"Travis": a 1983 Episode of the TV Series WEBSTER

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http://terrencemoss.blogspot.com/201...s-webster.html

For all the talk of how corny 1980s TV sitcoms were, they certainly touched upon a lot of topics that sitcoms today do not.

Granted, it was often under the guise of a "very special episode" (which continued well into the 1990s), but occasionally a really good topical episode would air and was allowed to stand on its own merits as such without the designation of being "very special".

Such was the case with a 1983 episode of Webster starring Emmanuel Lewis, Susan Clark and the late Alex Karras. Clark and Karras played Katherine and George Papadapolis, a recently-married couple who suddenly find themselves the guardians of a young child whose parents had recently died and left him to them. I watched the series in reruns as a kid, but have no recollection of this particular standout episode.

Katherine, an upper-crust socialite, was ill-equipped for motherhood -- especially such a sudden one. And George, a former football player (like Karras himself), had his own adjustments to make.

In this episode titled "Travis", Katherine's friend Ellen Franklin meets George and Webster for the first time. When Katherine solicits Ellen's advice about her new life as a wife and mother, Ellen tells Katherine that she doesn't think they, as a white couple, should be raising a black child. Katherine relays this to George and admits to having had the same concerns since first taking in Webster. Because Ellen is a housewife, a mother of three, black, holds a PhD in Sociology specializing in the placement of minority children and has written a book on the subject, Katherine takes her words to heart. She and George decide to broach the subject with Webster.

They do the best they can with the inherent awkwardness of the discussion, but when they ask him if they embarrass him, he assumes they were trying to spare his feelings and comes to think that he embarrasses them.

Webster turns to his friend Melanie to discuss the situation. They look up the word "embarrass" in the dictionary and, based on the three definitions provided, Webster ascertains that the problem is that his living with Katherine and George is costing them a fortune. So he sells his toys to help them out.

Meanwhile, Katherine has done some research about black children in white households -- which she shares with George, who has no such doubts about whether or not he and Katherine are the right parents for Webster. But when Webster presents Katherine with the $1.87 he raised from selling his toys, she shares her concerns with him. Webster misunderstands this to mean this his color bothers her as opposed to the other way around -- which is really what Katherine was getting at.

To put an end to the misunderstanding, George tells Webster and Katherine about the time he spent in the waiting room with Webster's father Travis the night Webster was born. In a flashback sequence, Travis asks George to be his son's godfather. George expresses similar concerns to Travis that Katherine now has. Travis explains to George that he and Webster's unseen mother Gert have made this decision not only because they love George and he's their best friend, but because George shares the same values, the same standards and the same soul as they do and if anyone has a problem with it, then it's that person's problem.

Back in the present day (30 years ago), George tells Katherine and Webster that that's why he's so sure about the new arrangement and if they don't trust him, then they should trust Travis. When Katherine says that it won't be easy, George tells them that though that may be the case, the three of them have a head start because of a little kid who sold all his toys for a $1.87 to help them out and a woman who would risk losing that little boy if it was the best thing for him.

So while George also doesn't see easy, he does see family.

At that point Katherine reminds Webster that it's way past is bedtime -- to which Webster replies, "sounds like a mother to me" to audience applause, an exchange of "I love yous", more audience applause and a closing joke by a tearful Katherine about how she sent Webster to bed without any dinner.