Mork & Mindy: The Mork Report

Mork & Mindy: The Mork Report
ABC
May 27, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Winifred Hervey wrote this episode that was meant to air before the "Gotta Run" three-parter.  It feels like it's going to be a clip show, but Mork's memories in his report to Orson on marriage are all newly shot (and directed by Williams).  We get to Fred and Cora, and hear Orson, this one last time, and end on a more upbeat note, even if it was probably cognitive dissonance at the time.  (Like I said, I remember hardly anything about this season in its first airing.)  The sequences with just Mork and Mindy are best here, especially their "romantic" dance.  (Shown in black & white, unlike the still above.)  I guess we can be glad that M & M got together, even if how this was handled, and other events along the way, didn't always live up to potential.

Mork & Mindy in its final season ranges from 2 Cs to 2 Bs, averaging out to a low B-.  I don't think the series ever fully jumped the shark, and it probably wasn't sustainable for long term (say six plus years) anyway, given the premise and Williams's persona.  It remains a cute, sweet show, sometimes very moving, other times baffling and/or disappointing.  I'm glad I got to follow it then and now on this crazy journey, but I don't know what I would've made of it with a time-traveling Season Five.  If M & M's bond were reemphasized, I probably would've stayed with it, but part of that bond was always their culture clash, and that might've been lost with them clashing with a variety of cultures.

This is not quite it for Williams & Dawber, since a friend sent me a download of their reunion on The Crazy Ones.  If I can still access it when we get up to 2014, I'll share my thoughts then.  For now, we bid a farewell to my junior-high years and prepare for life as a high school freshman...

Mork & Mindy: Gotta Run, Part 2

Mork & Mindy: Gotta Run, Part 2
ABC
May 13, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
C+

I didn't mention it earlier, but there was an episode where Mork wanted to practice for the written part of his driving test, and then there was an episode where he got his license offscreen.  Here we see him driving to and from Arizona, as the McConnells try to escape Kalnik.  They end up on a fat farm, but Kal impersonates Fred and then battles them.  They escape and Mork decides to go public as an alien.  I might've gone with another B-, but it feels out of character for Mindy to call Mork a dumbbell, and the thing about him disliking her perm goes on too long without being funny.

Mork & Mindy: Cheerleader in Chains

Mork & Mindy: Cheerleader in Chains
ABC
April 22, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Three of the show's female writers did this episode: Winifred Hervey, Cindy Begel, and Lisa Kite.  And, as the title suggests, the plot is about Mindy in jail, for refusing to reveal her source.  It's a funnier episode than most this season, even if some of the humor is a little simple, like Mork's line about the Ronald Reagan pen having no point.  (For one thing, it would make more sense if it were a pencil.)  Note that although one of Mindy's cellmates is a big black woman, this is not used in the same way that the big black men were on the "jail" episodes of Bosom Buddies and Three's Company; Mindy yells at the woman and then worries about being beat up, but nothing happens.  And the "butch" matron is presented relatively sympathetically.

Paul Willson's second Mork role is as their neighbor Bob Miller.  Instead of playing a psychologist as he did on The Bob Newhart Show and Bosom Buddies, Phillip R. Allen this time is a politician named George Logan (and he keeps breaking character to laugh at Williams).  Sixty-six-year-old Barbara Billingsley guest stars as mild-mannered murderess Mrs. Louise Bailey, with Mork remarking that she looks like Mrs. Cleaver.  (This was a couple years after her memorable appearance in the movie Airplane but before the Still the Beaver TV-movie.)

Mork & Mindy: Midas Mork

Mork & Mindy: Midas Mork
ABC
April 15, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This Kout & Zateslo story has both Mork and Fred acting so out of character, and a premise that's a bit much even for this series, that it's clear early on that it has to be someone's dream sequence, most logically Mindy's, and sure enough it is.  She dreams that Mork can turn polyester into gold, and he spends the money lavishly, including on NBC for her.  (Williams makes a jab at the then third-place network, again demonstrating that M & M was more conscious of ratings than most sitcoms of the time.)  Except for the appearance of tennis champ Tracy Austin, the episode manages to feel both off and predictable.  Note that I have a hunch that Mindy's red & gold dress (shown above) would be worn on the next Three's Company episode, "Up in the Air," and if it's not the same I think it has the same designer.  (I'll confirm this when we get there.)

George Pentecost's third and last Mork role is as Quentin the butler.

Mork & Mindy: I Don't Remember Mama

Mork & Mindy: I Don't Remember Mama
ABC
February 11, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this Collins & Raznick story, Orson resents that Mork hasn't been making regular reports lately because of family responsibilities, so he erases Mork's memories of his family, and indeed of most of his time on Earth.  (Orson is a very controlling boss.)  A session of This Was Your Life [sic] helps a little, with Exidor making his last appearance on the show, and we get to see Mindy in her wedding dress again.  But only Mindy's kisses can bring Mork's memory fully back.  It's a sweet scene between them, but the rest of the episode, including Fred and Cora bickering, doesn't live up to its potential.  Note that Mindy says Mork wouldn't want to meet their leader, a swipe against Ronald Reagan to follow last week's Nancy-bashing.

Martin Ferrero, who was a Waiter on Soap and a Wounded Man in Jeep on M*A*S*H, is the Salesman here.   This is the 1000th sitcom I've reviewed!

Mork & Mindy: Metamorphosis, the TV Show

Mork & Mindy: Metamorphosis, the TV Show
ABC
January 21, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This is the only Mork story written by Gene Braunstein and Bob Perlow, who would go on to respectively seventeen and eight episodes of Who's the Boss?  I don't know if it's due to them or Williams that there are more media references than usual, although it may just be because so much of the episode is about Mindy's job at the television station.  Mr. Sternhagen has been fired and replaced by young (22ish) Daniel Pierson (Charles Bloom, who was the 2nd Student in The ABC After School Special, "Dear Lovey Hart, I'm Desperate").  Meanwhile, Mork and Mearth have a Freaky-Friday-like accident while playing with a train set.

Mork and/or Mearth in Mork's body makes no less than three remarks about television (the Nielsens, The Ropers, and Alan Hamel's impact on wife Suzanne Somers's career).  Also, he says, "I've seen Popeye fourteen times.  And if you run it backwards, it has an ending," a nice zing against Altman and/or Paramount for the troubled production.  I don't feel like the imitations of each other (including Fred at the end) are as sharp as they could be, but generally it's one of the better latter-day episodes, and it's nice to see Mindy's career getting some attention again.

Another writer's child appears, this time Cary Zateslo as the Rubik's Cube champion.  Pat Cranshaw makes his last appearance as Jake the Cameraman.  This is the 82nd episode and it aired in '82.

Mork & Mindy: P.S. 2001

Mork & Mindy: P.S. 2001
ABC
December 17, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Cindy Begel and Lisa Kite's first of five Mork stories has Mearth demanding to go to school.  Mindy finds out, by Orson paging her while Mork is asleep, that he sent Mork an application for a prep school on Ork.  Mork turns out to not want his baby to go to school already, even though it's only one day a month.  But Mindy talks him into it.  Mearth has trouble adjusting to the other kids, and a strict teacher who looks like an 11-year-old Earth girl.  (Mork is surprised to hear she's still alive.)  Mork and Mindy accompany their son to Ork and things go better.  This would've been a C+, but I liked seeing the decor of the classroom, and I was pleasantly surprised by the guest stars, see below.

None other than Eric Von Zipper, 58-year-old Harvey Lembeck, who had taught Williams (and John Ritter among others) in an acting workshop, cameos as Mearth's classmate Ovits.  Forty-seven-year-old Maureen Arthur, who had "funny bimbo" roles in '60s sex comedies like The Love God? and How to Commit Marriage (more so in the former), here plays Zelka, who has a crush on Mearth.  Both would return in the following episode.

Mork & Mindy: Alienation

Mork & Mindy: Alienation
ABC
December 3, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This Kout & Zateslo story is a good example of an episode that is more interesting than entertaining:

• Mork and Mindy tell Mearth about his heritage and he's so unhappy that he runs away;
• He's taken in by a cult that's more satanic-looking and less-hippie-ish than the cults shown on sitcoms of the mid to late '70s;
• John Larroquette and Richard Moll, less than three years before Night Court, are the two cultists with speaking roles, the former the leader, the latter menacing but a little child-like;
• Mearth in the end embraces his heritage and experiments a little with his powers, making me wonder how this compares to Tabitha on Bewitched, although of course she stayed a baby for a couple seasons, while Mearth is practically a kindergartener at this point;
• We see that Mork's attic bedroom has been converted into Mearth's room;
• Mearth meets Orson during Mork's report;
• Williams refers to James Watt and Hill Street Blues, pulling us further into the '80s.

Mork & Mindy: Long Before We Met

Mork & Mindy: Long Before We Met
ABC
November 19, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This Raznick & Collins story doesn't live up to its potential.  Mork and Mindy attend her tenth high school reunion*, while Grandma (really Great-Grandma) babysits Mearth.  There's no reaction moment in this or any other episode of Cora finding out the existence and maturity of her great-grandson (who now is learning fractions).  They interact a little but not much is done with it, beyond that she's his favorite and only babysitter.  (Understandable, considering how his parents are keeping his identity a secret.)

As for the reunion, Glenda Faye (Wilzak in her last appearance) is there, and she knows about Mork and Mindy being married, and yet there's no line here or elsewhere indicating that she minds not having been invited to their wedding.  (It's not like they eloped.)  Two others in attendance are Paul Rubens as geeky Dickie Nimitz (of course the best part of the episode) and Mindy's boyfriend for her last two years of high school, Steve Sanders (Robin Strand, who'd be Steve Stepanowicz on Square Pegs).  Mork becomes jealous of Steve, so after they return home, Mork (using ruby slippers) time travels back to Mindy's senior prom.


Fred is there, with more hair, but he's not given much to do.  Mork, anticipating Moscow on the Hudson, pretends to be a Russian exchange student.  He hits it off with Mindy, including supporting her dreams of becoming a journalist, while Steve comes across as a jerk.

The episode isn't bad, but like I said, it seems like all these elements ought to add up to more.


*Sic!  Mindy was 21 when the series began three years ago.  I can understand that they might not want to do a sixth-year reunion a la Bosom Buddies, but a fifth-year reunion would've been more plausible than tenth.  And, yes, I spotted this error at the time.

Mork & Mindy: Mama Mork, Papa Mindy

Mork & Mindy: Mama Mork, Papa Mindy
ABC
November 5, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This Kout & Zateslo story continues to move things along quickly.  By the end of it, Mearth seems to have moved from infancy to toddlerhood or maybe beyond, speaking in full sentences.  Mork is excited about motherhood but Mindy is dubious about fatherhood.  Her own father, after his initial fear, offers good advice.  For the first time in awhile, Mork makes a report to Orson, who he asks to be godfather.  And there is no "To Be Continued."

Frank Buxton, who wrote an early episode of The Bob Newhart Show, here directs his first of four Mork episodes.

Mork & Mindy: The Honeymoon

Mork & Mindy: The Honeymoon
ABC
October 22, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B

McRaven & Johnson wrote this story where Mindy learns what it's like to be the strange creature from another planet, and Mork learns what Earthlings do on their honeymoon, thanks to a marriage manual Fred gave to Mindy to give to Mork.  (He can't be blamed for not wanting to give Mork fatherly advice.)  Mindy is patient and understanding with Mork, who first dresses like a chicken and then is as scared as a chicken at the idea of mating (not that they call it that).  She tells him she's nervous about motherhood, which would soon become ironic.  The episode ends with her driving the egg back home (symbolic?), although I could see how this could've been a two-parter.  It's fun to see the sets and costumes and it would've been interesting to explore Ork more.  Again, it's "To Be Continued."

Felix Silla (yes, Cousin Itt, as well as various Krofft roles) plays the Orkan Porter.  Orson, although mentioned several times, is absent.

Mork & Mindy: The Wedding

Mork & Mindy: The Wedding
ABC
October 15, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B

This Eisenstock & Mintz story has Mindy breaking the news of the engagement to her grandmother, father, and stepmother.  Cathy still doesn't know Mork is an alien (I don't think she ever finds out), so she doesn't understand Fred's objections.  Mindy is stubborn and her father gives in, despite his misgivings.  Orson on the other hand punishes Mork by turning him into a dog.  Mindy still wants to go ahead with the wedding.  Everything works out, although Mindy is very surprised to hear that the honeymoon will be on Ork.  And the episode ends with another "To Be Continued."  Despite the obstacles, this doesn't feel as sad as the previous episode, if not as joyful as you'd expect a wedding episode to be.  M & M clearly love each other and are definitely ready for "for worse," but I hope they have some "for better" soon.

James Staley, who plays the Reverend, previously was Stu Scully.  I'm assuming Stephanie Dizon is Stephanie Kayano under another name, or it's just a coincidence that they found another plump Asian girl with the first name of Stephanie to play Stephanie from the daycare.  (She doesn't have any lines, so I can't be sure.)

Mork & Mindy: Limited Engagement

Mork & Mindy: Limited Engagement
ABC
October 8, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Brian Levant's second of two Mork stories changes the course of the show, but watching it again I felt a melancholy undertone tone that I hadn't noticed before.  And I say that as someone who did and does ship M & M hard, and who in fact was in the studio audience when this was taped.  (I remember the pony and I remember asking the warm-up guy about Bebo; he joked that Bebo had become Mork's chaps.  Williams looked sheepish.)  The best scene here is when Mindy's father and grandmother, who are both fond of Mork, warn her against marrying him.  And they're not being prejudiced; they have real, genuine concerns.  These are not addressed in this episode, but they are that Orkans age backwards and Orkans may not be able to reproduce with Earthlings.  Mindy tries to talk to Mork, but he's too busy wooing her, including a production number towards the end, which is fun to watch but feels out of place in the bigger picture.  In the end, she gives in because she doesn't want him to leave.  This is not Ann Marie's trippy ecstasy at Donald's proposal but a young woman recognizing that her love for an alien is making her give up any hope for a normal life.  And in the end, Mork defies Orson, who forbids the marriage.  It's "to be continued," but it does not bode well.

Bob Claver, who'd done The Bob Newhart Show and Welcome Back, Kotter, takes over as director from (usually) Howard Storm.

Mork & Mindy: Reflections and Regrets

Mork & Mindy: Reflections and Regrets
ABC
May 14, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B+

This Tenowich & Scharlach story is a solid B for the most part.  The entire cast is present (except, significantly, Orson), yet they're all given moments to shine, and it would in fact be the final appearances for Hecht, Staahl, and Thomas.  (Stephanie Kayano and Amy Tenowich also briefly make their last appearances, as Stephanie and Lola.)  They're all gathered to celebrate Mr. Bickley's 50th birthday.  (Poston was actually pushing 60 but didn't look it.)  He has many regrets, including that he's never told his 27-year-old son Tom the facts of life.  The others share their regrets, ranging from funny (Remo's that women only want him for his body) to dark (Fred's that he killed a man in self-defense during the Korean War).

Mindy avoids sharing hers until everyone has gone home, so that she can tell Mork in private that she regrets that her mother didn't have the chance to meet Mork.  She couldn't say this in front of their friends because she'd have to talk about Mork being from outer space.  It's a sweet, moving confession.  And then Mork says what he'd say to Mindy's mom, and it's unclear if she's really there (as she was in the episode set in the old house).  Mork says that he loves Mindy, and then he tells her directly.  She says, "I love you, too, Mork."  And I dissolve into a pool of emotions.  (No, seriously, I was sobbing!)  It's a lovely way to close out the third season, and to lead to the beginning of the fourth.

Other than this episode, Season Three ranges from C to B, and factoring the B+ in gives an average on the C+/B- border, slightly to the B- side.  And, yes, there are a lot of cuspy shows for '80-'81, a time when television and the world were in transition.  The eighties but not The Eighties, if you will.  As for M & M, this episode proves that there was still life in the series, although Season Four would take it to some unexpected places, Ork among them.

Mork & Mindy: I Heard It Through the Morkvine

Mork & Mindy: I Heard It Through the Morkvine
ABC
April 30, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

Staahl co-wrote this story about Mork learning about gossip.  (As with some of his other lessons in Season Three, it seems a bit late for something so basic, especially considering Mork lives with an attractive young woman and should've encountered rumors about them at some point.  But this is not Three's Company.)  The episode also makes a point about the nature of privacy and it's more intelligent than I expected.  (I laughed out loud at the references to the then fairly current autobiographies of Lauren Bacall and Shelley Winters, but maybe that's because I've read those books.)  And, yes, it's another one of those with added poignancy, because Williams's own death would be surrounded by gossip.

This episode has more of the supporting cast than usual, although Exidor does not become a subject of gossip.  Foster Brooks makes his last appearance as Mindy's boss, Mr. Sternhagen.

Mork & Mindy: Old Muggable Mork

This scene is not on the DVD and I don't remember it at the time.

Mork & Mindy: Old Muggable Mork
ABC
April 16, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
C+

While it's nice to see Elizabeth Kerr back, I wish writers Collins & Raznick had given her better material.  Grandma Cora is visiting for three days, although she lives in Boston and travels a lot with her Swinging Seniors group.  Her spirit is broken when she's mugged.  Then Mork goes proto-Doubtfire by dressing as an old woman, to teach the muggers a lesson.  I would rather have watched something where Cora had a new boyfriend or a new career; I don't want to see her afraid to go outside.  And again, Mindy's friends, especially Glenda Faye, suck energy out of the scene.  (What's odd is, Wilzak is sometimes fine with Williams and/or Dawber but she's generally over the top with Hecht, who in turn becomes muted around her.)

Garry Marshall's son Scott, who'd previously played a character named Scott, is the Boy Scout here.  Mugger #1, Charles Thomas Murphy, had two roles on The Bob Newhart Show, while Mugger #2, Anthony Peck, would be Jack Smith on Who's the Boss?  This is the first of three Mork episodes directed by Don Barnhart.

Mork & Mindy: Mork and the Family Reunion

Robin Williams is happy.

Mork & Mindy: Mork and the Family Reunion
ABC
April 9, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

April Kelly wrote this story where Fred's brother Dave visits.  Dave is played by Jonathan Winters, and part of the fun of the episode is seeing how absolutely fascinated Williams looks by him.  Winters of course would be back the next season, as Mindy's son rather than uncle, but we didn't know that at the time.  I think back then I was more intrigued by the concept of "fleck," the Orkan dessert that makes Mindy and then Dave flip out.  (I did not get that this was probably a sort of drug reference.)

Beverly Sanders, who was Rita Merrit in the first Love Boat TV-movie, plays Dave's wife Caroline.

Mork & Mindy: Mindy, Mindy, Mindy

Mork & Mindy: Mindy, Mindy, Mindy
ABC
February 26, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B

As you may've noticed, a disproportionate number of M & M episode titles have "Mork" in them, so it's nice to get a triple "Mindy" here.  And in fact, thanks to cloning, Dawber does three additional Mindy characterizations, which is fun to see and I'm guessing was fun to do.  Williams also looks happy to have so much to play off of, at a time when even Exidor wasn't giving him much to work with.  This Kreinberg & Guerdat story has Mindy leaving Mork for a couple days to go to Kansas.  He gets lonely but soon has two unexpected visitors, the Elder (Vidal I. Peterson again, still solid) and the landlord, Mr. Klevins (The Bob Newhart Show's Larry Gelman).  The Elder makes copies of Mindy that have aspects of her: her intelligence, her athleticism, and her affection.  My favorite is the Eleanor Roosevelt/ Katharine Hepburn "intellectual Mindy" that Mork of course does William F. Buckley for.  Note that when "affectionate Mindy" comes on to Mork, he says he wants to wear white at his wedding.  Also, when he earlier wants to hang out with Mr. Bickley, the neighbor refuses, probably remembering the mother & daughter thieves they met I think last season.

Mork & Mindy: There's a New Mork in Town

Mork & Mindy: There's a New Mork in Town
ABC
February 12, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this Reno & Osborn story, Mork's job is challenged by his hero, Xerko (Lyle Waggoner in a role that verges on self-parody, but didn't they all?).  Xerko envies the popularity of Mork's reports, so he battles a very reluctant Mork with invisible swords, leading to some nice mime. Mindy could just say that living with her is not part of the job, but as with Cindy on Three's Company that week, an arrogant, powerful man refuses to take no for an answer.  (Xerko kisses Mindy against her will, although it's played for laughs.)  Meanwhile Mr. Bickley pays for his girlfriend's bus fare from Arizona and is annoyed by the "kinky" goings-on upstairs.

Mork & Mindy: Twelve Angry Appliances

Mork & Mindy: Twelve Angry Appliances
ABC
February 5, 1981
Sitcom
DVD
C+

Ron Osborn and Jeff Reno's first of three Mork stories is mostly forgettable.  Mindy is fed up with the appliance repairman Mr. Strand (Richard Libertini, who among other things had recently appeared with Williams in Popeye).  So Mork teaches him a lesson.  Note that Mork makes two Watergate references this time, one in front of the daycare kids, who get it and laugh.

Jonathan Ian, Stephanie Kayano, and Amy Tenowich return as respectively Jonathan, Stephanie, and Lola.