20 impromptu TV Thanksgivings

TV: Inventory: "Boy, now I know how the pilgrims felt": 20 impromptu TV Thanksgivings

1. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
"This is not unlike another famous Thanksgiving episode," Linus Van Pelt says near the end of 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. The blanket-toting philosopher of the Peanuts set is trying to draw parallels between a disastrous holiday meal—which Peppermint Patty noisily interrupts with objections to her plate full of toast, pretzel sticks, popcorn, and jelly beans—and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Courtship Of Miles Standish, but there's some sly television commentary in that statement as well. Every year, TV families gather around their tables in the spirit of giving thanks, but just as often, the festivities are interrupted by turkeys refusing to thaw, guest lists altered at the last minute, or, in the case of Peppermint Patty's tirade, an 8-year-old's inability to assemble a traditional Thanksgiving spread on practically no notice. Not that Patty has any right to complain ...

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How Rich Moore Assembled Wreck-It Ralph's All-Star Cast of Game Characters

Storyboard: How Rich Moore Assembled <em>Wreck-It Ralph'</em>s All-Star Cast of Game Characters

The director knew he needed recognizable faces, so he set out to convince megastudios like Sega and Namco to let their most beloved characters -- including Frogger, Pac-Man and Sonic -- appear in the film.

Ang Lee: Of water and Pi

People: Ang Lee: Of water and Pi

"This is the best use of 3-D I've ever seen," I say to Ang Lee. And I mean it. His "Life of Pi," based on Yann Martel's novel about a shipwrecked boy, is an astonishment, not least because it never uses 3-D for its effect, but instead as a framing device for the story as a whole. There are, for example, shots where the point of view is below the sea's surface, looking up at the boat and into the sky beyond. The surface of the sea seems to be an invisible membrane between the water and the air. I've never seen anything like it.