Our World

ABC's Our World had the advantage of the great news staff at ABC in 1986, who went out and filmed eyewitness accounts from regular people as well as the famous. This hour long show had a budget of under $1 million, less then the $1.5 million budgeted for the previous time slot occupant, Ripley's Believe It or Not hosted by Jack Palance, according to a New York Times article in 1986. Whatever the budget, the money spent shows in the Our World episodes I saw and taped in 1986 and 1987. In 1986, Our World production staff could still find participants for interviews to the shows covering the earliest season/year episodes in 1938 and 1939. Now, 19 years later, many of those interviewed have passed on, so this show is a real time capsule. The film archivists did an outstanding job collecting high quality film footage for the episodes, which looks good even on my taped copies, taped at EP speed, for reasons unknown now (but which I am now transferring to DVDR at XP speed).

Information on this ABC News documentary series is very hard to come by. TVTome has information on some episodes, but the air dates are not always accurate. The Bill Cosby Show, which was on opposite Our World, is out on DVD now, but Our World is still among the missing on DVD. While show host Linda Ellerbee went on to other shows, co-host Ray Gandolf and the show's production staff do not seem to have gotten another chance at ABC News after Our World flopped.

Below are the show episodes in January 1987, with the correct air dates. Since Our World was a news show with few musical segments that could cause clearance problems, ABC would have no problems issuing a DVD of the series. ABC probably won't, since niche market quality shows like Our World do not appeal to the Ipod wearing empty suits who dominate corporate American television.

Our World Episode List (1986-1987) 9/25/86 Summer Of 1969 10/2/86 13 Days In October 1962 10/9/86 Pre-empted 10/16/86 Autumn 1956 10/23/86 Forty Days In Spring 1970 10/30/86 Halloween Of 1938 11/6/86 Breaking Barriers 1954 11/13/86 Pre-empted 11/20/86 Pre-empted 11/27/86 Per-empted 12/4/86 Together And Apart 1943 12/11/86 Pursuit Of Power | Autumn 1973 12/18/86 All Shook Up | Autumn 1957 12/25/86 Pre-empted 1/1/87 Secrets & Surprises | Fall 1948 1/8/87 Inner-Struggles | Autumn 1975 1/15/87 Fear & Frustration | Winter 1952 1/22/87 Worlds Apart | Summer 1939 1/29/87 Re-run - Breaking Barriers 1954 2/5/87 Winds Of Change | Winter 1968 2/12/87 A Crowded Room | Autumn 1949 2/19/87 Gone With The Wind 1939 2/26/87 Between The Lines | Summer 1972 3/5/87 Up Against The Wall | 1961 3/12/87 Re-run – 1970 Episode 3/19/87 Pre-empted 3/26/87 Re-run – 1943 Episode 4/2/87 Re-run – 1973 Episode 4/9/87 Liberation Summer | 1944 4/16/87 Cover Stories | Spring 1960 4/23/87 Period Of Adjustment | Autumn 1946 4/30/87 Speaking Out | Spring 1963 5/7/87 Duels In The Sun | Summer 1952 5/14/87 One Day In April 1961 5/21/87 Long Winter - Short Spring 1937 5/28/87 Spring 1953

(List e-mailed to me by LF, who saw my original posting listing 4 episodes of series shown in January 1987. He had obtained a complete list from a production assistant at ABC. I modified list slightly, adding information for two episodes).

I was fortunate to have taped the Our World episodes. I have twenty-four complete shows and two incomplete shows. There were twenty-six episodes total. I left the commercials intact, except for one show, as I recall. I was teaching Contemporary History at the time and encouraged my students to watch the program. Many of them did. It made for good discussion the next day. My chore now is to see if I can find air-dates for them. On air comments indicate which episode was first (Summer of '69) and which episode was last (Liberation Summer 1944). I plan to view all of them and write a summary of each. That is probably a good project for when the snow starts flying. I wouldn't think that a show like this would fare any better now because of all the offerings of the cable world, but it is hard to say.

I am so angry I did not tape this entire series. When the announcement came that the show was to be canceled, I taped the last show and they then repeated 13 episodes. Supposed to have been 12 but they added a week, so I do have 14 of the 26 episodes. Like other comments here, I pull the two and half VHS tapes out of storage, still in good condition even taped on EP, every couple of years and watch them again. I love the actual commercials of the time, played in between the current commercials. As the tapes are getting older, the 1986-87 commercials are also becoming a bit nostalgic. I enjoyed all of the people they were able to interview or obtain footage of recent interviews of those who were there. Many have passed on since then. Loved the editing of this show and the variety of issues covered for a particular time period; International and national news mixed in with a popular song, TV icon, human interest story, inventions, discoveries, sports, records broken, commercials or products. Also, the way they looked back at the period, at the end of the show, for analysis and how it has affected us today. Ray Gandolf and Linda Elerbee did a wonderful announcing job. Can't believe Ray Gandolf was a sports news commentator. He is perfect as a history commentator. Some favorites were from 1968, Viet Nam, LBJ and the fashions and music of the late sixties, 1972 and McGovern, 1963 and MLK's March, 1957 with automobiles and desegregation, 1949, with early television and Levittown to 1952 with politics on television and the creation of Holiday Inn. I am so sorry it was never released on DVD. I would love to watch the entire series. It should have been played on PBS with the likes of Jazz and Baseball.

Our World (1986) is a fascinating time capsule - not of fiction, but of global ambition, creativity, and unity through media. A television special with a truly unprecedented scope, it brought together musicians, artists, and visionaries from across the globe in a synchronized broadcast meant to showcase the human experience on a planetary scale.

What makes this production so compelling is its bold attempt to use technology not just to inform, but to inspire. Long before the internet made the world feel small, Our World dared to present it as interconnected - not through politics or commerce, but through culture. With segments filmed live across dozens of countries, the project feels both massive in scale and intimate in its personal moments.

Of course, technical limitations of the era are visible, but that only adds to the historical charm. There's a raw, unfiltered honesty in seeing the world as it was - different, yet united by common threads. From music performances to moments of everyday life, it's a snapshot of a world still discovering the power of global communication.

In retrospect, Our World was not just a broadcast - it was a statement. A quiet but resonant call for global understanding, decades before such ideas became commonplace. For those interested in the history of media, international collaboration, or simply nostalgic for the optimism of 20th-century broadcasting, this is a truly meaningful watch.

....thanks to Linda Ellerbee, Ray Gandolf and the writers. Like others in this forum I too taped this show and have them to this day. Every couple of years or so I re-watch the series. It never grows old or dated. It is history, it is timeless, it is who we are.

It was the only television program that ever prompted me to write to a studio (ABC) regarding a show. ABC was kind enough to send me really nice educational materials that they made available for each episode and provided to schools and institutions. From these and other materials about the show that I was able to gather during its run in the 1986-87 season, I was able to assemble a nice "Our World" educational scrapbook.

OUR WORLD lives on.....