We’re counting down the days to Thanksgiving by looking at a variety of Thanksgiving-themed TV episodes. Thanksgiving episodes are all different, but they have lots of tropes in common. Today we’re looking at the Everybody Loves Raymond episode “No Fat.”
Basic Info
Directed by: Steve Zuckerman
Written by: Ellen Sandler & Susan Van Allen
Episode Number: Season 3, Episode 10
Where to Watch It: Netflix
Found Family
This episode is about actual family, which means there’s a lot more tension, disappointment and talking about wanting to kill each other.
Even though Raymond manages to seriously hurt his mom’s feelings, they manage to bring things back to the family eventually having a nice meal together.
Food
The food part of Thanksgiving is a huge part of this episode. Marie and Frank attend a senior health fair and find out that they both have dangerously high cholesterol, Marie is determined to start a new diet. This means instead of her usual delicious Thanksgiving dinner, she’s serving fresh vegetables, soy cheesecake and a tofu turkey.
Frank, Raymond and Robert are all horrified by the tofu turkey. They have trouble forcing themselves to even try it. After trying the tofu turkey, Robert says, “I never thought I’d say this, but could you pass the broccoli please?”
Raymond tries to be supportive of his parents trying to eat healthier, but he still takes it upon himself to order a Thanksgiving dinner from a restaurant. He means to have it afterwards so his parents will never know, but Marie finds out about it and gets upset.
After they’ve made amends, Raymond finds Marie sneakily eating the dinner he ordered. The whole family comes in and joins them for a do-over of Thanksgiving dinner.
Football
It’s brief, but there is a moment of Frank watching football before Thanksgiving dinner is served.
History
Unlike most sitcoms, this one makes no reference to the awkwardly brushed over history of Thanksgiving.
