The Greatest (and Most Groan-Worthy) Thanksgiving Jokes Ever Told

Ah yes, Thanksgiving: The annual American tradition of everyone doing their best to play nice with family members they’ve been dodging the other 364 days of the year. And if we manage to go all day without unloading decades of generational trauma or burning down the house trying to deep-fry a turkey, we will be rewarded with a magnificent feast that will leave us catatonic during the second half of a football game.

In fairness, though, if it weren’t for that overload of calories, we wouldn’t have the strength to participate in 4 a.m. Black Friday sales and get in fistfights with total strangers over a discounted PS5 — you know, for the kids.

To keep you laughing as you fight off your fellow shoppers, your family and your trytophan-induced stupor, here are some of the best quotes (and eye-rolling dad jokes) we could find to sum up the Thanksgiving experience…

16 George Carlin

“Have you ever noticed that you never get laid on Thanksgiving? I think it’s because all the coats are on the bed.”

15 Jim Gaffigan

“Thanksgiving. It’s like we didn’t even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. ‘Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?’ ‘But we do that everyday!’ ‘Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the hell out of us?’”

14 Joan Rivers

“Here’s a Thanksgiving tip: Generally, your turkey is not cooked enough if it passes you the cranberry sauce.”

13 Mike Birbiglia

“Thanksgiving has become less special over the years with the ubiquitousness of Subway’s 6” turkey.”

12 Carl Sagan

“If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

11 Conan O’Brien

“Finally, a Thanksgiving without a drunken uncle. Just me, my nieces and nephews and my bottle of Jack Daniels.”

10 Lewis Black

“Why do we eat so much? We’re home with our family. We’re tense, we’re edgy, neurotic, psychotic. So instead of eating each other, we eat the weight of our family in food.”

9 Kevin James

“Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants.”

8 Yogi Berra

“Cut my pie into four pieces, I don’t think I could eat eight.”

7 Jack Handey

“If you’re at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don’t like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you’re eating it. But instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball. Then, later, when you’re out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground. Then say, ‘Boy, these are good cigars!’”

6 Rita Rudner

“Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before.”

5 Kenny Rogerson

“Last Thanksgiving I shot my own turkey. It was fun. That shotgun going, Blam! Everybody at the supermarket was just staring. Why track them when I know where they are?”

4 Crow T. Robot, Mystery Science Theater 3000

“Turkey fact #12: If you leave turkeys out in the rain, they’ll drown. Stupid jerks.”

3 Erma Bombeck

“Thanksgiving dinners take 18 hours to prepare. They are consumed in 12 minutes. Half-times take 12 minutes. This is not a coincidence.”

2 David Letterman

“When I was a kid in Indiana, we thought it would be fun to get a turkey a year ahead of time and feed it and so on for the following Thanksgiving. But by the time Thanksgiving came around, we sort of thought of the turkey as a pet, so we ate the dog. Only kidding. It was the cat!”

1 Jon Stewart

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast and then I killed them and took their land.”

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