Our World

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.

I remember coming across Our World in the TV listings a couple of days before it first aired. When I saw what ABC was out to do, I realized immediately- "It's going to be smart, educational, and historical in nature...it doesn't stand a chance." The second thing I did was prepare some blank videos to record every episode for as long as Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf could keep the show going.

Today, twenty years later, I have still have those four video tapes with all 25 episodes- most without the commercials. (Looking back, it would be interesting to see the commercials now too!) My hope is to transfer these tapes to DVD- hopefully they're still in decent condition.

This little known and short lived show was one of the high points of television history. It is also sad note on our society that it wasn't put on to actually educate people, but by executives who saw it as a cheap alternative in a ratings time slot they could never win.

ABC probably realized that programming against NBC's Thursday line up juggernaut was almost impossible, so why not put on a show that didn't require a huge amount of money to produce. What would fit the bill better than a news show, that used film footage that could be pulled from archives?

Each show would revolve around a particular year, 1958, for example, and one, as I recall, was about the movie "Gone With The Wind", and what was involved in it's complicated filming.

Linda Ellerbee and Ray Gandolf shared hosting duties. And Ms. Ellerbee's dry wit showed true as each story played out.

I remember that when the network tried to cancel the show, a national write-in campaign was started. the host even joked about the fact that many folks watched "Cosby" and taped "Our World" to watch later.

I used to pop a tape in my Beta(!) machine and head out for the evening.

A good effort, but doomed to low ratings due to it's placement. If it was a weekend show, we'd probably be watching, now!

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.