[1] In the episode, station manager Arthur Carlson attempts to pull off the greatest Thanksgiving promotion in radio history: dropping live turkeys from a helicopter.
[4] Station manager Arthur Carlson attempts to get more involved in the day-to-day operations of WKRP by coming up with a Thanksgiving publicity stunt that he keeps secret from the entire staff, save for sales manager Herb Tarlek: a special turkey giveaway, dropping the live birds from a helicopter outside a busy shopping center with a banner that reads "Happy Thanksgiving from WKRP."
On-the-scene reporter Les Nessman delivers a dramatic play-by-play of the ill-conceived event at the Pinedale shopping mall, live on the air, as Carlson and Tarlek throw the turkeys to their deaths off the helicopter "like sacks of wet cement."
Disc jockey Dr. Johnny Fever, Andy Travis, Venus Flytrap and Bailey Quarters recoil in horror as Nessman recounts the gory details until his transmission is cut.
WKRP in Cincinnati creator Hugh Wilson — who adapted Carlson's character from Jerry Blum, a general manager of radio station WQXI in Atlanta from 1960 to 1989 — recounted that the episode was inspired by a similar live turkey giveaway promotion by Blum, who tossed turkeys out of a pick-up truck at a Dallas shopping center parking lot.
[5] According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Blum said in 1996 that following the disastrous promotion, he quipped, "I didn’t know turkeys couldn't fly," almost word-for-word what Carlson says at the end of the episode.