This Thursday, people around the country will be celebrating Thanksgiving with family time, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and NFL football. There's also the most important event of the day: The National Dog Show. Nearly 2,000 dogs across 205 breeds participate in the annual parade of good pups, and this year's event is extra special.

With this year being the 25th anniversary of Best In Show -- the satirical film that led to NBC rebranding and airing the National Dog Show as we know it now -- For The Win had a chance to chat with actress Jane Lynch, who starred in the Christopher Guest comedy. There's also a fun Busy Bee dog toy tie in, calling back to the iconic Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock meltdown over the missing Busy Bee.

The National Dog Show airs on NBC at noon, following the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.

It has been 25 years since Best In Show. What goes through your mind when you look back on that movie and the process?

Oh, it was a joy to do. I was very nervous, because it was my first Christopher Guest movie, and it's all improvised, so it's a great unknown. So in order to feel protected, you have to really develop the the character. You have to have done your work very precisely before you get there, decide who this person is. Chris [Guest] gives you some direction about who your person is, but you show up, ready to go hot. This is how the person talks. This is what she's afraid of. This is how she wants to win this thing. And you really get deep, deep, deep, deep into it.

So when you show up, you've got everything taken care of and then you can improvise. But you're still nervous, and I was happy to have Jennifer Coolidge with me, so we kind of held hands. It was her first time, too. You knew we were making something pretty damn funny. I had seen Waiting For Guffman and I knew how funny these guys were and how great Chris was at putting together, like a subculture of people, and in that case, Guffman, it was a small community theater with aspirations of Broadway. It's kind of these small, tight groups that have their own hierarchy, and they're backstabbing, and they all want to be top dog, if you will. That's why I think it still holds up. It's still very, very funny, because it's something that's timeless and universal.

Does it make you more nervous going into something like that knowing that you're looking at Eugene Levy, you're looking at Catherine O'Hara, Jennifer Coolidge... how hard is it not to laugh?

Nobody breaks. You're too frightened to break. Catherine O'Hara, I heard her say, "You don't want to break. You want to be one of the group. You want to be in the scene." And when you're breaking, you're not in the scene. And also, if you break, you might screw up what someone's in the process of doing as you're sitting there giggling. Yeah, you give up your right to be amused. You can be amused deep inside where no one can see, but you have to surrender yourself to the scene and the reality of the scene. I knew who Eugene [Levy] and Catherine and Fred [Willard] -- all those guys -- Jennifer, I knew who they all were, and I was a fan. So this was a preposterous fantasy come true that I got to do the next movie with them. I was nervous, but you kind of just have to put on your big girl pants and step up to it.

How excited are you to being connected with the National Dog Show? What is your dog connection?

[Points at dog sleeping behind her] She's an old lady, and that's the Busy Bee right next to her. She's just not interested in toys anymore. She's sound asleep, and I'm sure her tongue is hanging out because she has no teeth. We've only had her a few months. She is a senior dog. We rescue senior dogs. We have another black Cocker Spaniel down there, Charles, and yeah, we love the senior guys. They're adorable and entitled, and they don't know how good they have it.

Once they go grey, they get their way.

Oh, I love that.

When you're watching the National Dog Show, is there a group dog that you're rooting for a lot of the times? Or do you do vibes?

I do vibes. And if a dog looks like they smile naturally. You know, there's some dogs that I do think smile. I really do. I you know, I feel it, and I don't think I'm projecting. But no, I love a dog smile.

What is your favorite thing about the dog show? Why do you think people love watching the dog show every year?

If the dog that wins knows it won and it's happy. You can tell the way they they run around and the crowd is going crazy. And, yeah, so there have been some hilarious dog wins.

When you were doing Best in Show with the presenting of the dog, was that one of the more fun things to learn?

That was really fun. We actually took a dog handling class. I did a class with Catherine O'Hara and John Michael Higgins, and we went to a park in Beverly Hills where they actually have dog shows. We had a professional handler teach us how to do it, the technique for it. It took some work, and she had dogs for us to use. And right as we were finishing our lesson, there was a dog show about to start, and -- I think it was Great Danes -- and a woman came running over and said, 'Would any of you like to handle one of our Great Danes?' A handler, didn't show up, and John Michael Higgins did it, and he won. Yeah, his dog won. He won the show, and he had just learned how to do it 20 minutes before.

Perfect segue, because I love game shows, and I frequently watch America Says with John Michael Higgins. You host The Weakest Link, and you're obviously delightful... do you ever feel like you're being too mean? Is it hard to get into that mindset?

Sometimes it is, and especially when we started this season, a bunch of my friends were the contestants, and I'm yukking it up with them and everything. They got in my ear, 'You gotta get mean, Jane, you have to get mean,' you know. It's like the brand that you're supposed to be mean. They said, 'You're being way too nice to them.' So that was the first show of that season. I had to be reminded the whole time, 'Jane, you're smiling too much, too friendly.'

Can you tell me about the Busy Bee Sweepstakes?

So Busy Bee has been found! We have 2,500 of them, and you can win one if you enter the sweepstakes. You have to go to My Purina app, download that app and register and get yourself in the competition. You'll also get a digital version of Best in Show, so you have to do that before December 1.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Q&A: Jane Lynch on National Dog Show, 'Best in Show' and more

Reporting by Caroline Darney, For The Win / For The Win

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