Mork and Mindy

Mork and Mindy was a sci-fi-based American sitcom broadcast from 1978 until 1982 on the American Broadcasting Company. The series starred Robin Williams as Mork, an alien who came to Earth in a giant egg from the planet Ork, and Pam Dawber as Mindy McConnell, his human comedic foil.

Premise and initial success

The series was a spinoff of the sitcom Happy Days. The character of Mork appeared for an episode where he threatened to take Richie Cunningham back to Ork as an example of a human, but his plan is foiled by Fonzie. The character proved to be popular enough with the audience to rate a starring role in a series.

After discovering Mork, Mindy promises to keep his true identity a secret and allows him to move into her attic. Complicating factors include Mindy's father, Fred, who expresses outrage that his daughter is living with a man. Fred's mother-in-law, Cora, presents a much less conservative view, and approves of Mork and the living arrangement. Mindy and Cora also worked at Fred's record store along with an African-American kid, Eugene. Storylines usually centered on Mork's attempts to understand human behavior and American culture as Mindy helps him to adjust to life on Earth. At the end of each episode, Mork must report back to Orson, the Orkan leader, on what he has learned about Earth. These end-of-show summaries allow Mork to comment humorously on social norms.

Mork's greeting was "Na-Nu Na-Nu" along with a hand gesture similar to Mr. Spock's Vulcan salute from Star Trek. It became a popular catchphrase at the time.

This series was Robin Williams's first major acting break. Though the show was a spinoff of Happy Days, which was set in 1950s Milwaukee, Mork and Mindy was set in present day Boulder, Colorado. The series became famous for Williams' use of his manic improvisational comedic talent. Williams would make up so many jokes during filming, the scripts eventually had specific gaps where Williams was allowed to perform freely. In many scenes, Pam Dawber had to bite her lip to avoid laughing and ruining the filming.

In an interview with Garry Marshall on June 30, 2006, Pat O'Brien mentioned that Mork & Mindy was filmed on Paramount stage 27, now the home of O'Brien's show The Insider. The series was hugely popular in its first season. The Nielsen ratings were very high, ranking at #3 just behind Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. However, the network brass sought to "improve" the show in several ways. This was done in conjunction with the use of "counter-programming", a technique in which a successful show is moved opposite a ratings hit on another network. The show was moved from Thursdays, where it soundly beat CBS' The Waltons, to Sundays where it aired against NBC's highly-rated anthology series The Big Event and CBS' Archie Bunker's Place, a retooled version of All in the Family.

In the United Kingdom the show was shown regionally by each of the 14 contractors of the ITV Network. A typical slot for the show was Tuesdays at 5.15 p.m. as adhered to by Yorkshire Television.

Decline

The second season saw an attempt to seek younger viewers. The characters of Fred, Cora and Eugene were dropped. It was explained on the show that Fred was sent off to tour as a conductor with an orchestra, and he took Cora with him on the road. Eugene was never mentioned again ("Chuck Cunningham Syndrome"). New cast members and a disco-like version of the first season's gentle theme tune were added. The new supporting characters included Remo and Jean DaVinci, a brother and sister from New York City who owned a new neighborhood deli where Mork and Mindy now spent a lot of time. Also added were Nelson Flavor, Mindy's snooty cousin who ran for city council; and their grumpy neighbor Mr. Bickley portrayed by Tom Poston, (introduced in the first season). The show's main focus was no longer on Mork's slapstick attempts to adjust to the new world he was in, but began to focus on the relationship between Mork and Mindy on a romantic level. The network execs also are rumored to have tried to get Pam Dawber to add "jiggle" by wearing padded bras and more revealing clothes. She refused, and Robin Williams supported her decision.

The changes proved to be detrimental to the series. The show's ratings fell tremendously. It was quickly moved back to its previous timeslot but the ratings never fully recovered. Several efforts were made to get back to the core of the series. For the third season, Mindy's father and grandmother were brought back. The new characters, except Mr. Bickley, were dropped. (The show itself acknowledged this desperate attempt to fix its previous meddling, with the third season's hour-long opener aptly titled "Putting The Ork Back In Mork").

When this failed to help ratings, many wilder ideas were tried to try and capitalize on Williams' comedic talents. In the fourth season, Mork and Mindy were married. Jonathan Winters, one of Williams' idols, was brought in as their child, Mearth. Due to the different Orkan physiology, Mork laid an egg, which grew and hatched into the much older Winters. It had been previously explained that Orkans aged "backwards", thus explaining Mearth's appearance. Other attempts included the use of special guest stars. In a two-part second season episode, Raquel Welch appeared as Captain Nirvana of the Necrotons, an alien species of beautiful women that were enemies of the Orkans. There was even an episode where Mork meets Robin Williams. None of these ploys could fix the problems that resulted when the studio brass "fixed" what had been working in the beginning. Mork and Mindy was cancelled in its fourth season.

The house from the show is located at 1619 Pine Street, just a few blocks away from the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. To this day, it is still a popular tourist attraction in Boulder.

The Happy Days connection

The character of Mork was introduced in an episode of Happy Days titled "My Favorite Orkan." Richie tells everyone he has seen a flying saucer but no one else believes him. Fonzie tells him that people make up stories about UFOs because their lives are "humdrum." Then, while Richie's at home, Mork walks in. He freezes everyone with his finger except Richie and says he was sent to Earth to find a "humdrum" human to take back to Ork. Richie runs to Fonzie for help. When Mork catches up to him, he freezes everyone but finds himself unable to freeze Fonzie due to The Fonz's famous and powerful thumbs. Mork challenges Fonzie to a duel: Finger vs. Thumb. After their duel, The Fonz admits defeat. But Mork decides to take Fonzie back to Ork instead of Richie. Then, Richie wakes up and realizes he was dreaming. There is a knock on the door and much to Richie's dismay, it is a man who looks exactly like Mork except in regular clothes asking for directions. When production on Mork & Mindy began, an extra scene was filmed and added to this episode for subsequent reruns. Mork contacts Orson and explains that he decided to let Fonzie go, and was going to travel to the year 1978 to continue his mission.

Fonzie and Laverne of Laverne & Shirley appeared in the first episode of the show. In one segment, Mork returns to 1950s Milwaukee where Fonzie sets Mork up on a date with Laverne.

Mork returned to Happy Days in an episode in 1979. Mork tells Richie that he enjoys coming to the 1950s because life is simpler and more "humdrum" than in the 1970s. The episode is mostly a retrospective in which clips are shown as Richie tries to explain the concepts of love and friendship to Mork.

Four-season story development

Mork arrived on Earth and introduced himself to Mindy moments after she argued with her boyfriend and he drove off with her jeep. Shortly afterward, Mindy decided he could stay in the attic over her second-floor apartment; later we learned that Mr. Bickley lived downstairs.

During the second season, Mindy's father went on tour with an orchestra, and Mindy had more involvement with her other relatives, including Nelson Flavor, who was ever ready to promote his political aspirations, and her friends Remo and Jean DaVinci, who ran a local deli.

Fred returned in the third season, as did Cora Nelson, Mindy's grandmother, but Mork had gone "native", preferring to be called Morry; Mindy and Mork together called Orson to ask for help and an elder came to reindoctrinate Mork into Orkan behaviour.

At the end of the third season, Mork married Mindy, although Ork had outlawed marriage; somehow, Orson came around and defended Mork's decision. In the fourth season, Mork laid an egg and it quickly matured and their son, Mearth, popped out. He developed quickly, and took a transporter beam to get to school on Ork each day.

While trying to call Orson, Mork crossed signals with another alien Joe Regalbuto, who said his name was Kalnik, from Neptune. Kalnik, his Earth wife, Mork and Mindy got together to socialize, but Kalnik tipped his true feelings when he suggested to Mork that Earth presented opportunities for powerful aliens like themselves. Mindy overheard Kalnik and his wife say denegrating things about Mearth, Mork politely but firmly asked them to leave, and Kalnik turned on Mork. Although Mork tried to solve his problem by revealing his alien identity to Earth, Kalnik kept threatening them, trying to annihilate them. Mork used time-travel shoes to escape with Mindy (with Mearth staying with Fred). Kalnik followed Mork and Mindy through time, but the series ended inconclusively, with Mork and Mindy falling through time, declaring their togetherness, and a cave drawing of Mork and Mindy being the last we see (since the previous battle with Kalnik took place in prehistoric times).

Recurring characters

Exidor (Robert Donner), an eccentric nut (with possible mental disturbances) who thought of himself as a prophet. He knew that Mork was an alien but no one believed him. He was the leader of a cult called The Friends of Venus, of which he was the only member.

Mr. Sternhagen (Foster Brooks), Mindy's boss when she got a job at a local TV station.

Show producer Crissy Comstock played a wacky friend named after herself.

Todd Norman Taylor a.k.a. TNT (Bill Kirchenbauer), an obnoxious unattractive man who fancied himself as a swinger.

Spin-offs and adaptations

In the United Kingdom, a long-running comic strip version was written by Angus P. Allan, illustrated by Bill Titcombe and printed in TV comic Look-In.

After the show finished, a Saturday morning cartoon titled The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley with the Fonz Show ran on ABC from 1982-1983. The Mork & Mindy segments were a prequel, with Mindy as a student in high school.

In 2005, a TV-movie titled The Unauthorized Story of "Mork & Mindy" aired on NBC.

In 1979 there was an short-lived Brazilian version titled Superbronco. It was produced by Rede Globo, starring comedian Ronald Golias and actress Liza Vieira.

External links

Mork and Mindy Online