I keep hearing that the television sitcom Mork & Mindy was spun off from Happy Days. However, I can’t fathom how a sci-fi based series set in the late 1970s/early 1980s could have been based on a show about a group of teenagers in the 1950s. Can someone explain this to me? How and when did the Mork character appear on Happy Days? Was he an alien from Ork then, or were his sci-fi origins added only after he got his own TV series? And how, if at all, did they account for the 20-plus-year gap between the two shows’ settings? Was it explained to the viewers or was it conveniently ignored?
Mork traveled back in time to get an idea of how people in the 50s lived. It was ridiculous.
I have very fond memories of that episode. Mork had frozen everyone in time (including the Fonz) and was using Richie as a guide. Surely, this is well before the Fonz jumped the shark, so to speak.
So did Mork appear on Happy Days first or his own show?
Happy Days first, then his own show, then he showed up again on Happy Days and told Richie that he was now living in the future where cars and women were both faster.
He appeared on Happy Days first as a tryout. It was one of the unexpected pleaasures of TV.
I watched the episode when it was brand new. I wasn’t expecting much. I think the TV was on as background noise. Richie goes to the door and there’s a spaceman there. I rolled my eyes – this looked like it was going to be another stupid episode. Another slap in the face to science fiction.
I hadn’t reckoned on Robin Williams, of whom I’d never heard (his sole claim to fame before this was a couple of seconds in the movie If You Don’t Stop You’ll Go Blind, IIRC). Nobody had.
He blew me away. It was light-years beyond the awful schtick I’d been expecting. Williams was new refreshing inventive and rapid-fire. Great suff. I’m not at all surprised that after this they gave him his own show. I’m also not surprised that they removed it from the rrsdt of the HD universe and gave it its own setting.
I didn’t mind the show too much. It reminded me of some of the old Marx Brothers movies in that I thought the plot and other characters just got in the way of letting the stars do their stuff. Robin Williams = great; the rest of the show = same old crap.
That Pam Dawber, though. Rowr.
How was the spaceman bit framed? Was the viewer meant to believe that Mork really was an alien, or that he was just an insane man who thought he was an alien, or was it supposed to be unclear? For example, did the show present Mork using any advanced alien technology?
The episode title was a play on “My Favorite Martian” so, yeah, I’d say we were meant to believe that he really was an alien.
IIRC, the episode opened like a normal Happy Days ep, but at some point in the first five minutes or something, everyone froze except Richie. Then a knock at the door, and there’s Mork. Mork was studying humanity and had picked Richie as his guide since he was so average. Also, IIRC, Fonzie was the only one who could fight off the time freeze, so he was the only one besides Richie who ever saw Mork.
In the reprise episode, it was Mr. & Mrs. C’s anniversary (or a birthday. or something) and there was a cake and everyone was singing when time froze again. Mork was back for another survey of 1950s civilization. Again, at the end, Fonzie walks into the house (“not him again?”) and is time frozen, but fights it off.
Yeah, he was able to stop/slow time, as well as read Richie’s mind. The mind-reading essentially turned it into a clip show.
IIRC, the episode was actually framed as a dream.
If my memory serves…
Richie has a dream in which a Spaceman knocks on his door, looking for fuel for his stranded spaceship. The fuel has an unusual name (breem? can’t really remember) and after much shenanigans and hijinx, the fuel turns out to be bologna.
At the end, Richie wakes from his dream to the sound of someone knocking on his door. It’s the spaceman again, only he’s not a spaceman this time, he’s just some guy looking for help with his broke-down car. Richie is never sure if the whole thing was a dream, or if it was just made to seem like a dream by the alien.
Vague details on the episode here .
thwartme
Absolutely.
FWIU, Garry Marshall’s 5-year-old son said to him “Hey dad, you know what would make that show good? Space aliens!” Foolishly, Marshall listened to him. They wrote a plot about an alien and shark-jumping commenced. I think they got a fairly well-know actor who bagged on them at the last minute. They had no choice but to get some unknown named Robin.
And the rest is, as they say, shazbot.
Or so says TVLand Confidential.
And as I remember, Mork was cast as a villain. He was unstoppable in his malice until he met Fonzie, who out-cooled him.
Unless I made all that up. If not, carcharodon carcharias was hopped over prematurely.
First of all, Richie wasn’t so “average”. He was “hum drum”.
As to this. . .
Well, I don’t have a time line in front of me, but I’d suspect that Mork visited after Fonzie jumped the shark, because otherwise the expression would have been “visited by Mork”.
That is, I don’t know how anyone could have viewed the show as reaching the definable moment of it’s demise at some time AFTER Mork visited.
Also, IIRC, and Mork talked to his commander on Happy Days. So, he was definitely an alien, and not just a crazy dude.
I’m remember a “battle” of sorts where Mork froze the Fonz.
They all thought Mork had won, and then Fonzie’s thumb came to life.
Then, the Fonz would do something to hurt Mork (like hit the jukebox or something), and Mork would freeze him again, and back and forth until Fonz defeated Mork.
(my dog’s name is Fonzie. No joke.)
Shark jumping: 9/20/77
Mork first appears: 2/28/78
Both in season 5.
Close. Mork wanted to bring Richie back to Ork and cornered him in Arnolds. He froze everyone there except Richie but Fonzie wouldn’t completely freeze. As you said, he started wiggling his thumb. Mork took this as an indication that he wasn’t the only one there who had “powers”, this is where the battle started.
Fonzie snapped his fingers as a demonstration of his powers, which prompted one of the frozen girls to walk up and kiss him, then he unfroze the jukebox by hitting it. Mork ultimately played his trump card: threatening to bring down the house, thereby crushing Richie. He relented when Fonzie wouldn’t leave–Mork didn’t want to crush the only Human who stood up to him.
And, of course, everyone knows that Happy Days itself was spun off from Love … American Style. Right?
Indeed. I haven’t thought of that show in years. I wonder if it is on DVD. I wonder if I would enjoy it as much 30+ years later.