The Thanksgiving Special

"The Thanksgiving Special" is the twelfth episode of season 5 (and one hundred-twenty eighth episode overall) of Regular Show. It aired on November 25, 2013.

Synopsis
Mordecai and Rigby accidentally ruin Thanksgiving and must find a way to save it before their families arrive for dinner. The gang pulls together to help make it the best Thanksgiving ever!

Plot
The episode opens on Thanksgiving morning, and preparations at Pops' house are in full swing. Whilst a football game sponsored by billionaire and Buck-Mart superstore owner Rich Buckner is playing on the TV, Skips and Pops are preparing the Thanksgiving dinner, Muscle Man and Hi-Five Ghost are picking up pies, Benson is preparing guest bedrooms for everyone's visiting families and Mordecai and Rigby are setting up the table. Benson has strictly banned the pair from entering the kitchen (even erecting a child-proof safety gate on the kitchen doorway) and from playing football in the house. However, once they're done setting the table, they bend around Benson's rules by playing with a foam football. Predictably the football flies into the kitchen and sets off a chain reaction that destroys the Thanksgiving dinner, culminating with the turkey landing in a deep fryer and rocketing off the stunt ramp before exploding.

Benson is livid, calling the act the worst thing Mordecai and Rigby has ever done. However, there is still time to fix everything; Muscle Man and Hi Five Ghost can buy new sides, Thomas (who is still wearing his pizza slice Halloween costume ) can pick up the visiting families from the airport and Skips, Pops and Benson can buy a new turkey at Buck-Mart. Mordecai and Rigby, however, are told to stay at home as "they've helped enough". Feeling guilty and believing they'll be fired, the two notice a television ad for a competition hosted by one Farmer Jimmy; whoever can come on stage and sing the best Thanksgiving-themed song will win a Turducken. Farmer Jimmy further explains that the Turducken - a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed within a chicken - is born naturally every million years, and that his prize Turducken happens to be it. Reasoning that they are good at making up songs, Mordecai and Rigby set off to save Thanksgiving.

Unforturnately, fixing Thanksgiving is proved to be a disaster for their friends. Muscle Man and Hi Fives enter a restaurant called "The Side Line" to buy new sides. After placing his order, the two notice a football promo on the TV for the "Best End-Zone Dances". They are unimpressed by football player Brock Stettman's end-zone dance and start mocking him out loud, but their fun stops when Brock Stettman himself, who happened to be in the restaurant at the time, steps up to confront them. At Buck-Mart, Skips, Pops and Benson find only one turkey left and proceed to buy it, but they are being stalked by a group of peculiar characters - three men dressed up as a Pilgrim, a Turkey and an Indian. After a failed attempt to take the turkey away from them, the Turkey-costumed man punches Pops in the face and the trio snatch the turkey, escaping in a minivan. Pops, Skips and Benson give chase in Carmenita.

Meanwhile, Mordecai and Rigby are on the freeway, writing up their song on the way to Farmer Jimmy's contest, with Rigby bringing spoons to perform "spoon-boning" with their song. However, they get caught in a gridlock and are forced to take a different route - they visit Margaret's dad Frank Smith (who assures Mordecai that Margaret is doing well and working on a term paper) and ask him to fly them to the contest in his helicopter, which he agrees to do.

Back in The Side Line Brock Stettman reveals that instead of wanting to beat up Muscle Man for mocking him, he challenges Muscle Man to an end-zone dance-off. The two seem evenly matched at first, but after Muscle Man painfully botches the full splits Stettman declares victory, slamming the football down. However, the football bounces and destroys Muscle Man's order of sides. Elsewhere in the city, Benson's group is still in hot pursuit of their bizarre turkey thieves, who attack with flamethrower basters. After a struggle the group gets their turkey back and the Thanksgiving characters' minivan is destroyed, but they continue chasing on foot. After another struggle the turkey is dropped on the road, only to be run over by a moped driver. Benson yells out in frustration.

In Frank's helicopter Mordecai and Rigby are still perfecting their act, and are watching the contest unfold on the helicopter's TV. Frank comments that the contest is nearly over and their song is still incomplete and needs to come from the heart, but Mordecai replies that none of the entries so far have been good. However, much to everyone's surprise, Rich Buckman himself is participating in the contest and has poured a lot of money into a spectacular Thanksgiving song, "Chewing On Freedom". The act involves popular music stars, celebrities, grandiose special effects and crowd-pleasing patriotism.

Mordecai and Rigby arrive on the stage right before the contest ends, with their act still incomplete. However, before they perform, Thomas calls them and tells them that their families aren't present at the airport and they won't be home for Thanksgiving. Rigby is crestfallen and wants to leave, believing that their efforts had been for nothing, but Mordecai finally knows what their song should be about. Mordecai sings a verse about how they wrecked Thanksgiving dinner and tried to fix it, but that's not what Thanksgiving is about. The two start singing their song "What Are You Thankful For?" on the spot, with the song being all about how food and football are nice but mean nothing without your family around, and that things are sure to go wrong on the day but at least you spend quality time with friends. Muscle Man, Hi Fives, Brock Stettman, Pops, Skips, Benson and the Thanksgiving characters watch the act on TV, and Benson forgives them. Everyone is touched by the song and Rich Bucker's back-up performers even join in, with Rigby impressing the crowd with a spoon-boning act, but Buckner himself retreats into the shadows.

Farmer Jimmy declares Mordecai and Rigby the winners and brings his prize turducken on the stage, but Rich Buckner steals the turducken with a grappling hook from his blimp. Frank arrives on the scene in his helicopter to pick up Mordecai and Rigby and chase down Buckner. The Thanksgiving characters are also outraged at Buckner, feeling that Mordecai and Rigby's song perfectly embodied all that the holiday stands for, and arrange a truce with Benson, Skips and Pops to help the pair. In The Side Line Brock Stettman also truces with Muscle Man and Hi Fives to help Mordecai and Rigby, and flies them in his jet along with his team.

Mordecai and Rigby board Buckner's blimp and confront Buckner himself, who has the turducken on his table. Buckner reveals that the reason he wanted the turducken wasn't to eat it, but that natural-born turduckens have a golden wishbone that can actually grant wishes. Mordecai asks what Buckner could possibly wish for, and Buckner replies that he's going to wish for the rights to own Thanksgiving itself. Buckner further explains that no-one gives him thanks, despite owning a superstore chain that virtually everyone buys their Thanksgiving wares from, and that they're "too busy with their families". He hopes to earn his thanks with one wish from the wishbone. Mordecai and Rigby fight with Buckner over the golden wishbone, with their friends providing assistance outside - Muscle Man punctures the blimp with cleats by landing on it from Stettman's jet, and Benson's group attacks the blimp with arrows fired by the Indian-costumed Thanksgiving character. The blimp is on a collision course with a suspension bridge and everyone but Mordecai, Rigby and Buckner evacuates. Eventually, Buckner kicks Mordecai and Rigby off the blimp and tries making his wish - only to discover that Rigby had switched the golden wishbone with his spoons. The blimp crashes and Buckner seemingly dies.

In free-fall Mordecai and Rigby have the golden wishbone, and make a wish to arrive back home safely, with all their friends and family - however because the wishbone is solid gold it proves hard to break. Mere moments from hitting the ground, the wishbone finally breaks and the pair are safely teleported back home with all their friends. Thomas comes out of the house, telling everyone that he was looking at the departing flights chart instead of the arriving flights chart, and that everyone's families are in the house. Mordecai and Rigby greet their respective parents, and in the house they find everyone's families and all the characters and celebrities that were encountered that day, complete with a Thanksgiving turkey dinner already fully prepared by them. Benson toasts to Mordecai and Rigby for saving Thanksgiving, and Thomas is finally able to take off his pizza slice costume. The Thanksgving Special ends with a "good work, bro" hi-five from Mordecai and Rigby.

Characters

 * Mordecai
 * Rigby
 * Benson
 * Muscle Man
 * Skips
 * Pops
 * Hi Five Ghost
 * Thomas
 * Rich Buckner (antagonist)

Minor Characters

 * Jennifer
 * Auto T.
 * Dusty B.
 * Starla
 * Muscle Dad
 * John
 * Low Five Ghost
 * Hi Five Ghost's Father
 * Mr. Maellard
 * Benson's Family
 * Mordecai's Parents
 * Rigby's Parents
 * Don
 * Quips
 * Night Owl
 * Hissy Fit
 * Four-Armageddon
 * Astronauts
 * Hair to the Throne
 * Ace Balthazar
 * RGB2
 * Ladonna
 * Carter
 * Briggs
 * Sensai
 * Chong
 * Frank Smith
 * Party Pete (character)
 * Margaret (mentioned)
 * VG (cameo)
 * Thomas's Mom
 * Indian, Pilgrim & Turkey
 * Brock Stettman
 * Farmer Jimmy

Songs featured in the Thanksgiving Special
Chewing On Freedom

What Are You Thankful For? (Thanksgiving!)

Trivia

 * According to J.G. Quintel, this episode "has some really awesome songs, but [they] ended up having to record the people in the songs all at separate times and that was really challenging."
 * Terry Crews and Chord Overstreet guest starred as Stettman and as Dust B., respectively; LeToya Luckett and Josh Keaton also guest starred as Jennifer and Auto T.
 * After the chase scene, there is a Cartoon Network logo cameo on a water tower.
 * Stettman's football jersey resembles the jersey used by the NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the 1970s.
 * One of the spectator in the audience during the "Chewing on Freedom" song is wearing the same outfit Rigby wore to prove he and Mordecai were cool to Benson from "Cool Bikes". He appears during the moment where two girls were screaming Dusty B's name.
 * Despite Party Pete appearing at the Thanksgiving dinner, he was not one of the celebrities singing "Chewing on Freedom" nor did he appear throughout the episode until the dinner scene.

Gallery
The gallery for the episode can be found here