Our World

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.....

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).

"For the next hour, think of your television set as a time machine." That was lead-off line on most episodes. I really enjoyed this history program. It was always an interesting look back. For someone who had gone through school in the 1970s, much of the history from the 1950s and later was not taught in our schools yet. It was on this show that I learned of Little Rock (1957), the Rosenbergs(1954), Francis Gary Powers and the infamous "U2 incident"(1960), the March on Washington (1963), Brown verses the Board of Education (1954), the great GM strike (1936/37), Jonas Salk, the McCarthy era, the "War of the Worlds" broadcast (1938), Gold Star mothers, the Tet Offensive, Levittown, Detroit race riots, Kent State and countless other events that have now become well known. When Billy Joel's song "We didn't start the fire" came out in 1989, I knew just about every event mentioned in that song, mainly because I had watched this show. The show would take a period in time and review the events/news of that period, for example, "Fall 1973" they reviewed the Tennis match between Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs, the Yom Kippur war, the Saturday Night Massacre etc. all of which occurred during that period. The time periods featured ranged from 1936 - 1975 and it was amazing what they could pack into an hour. As the closing credits rolled, the hosts (Ray Gandolf and Linda Ellerbee) would rattle off the more obscure events that happened during that period and often tied them to modern day figures ("Also in 1952, Ronald Reagan married Nancy Davis..." etc). I wish there was a show like this on today. Unfortunately, ABC put this show on opposite The Cosby Show which was the most popular TV show on the air at the time so Our World had a hard time finding an audience. I watched, and taped Our World every week. I still enjoy watching the episodes and often watch them with my children when discussing their history lessons. It is sad that the term "Educational TV" has now become an oxi-moron. Shows such as this educated a lot of viewers. Thank you Linda and Ray! You did the job my history teachers did not do. Linda Ellerbee is still a prominent figure in TV, however, Ray Gandolf seems to have disappeared. Both did a fine job on this show. It truly is a forgotten jewel of the 1980s. Our World itself could now be a topic for a modern show looking back on 1986/87 - I wonder how many would remember it?

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!