I saw a few Episodes a few years ago. It hasn’t aged well.
What was quirky and fresh in 1970 is just “corny” and silly now.
Mork & Mindy was good for the first year but then something happened, Oh yeah, Robin Williams said he got hooked on coke for a few years. That might do it. Of course the show probably just ran out of material quickly.
Jim
Was Mork a true spinoff from Happy Days, or did ABC just use Happy Days as a vehicle for launching the Mork series? When I think of spinoffs, I think of a show like The Jeffersons, when George and Weezie appeared as supporting characters on All in the Family and were found to be popular enough to merit their own show. To me, and based on no hard info whatsoever, the Mork v. Fonz Happy Days episode was more like just a stunt to launch a different show that was already in the works.
Mork was launched as you said.
Well, according to information from earlier in the thread, it sounded like Mork just showed up on Happy Days once, and he was so popular, they turned it into a show from there.
They had to go back and rewrite the Happy Days episode so that Mork would be an actual alien, and not just a figment of Richie’s dream.
If it had been set up as a “launch” from the get go, they wouldn’t have done that.
That makes me think “spin off”.
It was a character tryout on a popular show. A common practice.
On Star Trek they tried Gary 7 and on Brady bunch is was 3 adopted little kids of three races. There are many examples. Even Laverne and Shirley were introduced as a tryout.
Jim
Huh. Tell me if this happened, or if this is a product of my fevered crack-addled imagination:
Mork shows up in Milwaukee, and tells the Fonz he wants to learn about this ‘Earth thing called love.’ So, the Fonz sets up a double date with Laverne and Shirley, who later on get their own show.
Was I smoking the jimson, or was there such an episode?
No, it wasn’t. Since Williams was an unknown and an 11th hour substitute, it’s not like the network was desperate to give him a series.
According to IMDB, Penny Marshall and Robin Williams were never on Happy Days together. However, here is the guest star list for the pilot episode of Mork:
Woody Eney … Prosecuting Attorney
Jeff Harlan … Bill
Hank Jones … Defense Attorney
Geoffrey Lewis … Officer Tilwick
Penny Marshall … Laverne De Fazio
Michael Prince … Judge
Leslie Vallen … Court Reporter
Henry Winkler … Arthur ‘Fonzie’ Fonzarelli
Dick Yarmy … Dr. Litney
While Mork does tell the Fonz that he want’s to learn about love and Fonz does set him up with a double date, it’s not with Laverne or Shirley. They had already been spun off.
This episode is sometimes included in Happy Days syndication packages.
I should have read tdn’s post more carefully before replying to Johnny.
Here the guy seems to think that Mork was definitely a spin-off. Not that I have any reason to think he has any better knowledge than WhatExit? about the situation.
He says the writers had to go back and rewrite the end of the episode so that Mork actually was an alien, and not just a guy. Seems weird that they would do that if “Mork & Mindy” was already in the works and they were putting him on Happy Days as a tryout.
(can’t believe I’m arguing about this)
I’ll buy it, I forgot about that awful Out of the Blue spin-off/Launch attempt with the Angel.
Jim
I second what was said earlier, Robin Williams has admitted that so much of his early free form ad-lib lunacy was due to massive amounts of cocaine.
Hmph. Everybody knows that Mork was launched in a giant egg. 
And, of course, everyone knows that Love… American Style itself was “inspired by” American Graffiti. Right?
I don’t think that is true. Here is the pertinent section of Ronny’s IMDB list.
Jim
In 1971? I think you mean Happy Days was “inspired” by American Graffiti.
Probably; in my defense, I’ll say I was only seven at the time. 
I think you’re thinking of the episode where Fonz sets Richie up with an “experienced woman”… Shirley, and they go out on a double-date with Fonzie and Laverne.
Laverne and especially Shirley were way trashier in this ep, so they may not yet have been set to spin-off and might have just been guest stars.