My World... and Welcome to It is an American half-hour television sitcom based on the humor and cartoons of James Thurber.

It starred William Windom as John Monroe, a Thurber-like writer and cartoonist who works for a magazine closely resembling The New Yorker called The Manhattanite. Wry, fanciful and curmudgeonly, Monroe observes and comments on life, to the bemusement of his wife Ellen (Joan Hotchkis) and daughter Lydia (Lisa Gerritsen). Monroe's frequent daydreams and fantasies are usually based on Thurber material.

The series, which ran for one season during the 1969–1970 season on NBC, was created by Mel Shavelson, who wrote and directed the pilot episode and was one of its principal writers. Sheldon Leonard was executive producer. The show's producer, Danny Arnold, co-wrote or directed numerous episodes, and appeared as Santa Claus in "Rally Round the Flag".

Most episodes open with Monroe arriving in front of the house from the Thurber cartoon "Home," which in the original cartoon has a woman's face on one side of it. In the show, the house is initially house-shaped. The woman's face is often animated to appear, as Ellen says something to John. The "Home" house, without the face, is used as an establishing shot throughout the episodes. Other Thurber cartoons are similarly animated over the course of the series—sometimes in the opening sequence, sometimes later in the episode. The episode "Cristabel" begins with Monroe lying on top of a cartoon doghouse, a reference to the non-Thurber cartoon character Snoopy. Animation for the series was by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

Henry Morgan had a recurring role as Philip Jensen, a writer for The Manhattanite, who was based on humorist Robert Benchley. Harold J. Stone played the editor, with whom Monroe is often at odds about the cartoon content. A female writer who appeared in one episode was loosely based on Dorothy Parker.^{[citation needed]} Guest-stars included Lee Meriwether, Paul Ford, Joe Besser, Ray Walston, Craig Stevens, Danny Bonaduce, Talia Shire (as Talia Coppola), Cindy Williams, James Gregory and Noam Pitlik.

Live action adaptations of Thurber's writing were another show staple. For example, "Rally Round the Flag," in which Monroe purchases a very large flag as a gift, is loosely based on a Thurber piece called "There's a Time for Flags". An incident with a policeman in "Cristabel" is an almost verbatim transcription of the Thurber story "The Topaz Cufflinks Mystery". Fables for Our Time is another source, as when John Monroe sees a unicorn in the back yard, a reference to "The Unicorn in the Garden." Many of the episode titles are taken from Thurber's Fables for Our Time (e.g., "The Shrike and the Chipmunks") and other writings ("Rules for a Happy Marriage" and many more).

The character name of John Monroe is Thurber’s alter-ego in his book Owl in the Attic. Monroe and his family first came to television in a 1959 Alcoa Theatre/Goodyear Theatre production called "Cristabel (The Secret Life of John Monroe)" also written by Mel Shavelson. The dog Cristabel was named after a dog Thurber gave to his daughter. John Monroe also appears in a 1961 episode of The DuPont Show with June Allyson called "The Country Mouse", starring Orson Bean. This also uses animated versions of Thurber's cartoons, and the story — cartoonist Monroe struggles to finish his work under the pressures of home and office — that could be regarded as an unofficial pilot for the My World series.

Despite the use of "drawings, stories, inspirational pieces and things that go bump in the night by James Thurber", as stated in the opening credits, the show also contains character and story elements that owe little or nothing to Thurber's work.^{[citation needed]}