Nov 28 2008
Newhart: A new Thanksgiving tradition?
Could the WGN Newhart Thanksgiving day and after marathon be the start of a new Turkey Day tradition? Doubtful. Not because there might be better football matchups next year, or that it isn’t a funny show, but because a tradition has to last for more than a year, and I don’t think there will be a Newhart marathon next year. Oh, there might, but I wouldn’t count on it.
But the Newhart marathon was a good old-fashioned one. It ran long enough, starting with its first episode at 2 p.m. and continuing on into Friday early morning at 3 a.m., with a break for the 10 p.m. news. That’s 24 episodes. Some of them were the same ones that have recently run on WGN from 8 to 9 p.m. on Sundays, but others were ones that haven’t been seen for a while. And what could be a better series for a Thanksgiving Day marathon than one that takes place in a homey country inn in Vermont? It practically cries out Happy Holidays, along with real cold and snow. Of course, if you don’t like the show in the first place, you won’t want to spend a big chunk of your day in front of the tube watching. But if you like the show, it’s something a little different to watch for the holidays. All the old famaliar characters from the show do their star turns-Bob, Joanna, George, Stephanie, Michael, and Larry, Darryl, and the other Darryl, plus the assorted eccentrics of the town. For those with highly dysfunctional families, they may prefer spending time with the folks from the show than their own kin. Newhart may not be great television, but it provides an enjoyable half-hour of humor with adundant laughs. Besides, half the fun of the marathons is just staying glued to the set while you relax in your chair, stuffing your face with leftovers, while every half-hour, the theme song starts up again, and you wonder if this will be aa episode you haven’t seen for quite a while.
I got so wrapped up in Newhart, I forgot to check up on some of the perennial marathoners, like The Twilight Zone or The X-Files, which used to be on Sci-Fi every holiday. Don’t know if Newhart will be back next year, perhaps not, but for this year it kept things interesting between bites of turkey sandwich.
