Couch potato’s guide to Thanksgiving viewing

At some point on Thanksgiving Day, you are going to push yourself away from the table, stagger to the couch and turn on the TV. And if you're not a football fan or the games are over, you'll be looking for something to watch.

The good news is that a lot of the channels on your cable/satellite hookup are going to be running marathons of series that they consider to be pretty special. The bad news is, if you don't consider them to be special, there will be nothing else to choose from for hours and hours.

Lost to television history is the record of the first local station to fill a holiday's schedule with reruns of a single show, but the most successful one is well known. Los Angeles' channel 5 decided to counter-program the home-and-family-oriented holiday with a string of episodes of Rod Serling's eerie “Twilight Zone,” and the audience ate it up like sweet potatoes with tiny marshmallows.

And TV's programming people took notice. By the time the SciFi Channel acquired exclusive rights to “Twilight Zone,” Thanksgiving marathons had popped up all over, the most appropriate being “Mystery Science Theater 3000's Turkey Day,” just because all the movies they wisecracked their way through were turkeys.

Now that “MST3K” is off the TV and on the Web, “The Twilight Zone” has been put on the back shelf, and the wide variety of Thanksgiving weekend marathons offer something, networks hope, for every taste — or in some cases, no taste — in TV.

Here are the highlights, categorized to fit your holiday needs. All times Eastern.

Marathon to help you really appreciate the 4-day weekend
On “Dirty Jobs,” Mike Rowe honors the people who do the dirty work so you don't have to by, well, doing it. From removing tree stumps to breeding insects to cleaning algae off Lake Michigan to dismantling Rose Parade floats after the roses have wilted, he's done a lot. Also on the Discover Channel, Bear Grylls works hard just to survive, or just works hard to make it look like it's hard to survive on the newly edited “Man Vs. Wild.” Watch him closely in HD and you might spot the hidden safety equipment and motel ashtrays.

“Dirty Jobs” on Discovery Channel, Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“Man Vs. Wild” on Discovery Channel, Friday 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The most traditional marathons
In 1952, a comedy about a woman who marries a musician, lives in New York City and is always trying to get into show business wasn't what you'd call traditional family fare. But 55 years later, “I Love Lucy” has leapfrogged tradition straight to institution. This year's marathon does not include the candy factory, grape stomping or Vitameatavegemin, but watch for the bread-baking incident at 1:00 p.m., giving birth to Little Ricky at 4:00 p.m. and “meeting” Harpo Marx at 10:30 p.m.

If you're really “old-old-old school” traditional, check out Turner Classic Movies for all 16 of Mickey Rooney's performances as “Andy Hardy” spread over 12 hours on Thursday and 14 hours on Friday. Holding out for Mickey and Judy Garland? She appears Thursday at 12:15 p.m. in “Love Finds Andy Hardy,” Friday at 6:00 a.m. in “Andy Hardy Meets Debutante” (yes, that is the exact title), and at 9:30 a.m. for “Life Begins for Andy Hardy.”

“I Love Lucy” on TVLand, Thursday 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4:30 p.m.
The Judge Hardy/Andy Hardy Movies on TCM, Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

It's a family holiday, right? Where are the families?
Apparently, most of them are on Game Show Network playing “Family Feud.” Other holiday marathons also explore the idea of family: Tyler Perry is fighting a one-man (except when he's dressed as a woman) crusade to define the future of family entertainment, and TBS has plenty of him. Elsewhere, the Hallmark Channel brings out its original family movies, most of which feature either Doris Roberts or Marion Ross as mom. For a bond between sisters that's just plain supernatural, TNT has “Charmed.” “The Hills” provide a mercifully short 6 hours of MTV family values. And there's the atypical yet normal family on TLC's “Little People, Big World.”

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“Family Feud (with Richard Karn)” on GSN, Thursday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“Tyler Perry's House of Payne” and Diary of a Mad Black Woman” on TBS, Thursday 4 to 11 p.m.
Original movies on Hallmark, Thursday 9 a.m. to Friday 3 a.m.
“Charmed” on TNT, Thursday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“The Hills” on MTV, Thursday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“Little People, Big World” on TLC, Thursday 9 a.m. to Friday 3 a.m.

It's sacrilege, I tell you
The SciFi Channel has booted “The Twilight Zone” from its traditional Turkey Day timeslot to a seven-hour chunk of the day before, and they're all episodes from the less-than-successful season. And what has taken its place? The oxymoronic sci-fi reality show “Ghost Hunters.” Going after ghosts without proto-packs and Bill Murray's wisecracks? That's just plain wrong!

“The Twilight Zone” on SciFi, Wednesday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“Ghost Hunters” on SciFi, Thursday 8 a.m. to Friday 6 a.m.

If we can't have the “Zone,” how about Hitch?
Alfred Hitchcock movies on AMC? Hitch's black comedy about a corpse that won't hold still “The Trouble With Harry” kicks it off at the wee hour of 5:15 a.m.. Watch “The Man Who Knew Too Much” at 10:00 a.m., “Vertigo” at 12:30 p.m. and “Rear Window” at 5:30 p.m. and you'll stop thinking of Jimmy Stewart as that Christmas movie guy. “The Birds” get their revenge for all those turkeys at 8 p.m., and be sure you've showered before 10:30 p.m. and “Psycho.”

Hitchcock movies on AMC, Thursday 5:15 a.m. to Friday 6:30 a.m.

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