This week in TV Guide: November 18, 1978

As you know, I'm a sucker for holidays, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas (although New Year's isn't bad either). We have one of those in this week's issue, and one of the nice things about Thanksgiving is that since the date moves around, there's always a chance we'll get to look at it being celebrated in back-to-back issues—as, in fact, will be the case this week and next.

This is one of the old-fashioned Thanksgiving issues, as is apparent from the very beginning, with William Conrad anchoring CBS's All-American Thanksgiving Day Parades (8:00 a.m. CT). He always did this from a studio with a warm, welcoming scene—crackling fireplace, decorations, comfy wingback chair. It was very inviting. No wonder I have fond memories of those years. These were the years when CBS covered the parades in Detroit, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Honolulu in addition to New York. A pity they don't do that anymore, although the Detroit parade is syndicated as well as streamed online. NBC is, of course, home of the Macy's parade, and this year Ed McMahon is the host (8:00 a.m.), with a host of singing stars doing their best to sync to the songs being played over the speakers. I'd check that parade out from time to time, but CBS was the home for me.

What's Thanksgiving without football? NBC's game, beginning at 11:30 a.m. is Detroit's Turkey Day contest, this year against Denver. That's followed at 2:30 p.m. by those two old rivals, Washington and Dallas, facing off on CBS. No college action, alas; it's one of the fallow periods, before cable TV brought college games back to Thanksgiving.

I always enjoyed the other special programs that were on, even though I'd be too busy watching football to care about them. For instance, Channel 4 has an animated version of Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" on Famous Classic Tales at 11:00 a.m., followed at 12:30 p.m. by a Family Sports Special with figure skating from Central Park and highlights of the Moscow Circus, the Calgary Stampede, and women's gymnastics. Channel 11 presents the feature-length Hey There, It's Yogi Bear at 1:00 p.m.—it was originally made in 1964. WTCN's "Movie of the Month" is John Wayne in Hatari. (7:00 p.m.) And at 8:00 p.m. Channel 5 has part one of Howard Fast's The Immigrants, in what looks to me like an Operation Prime Time production.

One of the highlights of the day after Thanksgiving used to be ABC's cartoon festival, in which the regular Saturday morning lineup would feature on Friday morning and early afternoon. I don't know when they stopped doing that, or if it was merely an interruption in 1978, but there's no sign of it this year. ABC counters with college football at noon—once again traditional rivals, this time Pitt and Penn State. Donnie and Marie offer some Thanksgiving leftovers with their Thanksgiving program, accompanied by Cindy Williams, Seals & Crofts, and Lorne Greene—a varied lineup, to be sure.

I dunno—the parades still hit the mark, but compared to what we've seen in the past (and may see again in next week's issue), it's not as bit a television event day as it used to be. Or maybe it's just that you can't go home again, even if home is merely in your memories. As someone once said, I don't live in the past—I just vacation there.