Reviews

In October 1989, East Germany celebrates its 40th birthday. But the body politic has aged poorly....

That night, a dedicated Communist schoolteacher tries to get a look at Mikhail Gorbachev, who is visiting East Berlin for the festivities. Instead, the teacher is shocked to see her own son being dragged away by police from a peaceful anti-Communist street protest. She collapses from a heart attack, and falls into a coma. The police release the son, who takes his unconscious mother home from the hospital, to care for her.

Soon the Berlin Wall collapses, and East and West Germans celebrate. In rapid succession, socialism collapses, consumer capitalism arrives, and all traces of East Germany rapidly disappear.

But the comatose mother knows nothing of any of this. And the son fears that when his mother awakes from her Rip Van Winkle slumber, the shock of events will kill her. So he hatches an elaborate ruse to fool his mother into thinking that East Germany survives. It is a plot inspired not by politics but by a son's love for his mother.

Shown on NBC in 1969-70 and and re-run on CBS ca. 1972. "My World and Welcome to It" was a sharp, sophisticated comedy that a curmudgeonly grandfather and an elementary schoolboy could enjoy together. This is *the* show William Windom ought to be remembered for.

The animation of the Thurber cartoons was fantastic. There was an especially funny episode based on the Thurber story "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox." The cartoonist sits on his young daughter's bed, starting to tell her about the end of the Civil War. "Suppose General Grant had been drinking, uh...." "Cough medicine?!" the girl chirps up. "Uh, yes, cough medicine." And then he goes on to tell the tale....

Suddenly you see William Windom in rumpled dress blues as General Grant, disgracefully drunk by the surrender table, chomping on his cigar, as a distinguished, gray bearded General Lee introduces himself. "General Robert E. Lee of the Army of Northern Virginia."

"Well go on, go ahead!" General Grant snaps as he proffers his sword to an astonished Lee, "Ya darn near licked us!"

(Luckily things didn't quite turn out that way in real life.)

Thurber is timeless, and so is this show. If only reruns of "My World" were run on cable, or at least sold on DVD -- it would hook a whole new generation on the wonderful imagination of James Thurber!