Turkey bowling
Turkey bowling is a sport which is based on ordinary bowling. A frozen turkey serves as the bowling ball and 10 liquid-filled plastic beverage bottles are used for bowling pins. The turkey is bowled down a smooth surface such as ice or a soap-covered sheet of painters plastic. The sport is commonly associated with Thanksgiving.
The original variant involves turkey bowling in an aisle of a grocery store. Derrick Johnson, who worked as a grocery clerk at a Newport Beach Lucky's branch, claims to have invented the sport in 1988 while observing a manager slide a frozen turkey across the floor and accidentally topple a soda bottle. Johnson became a self-appointed commissioner of the "Poultry Bowlers Association" and codified the rules and terminology, such as "the fowl line", "the gobbler", "the Butterball" and "the wishbone".
A variant of turkey bowling popularized by television station WJW in Cleveland, Ohio uses stacked canned goods instead of soft drink bottles. The WJW version is a multiple-round, one-frame knockout tournament televised in segments during WJW's Thanksgiving morning newscast. The event has been held since 1999, including a celebrity invitational in 2023 and a 25th anniversary tournament of champions in 2024.