It turns out, a similar turkey incident did take place in real life, but it wasn't in Cincinnati. "WKRP in Cincinnati" was loosely based on staffers from a real-life radio station WQXI-AM, per the Atlanta Consultation-Journal, and the son of the former station manager, Jerry Blum, revealed that there was an ill-fated turkey-themed Thanksgiving promotion that took place when his dad helmed a Dallas radio station earlier in his career. Gary Blum told the outlet that his dad's promotion featured him throwing frozen turkeys out of the back of a truck, and that chaos ensued as listeners fought to grab a freebie. Arthur Carlson's future "I thought turkeys could fly" line was also said to have come from the true-life incident with the frozen birds. But like the TV turkeys, Blum didn't survive — at least not at the Dallas radio station.
The "WKRP in Cincinnati" episode was actually written by series creator Hugh Wilson, who knew a good story when he heard one. In an interview with the Archive of American Television (via The Cincinnati Enquirer), Wilson once said, "Jerry Blum, who was the general manager of WQXI, told me that he had been fired from a Texas radio station for throwing turkeys out of a helicopter. I turned to Jerry and said, 'You just won me an Emmy.'"
