Courteney Cox Gloriously Recreated That Iconic Turkey Dance From 'Friends'
The ‘Friends’ actress gave the people exactly what they wanted this Thanksgiving: the turkey dance
Even if you’ve never watched an episode of Friends in your life (and if you haven’t, are you OK?), you know exactly what the turkey dance is. You’ve seen it in GIFs, in memes, as stills from the hit NBC show. The minute-long scene in Season 5, Episode 8 where Monica dons an entire turkey on her head, and puts on an oversized pair of yellow glasses and a red, hassled-hat atop the uncooked poultry — and Chandler tells her he loves her for the first time — is purely iconic. And, because it’s the year 2020, the actress who played Monica for a staggering 10 seasons, Courteney Cox, did us all a solid and recreated the famous Thanksgiving shimmy.
NBC
Taking to her Instagram, Cox recorded a message for all her Friends fans. “Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope you’re having a great day. I’m feeling so thankful,” she starts.
Then, Cox unexpectedly zooms in on her mouth as she aggressively — and hilariously — says, “And also if I get one more goddamn GIF with that turkey on my head dancing like a fucking fool, I’m just gonna snap.”
“Anyway,” Cox continues, “since I’m the symbol of Thanksgiving, here you go. I hope it makes you happy.”
And then this is where the real magic happens: The video cuts to Cox dancing with a sunglasses-wearing turkey on her head as the Friends theme song plays.
The dance aired in the episode titled “The One With the Thanksgiving Flashbacks,” which aired Nov. 19, 1998 — and it’s still, now more than 20 years later, as iconic as ever, even among the cast. “You DID THAT,” her Friends co-star Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe, commented on Cox’s IG video.
The video was also a great reminder of what’s to come for the Friends cast: the Friends HBO Max reunion special, which was delayed for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, however, fans got a long-awaited update on the reunion special’s new premiere date: March 2021.
“Friends reunion being rescheduled for the beginning of March,” Matthew Perry tweeted Nov. 12. “Looks like we have a busy year coming up. And that’s the way I like it!”
“This is a show that is not scripted, but this is the way the show works,” Kaufman told Entertainment Tonight earlier this year. “We are going to need a live audience. Even if we socially distance that live audience, it really is a huge part of what ‘Friends’ is. We cannot do it without them.”
