Although probably not terribly pleasant in real life, the idea of a Thanksgiving food fight does have tremendous comedic appeal and the odds that many Thanksgiving gatherings degenerate into food fights are actually fairly high considering the fact that relations are often tense between different members of the typical family. In fact, such tensions don't need to rise to the level of dysfunctionality. Many times there are unresolved issues between different people in a family which continue to generate bad feelings for many years. An awkward family gathering is exactly the type of situation which might provoke outright expression of these negative sentiments. A poorly worded comment or the introduction of a sensitive topic in conversation could ignite an argument and one thing could easily lead to another. It's completely conceivable that food might begin to fly through the air and that guests and the house of the hosts become badly soiled with food which took a lot of work to prepare. Of course, in real life such an event would be quite unfortunate, but properly portrayed in a comedic presentation it would be good for lots of laughs.