its advertising played down that it was a Christmas story at all.

Which actor won Best Supporting Actor for playing Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street?

Edmund Gwenn. The part was first offered to his cousin Cecil Kellaway, who turned it down and so handed Gwenn both the role and the Oscar.

In the 2013 animated film Free Birds, what mission do time-travelling Reggie and Jake pursue?

They set out to get turkeys off the Thanksgiving menu by traveling back to 1621, days before the first feast, and end up persuading the Pilgrims to eat pizza instead.

Which Star Trek actor voices S.T.E.V.E., the egg-shaped time-machine AI in Free Birds?

George Takei. The machine, whose name stands for Space Time Exploration Vehicle Envoy, even borrows the actor's 'Oh my' catchphrase when the hero steals a kiss.

Who plays April Burns, the daughter cooking Thanksgiving for her estranged family in Pieces of April?

Katie Holmes. Her April invites the family she is estranged from because her mother is dying of cancer and this is expected to be her last Thanksgiving.

In Pieces of April, what breaks down and sends April knocking on her neighbors' doors on Thanksgiving?

Her oven. April carries the raw turkey around her apartment building looking for one that works, and the neighbors who help her cook it end up sharing the meal.

Who earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as the dying mother in Pieces of April?

Patricia Clarkson. The Oscar attention went to a film shot for only about $300,000, which went on to earn more than ten times that in cinemas.

In Pieces of April, April's family drives in from the suburbs for Thanksgiving dinner in which city?

New York. April is the black sheep of her suburban family and has never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner before, yet it is her scruffy low-rent apartment that they all drive in to.

Sean Hayes, who plays April's neighbor Wayne in Pieces of April, was starring in which sitcom at the time?

Will & Grace. Director Peter Hedges recalled that Hayes rang asking to play April's boyfriend, and was offered the neighbor Wayne on the spot instead.

The Blind Side is based on a 2006 book by which author?

Michael Lewis. He came to the story through an old friend: Sean Tuohy, whose family took Michael Oher in, had been his schoolmate in New Orleans.

In Addams Family Values, Wednesday plays which historical figure in the camp's Thanksgiving play?

Pocahontas. When Wednesday refuses the part she is sent to the camp's Harmony Hut and made to watch hours of wholesome family films until she fakes a smile.

Which actress plays Wednesday Addams in the 1993 sequel Addams Family Values?

Christina Ricci. Her Wednesday is packed off to a relentlessly cheerful summer camp, where she leads the outcasts in setting fire to its Thanksgiving pageant.

Addams Family Values pokes at a Republican slogan of 1992, the year which politician attacked TV's Murphy Brown?

Dan Quayle. His speech on family values scolded a sitcom heroine for having a baby alone, and writer Paul Rudnick wanted the film's title to answer such talk with a loving family of ghouls.

Who plays Debbie Jellinsky, the serial-killer nanny who marries Uncle Fester in Addams Family Values?

Joan Cusack. Her Debbie straps the family into electric chairs and narrates her past murders with a slide show, only for baby Pubert to send the current back at her.

What does hypochondriac Mickey think he has in Hannah and Her Sisters?

A brain tumor. When the tests come back clear his joy lasts only moments, because he decides that life is meaningless anyway.

Which two performers won supporting-acting Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters?

Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest. Caine never reached the podium: he was in the Bahamas filming Jaws: The Revenge and missed the ceremony.

Which Marx Brothers film pulls Mickey out of his existential crisis in Hannah and Her Sisters?

Duck Soup. Mickey wanders into a screening after a botched suicide attempt and decides that life is to be enjoyed rather than understood.

Whose real-life New York apartment was used as a filming location for Hannah and Her Sisters?

Mia Farrow's. Her real mother, Maureen O'Sullivan, plays Hannah's mother too, and Farrow later wrote that the script borrowed uncomfortably from their family life.

Which actor won his first Oscar as the blind Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman?

Al Pacino. He has said the character's 'Hoo-ah!' came from the Army officer who coached him, who barked it whenever Pacino handled a pistol correctly.

Which actor plays Charlie Simms, the prep-school student hired to mind a blind colonel in Scent of a Woman?

Chris O'Donnell. He beat Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Brendan Fraser to the part, and Damon recalled that he refused to lend any of them his copy of the script.

Scent of a Woman is a Hollywood remake of a 1974 film made in which country?

Italy. Dino Risi's Profumo di donna sent a blind army captain from Turin to Naples with a young aide, a journey the remake moved to New York.

In Scent of a Woman, which dance does the blind Frank Slade lead a young stranger through?

The tango. It matters again later: when the despairing Frank demands one reason to go on living, Charlie answers that he dances the tango better than anyone he has ever seen.

Rocky dates Adrian on Thanksgiving, but on which holiday does he fight Apollo Creed?

New Year's Day. Apollo Creed bills the bout as the first big event of America's Bicentennial year and enters the ring dressed as George Washington.

In Rocky, what does Paulie do with the Thanksgiving turkey to force Adrian out on a date?

He throws it into the alley. When Adrian protests that it is Thanksgiving, Rocky shrugs that to him it is just Thursday, and takes her out anyway.

In Rocky, where does Rocky take Adrian on their first date, on Thanksgiving night?

An ice skating rink. It is closed when they arrive, so Rocky pays the cleaner ten dollars for ten minutes on the empty ice.

Which Married... with Children star plays the title role in the 1991 Thanksgiving road movie Dutch?

Ed O'Neill. His working-class Dutch offers to drive his girlfriend's snobbish son home to Chicago for Thanksgiving, a trip that leaves them carless, robbed and hitching rides.

Which group's 1976 Thanksgiving Day farewell concert did Martin Scorsese film as The Last Waltz?

The Band. Before the music began at San Francisco's Winterland, the audience of some 5,000 sat down to a full turkey dinner.

Krisha Fairchild, star of the 2015 drama Krisha, is what relation to director Trey Edward Shults?

His aunt. Shults also cast his mother as her screen sister and his grandmother as their mother, so three generations of his real family share the Thanksgiving table.

Which distributor gave Krisha its limited U.S. release in March 2016?

A24. The company bought the film during Cannes and signed its first-time director to make his next feature, It Comes at Night, as part of the same deal.

The Ice Storm, set over Thanksgiving weekend 1973, was directed by which filmmaker?

Ang Lee. He spent 1973 in Taiwan and came to the United States only years later, so he approached suburban Connecticut as a period piece, much like his Jane Austen film.

What kind of gathering do the adults attend on the Friday after Thanksgiving in The Ice Storm?

A key party. The couples arrive expecting an ordinary neighborhood cocktail party, then find the wives drawing car keys from a bowl to choose a partner for the night.

Who won a BAFTA as Janey, Ben Hood's lover and neighbor, in The Ice Storm?

Sigourney Weaver. Her Janey cuts off her lover's golf complaints mid-tryst by telling him he is boring her: she already has a husband.

Which screen duo play the feuding neighbors in Grumpy Old Men?

Lemmon and Matthau. Their old feud becomes a courtship race on Thanksgiving, when both men watch their friend Chuck turn up at new neighbor Ariel's door.

Grumpy Old Men's interiors were shot at Paisley Park, which musician's Minnesota studio complex?

Prince. His Chanhassen recording complex also held a full soundstage, which is how a Hollywood comedy came to build its interior sets there.

Which MTV comic plays Crawl, who spends Thanksgiving on a South Dakota farm in Son in Law?

Pauly Shore. His Crawl is a Los Angeles dorm adviser with nowhere to go for the holiday, so farm girl Becca takes him home to meet her shocked family.

In Son in Law, what does Crawl claim at dinner to head off a marriage proposal to Becca?

They are engaged. Crawl invents the engagement on the spot to save Becca from her boyfriend's proposal, then has to learn farm chores to keep up the act.

In You've Got Mail, what online screen name does Meg Ryan's Kathleen Kelly use?

Shopgirl. Her bookstore is called The Shop Around the Corner, after the 1940 film whose feuding pen pals gave this one its plot.

What is the name of the dog whose owner is revealed as NY152 at the end of You've Got Mail?

Brinkley. Kathleen hears Joe calling the dog's name in Riverside Park before she sees him, then tells him she wanted it to be him.

In You've Got Mail, Kathleen's boyfriend Frank, a newspaper columnist, cannot stop buying which machines?

Typewriters. He brings a second identical electric Olympia to her apartment as a backup, while Kathleen is busy falling for a stranger over email.

In Funny People, George Simmons is diagnosed with which illness?

Acute myeloid leukemia. Told that only an experimental drug with long odds can save him, the movie star goes back to stand-up and hires a young comic to write his jokes.

Which comedian stars as ailing movie star George Simmons in Funny People?

Adam Sandler. Director Judd Apatow was his roommate when both were struggling comics, and the film opens with Apatow's home video of Sandler making a prank call back then.

Eli Roth's 2023 slasher Thanksgiving grew out of a fake trailer made for which 2007 double feature?

Grindhouse. Two other joke trailers from the same double bill, Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun, had already been turned into real films before Roth's.

The killer in Thanksgiving (2023) wears a mask depicting which historical figure?

John Carver. He was the Pilgrim who became the colony's first governor, and the killer pairs his face with a pilgrim hat and live-streams his revenge.

Which Grey's Anatomy star plays the sheriff, Eric Newlon, in Thanksgiving (2023)?

Patrick Dempsey. His kindly sheriff spends the film hunting the masked killer, only to be exposed in the final minutes as the killer himself.

In Alice's Restaurant, who plays Officer Obie, the lawman who arrests Arlo for littering?

The real Stockbridge police chief. William Obanhein, who made the original arrest, agreed to replay it on camera in what was his only film role.

In Alice's Restaurant, where do Ray and Alice Brock live and host their Thanksgiving dinner?

A deconsecrated church. The Brocks ran it as a commune where friends could crash, and the half ton of garbage left after their Thanksgiving feast is what gets Arlo arrested.

Stephen Karam's Thanksgiving drama The Humans (2021) was adapted from his own work in which form?

A stage play. Karam's one-act won the Tony for Best Play on Broadway, and Jayne Houdyshell repeats her Tony-winning role as the mother in his film version.

In The Humans, which comedian plays the Blake daughter who has just lost her job and her girlfriend?

Amy Schumer. Her Aimee is also facing major surgery, and slips away from the dinner for a painful phone call to her ex.

In the film Avalon, why does Uncle Gabriel storm out of Thanksgiving dinner?

The turkey was carved without him. The family had waited, given up and started, and Gabriel walks out refusing to come back to the suburbs, the start of a feud with his brother Sam.

In the 2018 comedy The Oath, what does the government ask Americans to sign by Thanksgiving weekend?

A loyalty pledge to the President. Signing is supposedly voluntary, yet the holdout host finds two federal agents at his door, and the family ends up holding them captive in the living room.

In Tower Heist, the crew strike during the Macy's parade and find the swindler's fortune disguised as what?

A Ferrari 250 GT Lusso. The financier had turned his money into gold car parts and rebuilt the car in his penthouse, so the thieves have to lower it down the outside of the building.