Readers, I’m going to ask you to sit down before we continue any discussion of Thanksgiving Day (1990), because I’m about to say something that might upset anyone with lingering nightmares about Just Between Friends (1986). It’s as difficult to break this news as it is to receive it: Mary Tyler Moore wears a pink spandex leotard in this one, too. Not only that, we’re subjected to lingering shots of her scantily-clad tap dancing skills in lieu of excessive aerobics instruction. Scream and cry and hug Judd Hirsch about it, and then we’ll move on.
Even without those godforsaken leotards, you have to approach Thanksgiving Day with realistic expectations. NBC billed it as “the most unusual holiday movie ever” for a reason—it’s a big ol’ frozen turkey. Performed in the screwball style of Rue McClanahan’s Children of the Bride (1990), but without its pathos or crooked charm, we are left with little more than Moore’s exhibitionism and repeated gags about serving roast beef on Thanksgiving. Oh, and there’s a lesbian. Except, American television being what it was in the early ’90s, Moore’s daughter isn’t really a lesbian. She ends up with… Sonny Bono.
Here are the basics, if you’re still game: Moore plays Paula, a discontented mother and the regimented wife of industrial glove magnate Max Schloss (Tony Curtis). The Schlosses share three dysfunctional adult children, beginning with Randy (Jonathon Brandmeier), who possesses both the hair and forced “zany” energy of a prop comedian. A slovenly divorced father of two, he is such a detestable creature that in the film’s earliest moments, Paula fantasizes about tackling him to the ground and spanking him. I’m not kidding when I say Moore slaps him at least 45 times in that scene—a number I don’t divulge lightly, because you can’t imagine the degenerates that’ll find this page now by searching for some combination of MTM and spanking.
Next up is daughter Barbara (Kelly Curtis, daughter of Tony), humorless and dressed in feminine-masculine attire, and you know what that tired old trope means! Barbara is soon to stride confidently out of the closet, bringing with her an even more humorless, hostile and drably attired partner, Toni (Knots Landing’s Claudia Lonow). Youngest son Michael (Andy Hirsch), who appears to be deeply depressed and rarely leaves his bedroom, is the most inscrutable and likable of the bunch, with a weirdness that’s incongruous with a glossy TV movie and seems more suited to a ’90s indie film.
We meet them all on Thanksgiving, gathered at the Schloss mansion in Detroit, where Max has continued his tradition of inviting clients (the better to avoid one-on-one time with his family). When Paula complains to him in private, he demands “Who the hell do you think pays for this lifestyle of yours? The coat, this house, those damn fur coats of yours?” She seizes the opportunity to highlight his inattentiveness by stating her opposition to fur coats, which segues into an argument about their floundering marriage.
“I don’t care about the sex,” she says. “It’s just that there’s no intimacy. I mean, I care about the sex. But you don’t talk to me, you don’t touch me, and I feel like I’m invisible. I’m not getting anything from you, Max.”
“I’m stunned by what you’re telling me,” he replies, vowing to change—and then he drops dead while carving the turkey. The sudden loss of their patriarch sets the plot in motion, as the surviving Schlosses must learn to support themselves and each other. But first there’s a funeral and wake, which was a bit odd when Tony Curtis was more of an old Jewish lady than my late grandmother. (Admittedly, it’s difficult to make sitting shiva a laugh riot, as you may recall from A Stranger Among Us.) In his foolish fashion, Randy eulogizes Max: “He was my father. He planted a seed in my mother, Paula. I was the only vaginal delivery. My mother had my brother and sister both born cesarean.”
Reduced circumstances keep the family unhappily gathered under one roof, even as Barbara astutely advises Paula to sell the glove factory and secure her financial future. “I wouldn’t trust Randy to handle my luggage,” Paula admits, but she allows him to squander their fortune as she busies herself with new hobbies, like dance. In one of Thanksgiving Day’s oddest sequences, she cruises a younger man at the grocery store before launching into a musical fantasy number. Moore sings “Mangos” in the produce section and sheds her overcoat to reveal… the pink leotard again.
As I watched this unfold with some horror, I recognized “Stud in Market” as Dan “Nitro” Clark of American Gladiators, which made me wish that Lori “Ice” Fetrick had played Toni, but never mind that. Back in the real world, Randy has a harder time accepting Barbara’s sexuality than Paula, who only wants her to be happy. (He comes around once she has a male partner, at which point she also dresses in more conventionally feminine clothing.) The screenplay, credited to Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai (of Revenge of the Nerds), is superficially inclusive. When Barbara’s still in lesbian mode, a friend of Paula’s cracks a familiar joke: “She’s just going through her radical feminist stage. I mean, think of it this way. At least she won’t get pregnant!”
Grimly directed by Gino Tanasescu, Thanksgiving Day is dry enough to present a choking hazard. If you find the idea of Moore following her young grandson into a public men’s room sidesplittingly hilarious, or think it’s a knee-slapper when grown siblings chase each other and administer wedgies, you might find this enjoyable. But the plot, already shaky by the second act, collapses entirely in the third as we delve deeper into Randy’s business ventures and the details of Paula’s secretive pre-Max engagement to Ned Monk (Joseph Bologna, who does his best with the line “I love the way your fingers smell, like damp wood”).
All credit to Mary Tyler Moore for keeping a brave face throughout this mess. She might as well be addressing the writers when Paula yells at one of her wayward children, “You have no conscience! Let me hit you!”
Streaming and DVD availability
Thanksgiving Day never made it to VHS or DVD. As of this writing, it can only be found in one place, YouTube, with the most reliable source being the Museum of Classic Chicago Television. The image quality of that print is quite poor but it’s better than nothing. If you’re looking for something easier on the eyes, Amazon has a surplus of other free Moore content on offer.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
… But wait, there’s more!
Mary Tyler Moore would later play mother to another lesbian (or was it bisexual?) daughter in Mary and Rhoda (2000), and of course there’s Mary and Rhoda slashfic on some dark corner of the Internet. But I prefer to remember Moore, at least in terms of contributions to gay pop culture, for the 1993 David Letterman interview in which she shared the ribald old joke that Dick Van Dyke’s original name was “Penis von Lesbian.”
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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