I've mentioned that finding Thanksgiving related specials is pretty hard, since most things are done either as episodes of series more than an outright stand alone special about the holiday. But I do know, I've never combined our Short Lived Series uh series with a look at a holiday related stuff. This time, a good reason exists, it's a short-lived TV sitcom about pilgrims/puritans living in early America.
It's kind of surprising how much early America isn't used as a setting for a TV series. The British comedies and dramas dip a lot into the 1600's, the 1800's, the early 1900's, or that time between the World Wars. American shows did do some mid to late 1800's stuff with westerns, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of shows taking place in an earlier time, unless it's a documentary or a show taking place during the Revolutionary war. There was a WGN America (now NewsNation) series called "Salem" that took place during the 1690's, but it's a barren amount of stuff.
The series I'm writing about is Thanks this is very short-lived series from CBS from 1999. The show ran 6 episodes between August 2nd and September 6th, which feels like burn-off was their intention. Thanks , which is awkward name for a show when writing about it, was created by Phoef Sutton who worked as a writer on Newhart , later working with Nehwart on Bob. He also worked on Cheers, Almost Perfect, NewsRadio, and more. The otehr creator was Mark Legan who also has worked on shows like Grace Under Fire, A.N.T Farm, Mighty Med, and more.
This isn't Full House
So, Thanks takes place in 1621 when the early puritans settlers in Massachusetts. The show's main family characters are called the Winthrops based off the famous John Winthrop. There's the patriarch named James played by Tim Dutton who has played alot of roles in British TV. James is the well meaning if slightly doofy father, fitting in with sitcoms on of the time. There's his wife , Polly, played by Kirsten Nelson, whom 'Psych' fans should know. They have three kids, two daughters and one son. The eldest, is daughter, Abigail, played by Erika Christensen, whom you might know from Parenthood, as an example. The next daughter is Elizabeth, played by Amy Centner. Elizabeth 's character really seems to be the smartest of the kids - and possibly the family, and some of her jokes seem to be her mentioning things that are more our times knowledge and brings them up. And finally, the son , William, played by Andrew Ducote is the son. That's his character. There's also James' grandmother is played by Cloris Leachman who gets to play best character on the show. Leachman brings her talent and makes a great character here.
Who's the Boss?
The first episode takes place where spring is beginning after everyone in the town had a long deep winter. James has reopened his store and holds a spring party and there's news of a supply ship coming back and the people of the town are excited and wanted to get out. James wants his family to stay. Then their house gets burned down thanks to an accident by a family friend, named Cotton, who was trying to fix the roof. James is sad and decides that they'll move back after all. Thanks to a speech from Elizabeth, Polly decides that the family should stay and try to make their dreams of America go well. Of course, there wouldn't be a series anyway and the ship has plague on it so everyone is staying.
The second episode has guests from Virginia coming, they are tobacco farmers, and one of them is Polly's cousin named Henrietta. Polly wants her cousin to be impressed. They've also brought in tobacco and James sells it at his store and it causes people in the town to get addicted to it. Also a French free trader wants to take Abigail to a dance. James decides to not sell it anymore, but Cotton chooses to instead. He also ends up getting money and also makes cigarettes. That goes badly because that's his character, the unlucky guy. Everything else resolves itself well.
The third episode is about Grammy (Cloris Leachman) finally snapping about living with her son and his family and wants her own place. Elizabeth suggests an idea that maybe Grammy should get her own room, which perplexes the others, but they decide to go with it. Everyone in the town is spreading rumors. Later, the people around town want to see the new room. Grammy apparently doesn't like her new room, after all. There's an attempt to make a sewing group and it seems to work.
The fourth episode is about Cotton getting a mail-order bride and the twist seems to be that the mail order bride seems to be a woman who seems to be a woman who diets and Cotton is sad that she's thin. The wedding cake gets eaten by a porcupine. Which apparently according to James' mother is a sign the marriage is doomed. Polly and James are having a fight. The couple tries to figure how to get over their problems. Cotton's wife has left him for another guy. 
We serve food here, sir.
The Fifth episode , Grammy is in love. She's in love with a salesman and the salesman likes her. James isn't too happy about this. James overhears the guy talking about how much the guy likes his mother, but also apparently has attracted a bunch of other women. Which Grammy already knew. (Funny enough the episode even asks what's her real name) But eventually she breaks it off with Bernie and it's over.
The Sixth episode. Good for this post is this episode is called "Thanksgiving" The episode is told in flashback where Elizabeth is talking to Grammy about her story of the past where the family and town meets Squanto. Yes, this episode is tying into the Thanksgiving story. Squanto wants to show James how to grow vegetables better. Too much corn. The Winthrop family wins the thing to do the entire town's Thanksgiving dinner. James and Cotton's hunting trip goes badly but they end up getting turkey. Squanto helps them figure out how to make the turkey. Everything builds up to Thanksgiving. There's also a sweet moment of Elizabeth helping Grammy write her name.
Thanksgiving, 1621, colorized
Those are more light rundowns of the episodes. Yes, this short-lived show had only 6 episodes before it was gone. This sitcom is one where some could expect it to be running one joke into the ground. And guess what? It doesn't. The show takes the idea of a family sitcom, adds in a wacky assortment of townspeople as the wacky neighbors and happens to take place in 1620's New England.
The show is very wink and nudge but not so hard it feels out of place or forced. Elizabeth, the middle daughter, and her role of playing the precocious middle child and using that for her to say lines about "Wouldn't that be interesting if one day... [insert something that our current times has] happens." Then the reactions from those she says that to, plays off it. It's not as limited by the time period it takes place in as one would think and it gets to use that to effect. The first episode is able to set up that they are in a harsh place uses that for dark comedy effectively, and while we know the reason why many did stay in real life having a big reason why they stay and change their minds from leaving still fits, since ships took a long time back then and a plague ridden ship could be something that would restrict travel.
The setting works to a sitcom too, since sitcoms usually do limited sets and locations normally. Having the family in a one room house, because that's how 1600's worked, fits well for the series, then having James run the only store in town gives a secondary setting to use and a reason why everyone in town would be gathered somewhere.
Wait , I thought this was Becker.
The satire works in a great way where it's not over the top and forcing it. The tobacco episode is a great example. The show does point at things that were noted to be done during that time period and manages to make it funny without going on making it surface level, people in the past were did things funny. The episode were Cotton gets a mail-order bride plays with things in a few ways. One, the wife shows up and what she's wearing would seem out of fit for a conservative group of pilgrims and instead they are concerned that she's thin and talks about dieting using trends that were around in 1990's.
The puritan characters are interesting in their own right. James Winthrop is an optimistic character he wants the colony to do well and believes in the mission of staking a new claim and trying a better life. While he does have some of the goofy dad stuff 90's sitcoms liked to do, he's still competent and not a made into a total loser character. It's a nice balance and a character you want to to root for. Polly as the wife character is typical sitcom wife but she and James are a fun married couple. It's also interesting how another twist of the show is the two characters want to do romantic things but get stifled by the idea of someone seeing them. Elizabeth ends up being the stand out child character. Someone decided that Jan Brady was right and made sure the middle child got the most focus. Abigail's character is teenage girl, but also annoyed by 1600's stuff, and William really just is the boy. The two of them do have jokes and are used for the plot, but they aren't the strongest child characters in the series. Elizabeth has the strongest role and use her for alot of different things. Grammy is probably the best character, Cloris Leachman hits her role of the park. Her role is to be the bothersome mother to her son and annoying mother-in-law but she plays it well and with her own flavor. A slightly off kilter woman, without much of a filter, but still likable and a deep character. She's great bouncing off the other characters and situations. Cotton plays the town fool and the loser character, he's good to be interesting enough. The preacher is funny in how he's a doomsayer and kind of strange but somehow not unlikeable. There's a doctor who does 1600's medical stuff, he's quirky and fun. It's not a really strong background cast, but not boring either. It probably would been different if the show didn't have only 6 episodes. It's like Home Improvement and stopping at 6 episodes in, you still barely know Al and Wilson for them to really interest you.
For the short-lived series I've written about so far, this one seems to have been the most missed opportunity. It starts off strong and doesn't get a chance to grow, versus starting off kind of weak and not sure of itself. This show was doomed from the start since CBS decided to dump it to August /summertime when nobody would care about new TV at the time. I don't think CBS had confidence enough which is funny since they picked it up in the first place. It's different than other sitcoms on the air. This was 1999, CBS was about to have a series where there's a guy living with all women, including Betty White, as the primary idea for a show. It would have been strange in their line up at the time to have this 1600's timed sitcom in between "The King of Queens" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" (which weren't bad shows) I don't know why CBS picked it up.
Instead of trying to bring back stuff that ended and not letting things rest, maybe try to bring back things that didn't get a chance the first time, try it again, this should would fit with Ghosts on current CBS (if you are reading this in 2023, CBS, and no current event happening, hmm). The series is well written and has a great wittiness too it.
Since, I'm also doubling this post as part of Thanksgiving, the finale episode is a good Thanksgiving episode. It takes the story of the first Thanksgiving we've heard and learned and absorbed and has fun with it. How did we have Turkey on Thanksgiving? Well, the two pilgrims were bad hunters and decided to bring back Turkeys instead of deer, after being stuck in the forest at night and running from a bear. That's funny.
The concept of doing a sitcom that takes place during Early America is something that seems to be out of the box. There are places it could have failed in how it was executed, but here it didn't, it's strongly written and funny. It would have been interesting to see how it could have gone beyond these six episodes and where the show could have gotten tired, if it could.
So here we do have a case of a short-lived series that seemed to have some great potential, but wasn't given more of a chance and doomed from its start. It's still an interesting series to check out and you should.
That does it for now, tune in next time when we create a sitcom called "You're Welcome" .
