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James Arness was admittedly old for the role, but he still gave a good performance as a policeman who had to retire due to an injury, only to find his best friend murdered after he won a lot of money. With the current homicide chief being indifferent, McClain manages to get back on the force and find the killer, and deal with other crimes.

McClain proves to be a normal police officer, with no gimmicks like lollipops or wisecracks or pet birds. But he isn't simply a copy of Harry Callahan; he goes after bad police as well. Too bad the show didn't last.

Charlie Brown is set to visit his grandmother's for a Thanksgiving dinner, and Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends to Charlie Brown's for Thanksgiving, so Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Woodstock end up improvising a thanksgiving dinner using buttered toast, popcorn, and jelly beans for his uninvited guests, and this does not please Peppermint Patty. And it is Marcie who tells her how it was her fault.

Not religious like "A Charlie Brown Christmas", but Thanksgiving is not an actual Christian holiday, but rather a celebration of the harvest, and only became popular in the USA during the late nineteenth century. Enjoyable rather than actually meaningful.

"How The Grinch Stole Christmas" was about how the title villain stole all the Christmas decorations and other trappings from Whoville on the night before Christmas, with the idea of sabotaging the holiday, only for the residents of Whoville to celebrate it anyway and the Grinch comes to realize that Christmas means more than the commercial trappings. This goes further and actually mentions the religious aspects of Christmas, even quoting the Bible.

The story itself is about how Charlie Brown is unhappy with the Christmas holiday, and decides to celebrate it with a small, unloved tree, and is set to direct a Christmas play depicting the three wise men coming to see the baby Christ. Despite the fact that this is more an adult view of Christmas than a child's one, the whole thing works. Even the producers of the cartoon were surprised how successful it would be.