Not WKRP: Yellville Turkey Trot

[pbmax]

They used to throw the turkeys out of low flying planes. Then the National Enquirer showed up...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/yellville-turkey-trot/576184/

[pbmax]

For some reason only known to a relative with a remote and a DVR, we used to watch Pumpkin Chukin' over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was on whatever network used to show MythBusters. I know it was MythBusters because the hosts for the show were those meddling kids that worked alongside Jamie and Adam.

Contestants spent the year building elaborate air cannons, trebuchets and catapults, the best of which could toss a gourd hundreds if not thousands of feet. Watching a gourd flying out of an air cannon sometimes looked like a space shuttle launch after a minute. You saw something on the screen, and you think it was the gourd.

I feel like this is alone the same lines, but with more depravity.

[hoosier]

Pumpkin launches are still a thing. Our kids used to love going to those, betting on whether machine built by the local HS physics club could beat the travelling pros with their high powered Pharphlinger. The turkey drop sounds like an experiment in mob mentality, or maybe the rewriting of that Shirley Jackson story called "The Lottery."


One turkey slammed into a power line so hard the wire bent down about three feet before snapping back up. The bird hit the ground, shocked and dazed, and tried to walk … pitifully trying to run on two obviously broken legs before it was crushed to death by a pileup of kids … After smashing into a tree and coming to rest on a branch, one of the birds was pursued by a gang of kids who captured and fought over it—using it in a grisly tug-of-war that ended when one boy tore the turkey’s wing off.

[Freak Out]

Pumpkin cannons are one thing...but a turkey bomb? lol