Tennessee Ernie Ford : Thanksgiving Special

This has been bugging me for years and I've never received an answer on any Tennessee Ernie Ford forum, but maybe someone here knows. There's this Thanksgiving special he did sometimes rerun at holidays on PBS stations. Here's what I know:

The Ford Show (which I think was named for the Ford Motor Company, so it wasn't The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show), was canceled in 1961, when President Kennedy was still in office.

Every episode of The Ford Show that I remember seeing has been in black-and-white. The Thanksgiving special is in color. A lot of series went to color right around 1963.

The special is lighthearted most of the way through, then there is an abrupt change in tone, with a choir singing a devotional piece. This in itself was not unusual for Ernie, who ended his shows with a hymn. What is unusual is the last scene features Ernie with the cast praying around a dinner table, and Ernie says, "our nation has been through a difficult time." I always thought this referred to the Kennedy assassination, but since the special is not listed in his Internet Movie Database credits and I've never seen a copyright date on it, I can't be sure! Anyone know? Thanks for any information!

He was referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ford actually did two TV shows. The first one was a night time show he did in L.A. while the second was a daytime show after he moved out of Los Angeles and bought a cattle ranch in northern California in the San Francisco area. Quite a few of his shows were filmed in color starting in the early 60s.

Oh, wow, thanks! Been wondering that for years!