As you spend Thanksgiving afternoon alternating between slow, deep breaths and belly rubbing to cure your food coma/impending nausea from overstuffing yourself on stuffing and turkey, consider turning your TV set to the Versus channel.
(If you can find it, that is. Tip: It's 603 on DirecTV and 146 on Cablevision.)
Normally, we wouldn't support a network that's more old-school ESPN (back when it was OSN, the Obscure Sports Network), but this Thanksgiving, beginning at 4:30 p.m., there's a "Rocky" movie marathon.
We feel it's always necessary to mention "Rocky" movie marathons when we come across them. I mean, really, it's Rocky Balboa, the greatest American movie hero since Bogart in "Casablanca."
Unless of course, you prefer to watch the 2-8 Jets attempt to beat the Cowboys on three days' rest. Yeah, didn't think so. Although, that would cure that whole nausea thing after your sixth turkey and gravy biscuit sandwich.
We must note that this marathon is more like a really long run. It starts with "Rocky II" and continues with "Rocky III" and "Rocky V."
I've always said "Rocky V" gets a bad rap. I applaud Versus for being the only station gutsy enough to include "Rocky V" in the marathon. Most stations usually stop after "Rocky IV."
However, how can you have a Rocky marathon with "Rocky" and "Rocky IV?" Seriously. "Rocky" started it all, and "Rocky IV" had James Brown, pre-Flavor Flav Brigitte Nielsen and Apollo Creed's mustache. I know the Cold War is over, but c'mon. That didn't stop the Olympics, did it?
But at least we get the famous "hug in the ocean" scene in "Rocky III."