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 3

Mork & Mindy: Gotta Run, Part 3
ABC
May 20, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
C+

And so it ends, except it doesn't, because another episode aired the following week.  Eisenstock & Mintz wrote this final part which ends on a cliffhanger, as M & M are lost in time, after having been interviewed by a Tom Snyder knock-off, overwhelmed by hangers-on, menaced by Kal, and befriended by cavepeople.  (Mearth has been left behind with Fred.)  I'll reserve my observations on the season and the series for next time, but I will say that although this episode doesn't work too well, it's at least interesting.  Note, they do actually go back to their home at one point, but it's still in shambles.

Dan Barrows, who was Mr. Keeney on The Bob Newhart Show, Dr. Yalowich on Soap, and Dittman on this show, plays Maury here.

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: Gotta Run, Part 1

Mork & Mindy: Gotta Run, Part 1
ABC
May 6, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this Begel & Kite story, Regalbuto and Graff (who'd previously played a Receptionist) are a couple who seem to be a Neptunian named Kalnik and an Earth woman named Tracy.  Mork meets "Kal" while trying to call Orson and the two men soon hit it off.  But Kal is just using Mork, while Tracy is actually a robot, and a literal blonde bombshell.  After she explodes, the McConnells have to go on the run.  Mindy is correct that they will never see their home again, although no one then knew that the series was going to be cancelled in a few weeks.  This is not just a two-parter but a three-parter, fairly unusual for a sitcom of that time.

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: Mork, Mindy, and Mearth Meet MILT

Mork & Mindy: Mork, Mindy, and Mearth Meet MILT
ABC
February 18, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This Kout & Zateslo story starts with a cameo by William Shatner and then has a computer voiced by John Houseman take over the household.  For some reason, the only thing I remembered from this episode was the Psycho reference.  (There's also a visual gag with Bedtime for Bonzo.)  Perhaps because he's been going to school for awhile, or perhaps because Mork has trained him, Mearth can now team up with Mork for finger-blasting.  The report to Orson is about technology of course, and somewhat poignant and/or dated almost 35 years later.  (MILT is much larger than any home computer of '82.)

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: Drive, She Said

Mork & Mindy: Drive, She Said
ABC
February 4, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This Kite & Begel episode is odd in the following ways:

• Mork, who seems to have functioned just fine for three and a half years, now that he has a young child is very dependent on Mindy to take him grocery-shopping and on other errands;
• Mindy therefore wants him to get a driver's license and he's reluctant;
• We actually see the garage for the first time (it's unclear if Mr. Bickley uses it, too, or even still lives in the house);
• You might expect Exidor to be the driving instructor, but, no, it's TNT, who does it to meet underage girls;
• There's a shark-jumping moment when Mork is taking his driver's test with a devilish man (who has eyes like Nancy Reagan according to Mork), with his instructor in the backseat, until TNT tries to flee from the car, which is on two wheels and almost perpendicular to the road, so then we see a stunt double who looks very little like Kirchenbauer standing on the side of the car;
• There is no happy ending, beyond that Mindy helps Mork accept that he's failed at something but he can try again;
• There's a Pac-Man reference, and I'm reminded again that this is a different era than where we started from;
• Mindy celebrated getting her driver's license by buying the new Herman's Hermits album, so I guess they're sticking with that born in '53 thing from the reunion episode, although Mindy should've turned 16 in '73.

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: Present Tense

We're definitely in the permed Dawber era.

Mork & Mindy: Present Tense
ABC
January 14, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This first of three Mork episodes by Winifred Hervey uneasily addresses uneasiness.  Mearth is on vacation with his grandfather, and his parents are alone for the first time since he was hatched a month ago.  They experience a weird cross of empty nest syndrome and newlywed awkwardness, even though they lived together three years before getting married.  They're still trying to find a balance as a married couple.  Although this series is to some extent a "kids' show," there are hints of sex here, as when Mork yells (in front of roofers) that one reason he loves her is because she "looks great naked."

Mork & Mindy: Pajama Game II

Mork & Mindy: Pajama Game II
ABC
January 7, 1982
Sitcom
DVD
C

In this Begel & Kite story, Harvey Lembeck and Maureen Arthur return as Mearth's classmates Ovits and Zelka.  I'm not sure if this is the episode where Lembeck collapsed during filming, or if he was making a return appearance in an unaired episode, but he did die two days before this aired.  In any case, his character isn't given much to do, but Zelka ends up staying longer and having a sleepover with Mearth.  Mindy is worried because her son and Zelka look like adults in late middle age even if they have the mentality of small children.  Also Mearth has possession of a Bronco girlie magazine (later revealed to belong to Mr. Bickley).  I suppose there was a way this episode could've worked, but it's a little creepy, and I don't find the extended "safari" scene with Williams and Winters as funny as Dawber or the studio audience seem to.  Note that Williams makes another Popeye reference, much less proud than the one the year before, the movie having bombed in the meantime.

This is the 1500th program I've reviewed.

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.