Mork & Mindy: Mork Runs Down

Mork & Mindy: Mork Runs Down
ABC
April 12, 1979
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This is the only Mork episode written by Ben Starr, who also wrote for The Brady Bunch and Diff'rent Strokes.  I don't know if he just didn't have the sensibility for this show or if Williams's ad-libs were off that week, but I felt like this episode was more frantic than funny.  Note that Mindy's grandmother here fits the '70s trope of being a motorcycle-owning old lady.

Susan Elliot, who plays Mindy's hippie-like friend Rainbow, would be Girl #2 on Bosom Buddies.  Jeffrey Jacquet makes his last appearance as Eugene.

Mork & Mindy: Mork's Mixed Emotions

Mork & Mindy: Mork's Mixed Emotions
ABC
February 22, 1979
Sitcom
DVD
B

I considered going with a B+ on this Tom Tenowich & Ed Sharlach story (the first of fourteen for Sharlach), since Williams gives another tour de force performance, this time as Mork's various no longer repressed emotions.  But it bothers me that Mindy takes Mork out in public during this vulnerable time, even if it is her birthday.  (Note that she's on the phone to Sally talking about her plans, presumably the Sally we've seen.)  The penultimate scene where some of Mork's emotions kiss Mindy is funny and sweet, and Orson in the final scene decides not to report Mork for breaking Orkan law.  The episode contains, among other things, an Idi Amin reference and a Steve Martin imitation.

Stan Rodarte, who was a Reporter at the Homecoming Parade in Rescue from Gilligan's Island, is the Waiter.  Maitre D' George Pentecost would play two other characters on this show.  And twenty-five-year-old but already balding Bill Kirchenbauer makes his first of four Mork & Mindy appearances, here as a disco-loving customer, years before he became known as Coach Lubbock on Growing Pains and Just the Ten of Us.

Mork & Mindy: Young Love

Mork & Mindy: Young Love
ABC
January 25, 1979
Sitcom
DVD
B-

In this Tom Tenowich story, Eugene is tired of his mother's nagging so he and a new little girl, Holly (Tammy Lauren, who was on various shows at the time, like Angie), with similar complaints decide to get married.  Mork performs the ceremony.  This is never as funny as the bloopers I've seen from it, and I'm not crazy about how Mindy explains boys and girls hitting each other to express affection, but I will note that the vow to "learn about life by watching Three's Company" is a worthy one for any Gen-X sitcom fan.

Mork & Mindy: Mork's First Christmas

Mork & Mindy: Mork's First Christmas
ABC
December 14, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
B

This is producer Bruce Johnson's first of twelve Mork scripts, here collaborating with creator Dale McRaven, who did the pilot.  It's also the first of five directed by Jeff Chambers.  It manages to balance sentiment and humor, with Mork giving Mindy and her family happy memories, then and now.

Salesman David Ketchum was on That Girl three times.  Pat Cranshaw makes his second Mork appearance, as the Old Man at the department store.  Interestingly, there's no report to Orson, although Mork obviously learns a lot, including from Eugene (Jacquet) and Susan (Fairchild).

Mork & Mindy: Old Fears

Mork & Mindy: Old Fears
ABC
November 30, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This sweet April Kelly story is marred by distractingly bad old-age makeup on Williams.  Cora is mourning a friend's death so Mork uses his age machine to make himself elderly, "senile minus two."  (Again, this is disconnected from the later canon about how Orkan aging works.)  Mindy is angry and concerned when she finds out, but it turns out that Cora suspected all along.  She and Mork have a good conversation and he comes out to her as Orkan.  She immediately accepts him and they're better friends than ever.  Pity the makeup artist couldn't have done better work, especially from the mouth to the chin.  Note that Eugene is 10 and his (unseen) mother 31.

Mork & Mindy: To Tell the Truth

Mork & Mindy: To Tell the Truth
ABC
November 2, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
C+

This April Kelly story feels a bit off, from the jokes that fall flat to Mork's ability to resurrect the dead.  Also, when Eugene (Jacquet) is supposed to be playing the violin horribly, we can't hear anything.  And I think that Cora's dress that's supposed to be terrible is actually cute.  Note that the name of the mean landlord, Arnold Wanker (played by Logan Ramsey, who was Col. Lambert on M*A*S*H) was not as obviously a "flying past the radar" joke in '78 as it would be these days.

Fay DeWitt, who was Betsy on That Girl, plays Annie Wanker.  Stu Silver, who plays one of the Paramedics, was mostly a writer/producer, including of Soap.

Mork & Mindy: Mork Runs Away

Mork & Mindy: Mork Runs Away
ABC
September 28, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
B

This is the first of 23 episodes for both writer April Kelly and guest star Robert Donner, although not the same 23.   Donner plays Exidor, whom Mork meets when he runs away, and the two play off of each other well, especially when Williams does a televangelist spiel to show how he'd recruit for the Friends of Venus.

Mork runs away because he's crimping Mindy's style.  She feels lonely because she hasn't dated since he moved in.  There's an ironic in retrospect line where she tells her father that if he won't take Mork to a basketball game so she can have a date over, she'll have to settle down with Mork and have little green babies.  Mork doesn't really understand love, although he guesses that men think he and Mindy are "lovelings."  He savors his hug with Mindy when he makes his report to Orson.  He's starting to open up to and with her, while she feels like her apartment wasn't a home till he moved in.

This is also Joel Zwick's first directing job of three on the show, although I primarily associate him with Bosom Buddies (18 episodes).

Mork & Mindy: Pilot

Mork & Mindy: Pilot
ABC
September 14, 1978
Sitcom
DVD
B-

This hour-long pilot is the first of thirteen episodes written by the show's co-creator Dale McRaven and the first of fifty-nine directed by Howard Storm, who'd written the Henry Winkler episode of The Bob Newhart Show.  And Winkler shows up in a flashback that takes up about a quarter of the screen time.  You see, Mork had been introduced on Happy Days the previous spring and was a big hit.  So here Mork tells Mindy about a later visit he made to '50s Milwaukee, where the Fonz fixed him up with Laverne De Fazio.  Yes, heavy crossover city.  As I've mentioned before, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley were at the top of the ratings (till Three's Company nudged its way in), so the guest shots would've been a way to draw even more viewers in.  Unfortunately, it adds to the uneven tone of the script.

As for the main show, the characters are established, as are some of their relationships:

• Mork from Ork, with Robin Williams not as wacky as he'd get but still showing a range of comedic styles;
• Mindy McConnell, 21-year-old mostly sensible (except when she lets her thwarted date-rapist drive off with her car!) college student, played by Pam Dawber with warmth and sincerity;
• Frederick McConnell, Mindy's old-fashioned father, given a sense of humor by Conrad Janis;
• Cora Hudson, Mindy's maternal grandmother, with Elizabeth Kerr using some of the insult humor she showed in her Bob Newhart Show cameo;
• Orson, Mork's superior on Ork, voiced by Ralph James but never seen except in shadow;
• Eugene, an African-American kid who quickly befriends Mork, played by eleven-year-old Jeffrey Jacquet in his first of ten appearances.

There are some definite plot holes, putting aside the whole space alien thing.  How does Mork, without any money, manage to get an Earth outfit?  Was it in his luggage?  Did he pick up the rainbow suspenders thing from watching broadcasts of What's Happening!! and emulating Rerun?  How does Mindy get her Jeep back?  Why does Fred agree to help defend Mork when he doesn't like the guy?  How does Mork's hearing come up so quickly?  And so on.  Still, the show is certainly likable and this time I really appreciated all the shots of late '70s Boulder and surrounding scenery.  I'm not sure if I'd have tuned in again if I were an adult in '78, but as a ten-year-old, especially with M & M taking Welcome Back, Kotter's Thursday at 8 p.m. on ABC slot, I happily watched the next week, and indeed the next four years.

Jeff Harlan, who plays Bill, would show up the next year as a Customer.  Dick Yarmy, who had a couple roles on That Girl, makes his first of three Mork appearances, here as Dr. Litney.