ENDED TV SERIES

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Mork & Mindy follows the exploits of loveable alien Mork (Robin Williams), who comes to Earth from the planet Ork, in an egg-shaped, one-man spaceship.

Mork has been sent by his superior, Orson (Ralph James), to observe human behavior – or so he thinks. The assignment is actually a ruse to send him away from his home planet: humor is not allowed on Ork, but Mork is the funniest alien this side of the Universe.

Soon after landing on Earth, Mork runs into Mindy (Pam Dawber), has just had a fight with her boyfriend. After talking to Mork for a while, Mindy feels better but soon realizes there’s something unusual about him. When she asks him who he really is Mork innocently tells her the truth. She in return tells him that she will keep his secret, and offers to let him move into her attic.

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Mork (Robin Williams) – MMork is an alien from the planet Ork. Sweet, gentle and funny, he was grown in a test-tube by Orkan scientists and was a lobster diver on his home planet. Shortly after he landing in the area of Colorado he runs into human woman, Mindy, with whom he’s soon good friends. After moving into her attic, Mork tries hard to understand human behavior, but the way of doing things on Ork is very different – lying, for example, is considered a practical joke there. His standard greeting is a hand gesture (similar to Mr. Spock’s Vulcan salute from Star Trek) combined with a handshake and the words, “Na-Nu Na-Nu”. He reports back regularly to his supervisor, Orson, on the things he’s learned about the human race, most of which involve the way humans express emotion. And on occasion, he travels through time in a pair of size-eight shoes specifically designed for that very purpose.

Mindy McConnell (Pam Dawber) – Mindy is an average 21-year old woman with a bunch of everyday problems…and an alien living in her attic. She is kind and caring, and has a beautiful smile. When she first meets Mork he is wearing a suit backwards and she mistakes him for a priest; but she soon discovers his true identity and offers him a place to live, unwittingly changing her life forever. Mindy is very intelligent if sometimes nervous, and she tries to help Mork adapt to his new environment. When we first meet her, she’s a clerk in her father Fred McConnell’s (Conrad Janis) music store, but after majoring in journalism she becomes a newscaster at a local television station. She has the distinction of being the first girl in Boulder, Colorado to play Little League baseball, as well as being the first human being to eat the Orkan food, “Fleck”.

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Fred McConnell (Conrad Janis) – Fred is Mindy’s widowed father. A very conservative man, he owns a music store with his former mother-in-law, Cora. When he finds out that Mork is living with his daughter, he is less than pleased but can do nothing to change it, despite being close to Mindy. He spends most of his time running the music store and later becomes the conductor of the Boulder Symphony Orchestra. He eventually remarries a younger woman named Cathy (Shelley Fabares).

Grandma Cora Hudson (Elizabeth Kerr) – Grandma Cora is Mindy’s maternal grandmother. Much more progressive than Mindy’s father, she approves of the living situation between her granddaughter and the friendly alien. She works in the music store too and gives lessons to a child named Eugene (Jeffrey Jacquet), who later becomes a friend of Mork’s.

Franklin Bickley (Tom Poston) – Mr. Bickley is Mindy’s grouchy downstairs neighbor. Alhough not fond of other people, he makes his living as a verse writer for a greeting card company.

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Remo DaVinci (Jay Thomas) – Remo is the co-owner of The New York Delicatessen, where Mork and Mindy hang out.

Jean DaVinci (Gina Hecht) – Jean is Remo’s sister and the other co-owner of The New York Delicatessen.

Nelson Flavor (Jim Staahl) – Nelson is Mindy’s snobbish cousin. He has political aspirations and runs for city council.

Orson (Ralph James) – Orson is the heard but mostly unseen superior of Mork. He sent Mork to Earth as a way to get him away from Ork, as humor is not allowed there and Mork seems unable to keep his funny bone in check.

Mearth (Jonathan Winters) – Mearth is the child of Mork and Mindy but given birth to by Mork, as is the Orkan way. Orkan children start out with adult bodies but the mind of a child, eventually degenerating to frail old “kids”. Mearth liked to call his mother “Shoe”.

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Main Cast

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Additional Cast

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Trivia

Robin Williams performed with the USO to entertain troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tom Poston joined the United States Army Air Force in 1941. After graduating from flight training and being accepted to officer candidate school, he served in World War II as a pilot in the European Theater. His aircraft dropped paratroopers for the Normandy Invasion in 1944.

The Mork & Mindy episode called “Mork’s Mixed Emotions” was ranked #94 in TV Guide’s 1997 list of “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time”.

Jonathan Winters made television history when RCA broadcast the first color videotape on the Jonathan Winters Show in 1956.

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Pam Dawber (Mindy McConnell) starred briefly in another television series called My Sister Sam in the late 80’s. The show was cancelled after it was moved to a different day and ratings dropped. Dawber’s co-star on the show, Rebecca Schaeffer, was later shot and killed in front of her apartment building by an obsessed fan. Dawber was devastated and she and several others from the series got together and filmed a public announcement about violence prevention.

Jay Thomas fathered a boy when he was unmarried and just a young man. He and the baby’s mother made the difficult decision to give their son up for adoption. More than 40 years later, Thomas’s son, J.T. Harding of the band “JTX”, found his birth father and they were reunited. They remain close to this day. Thomas even spoke at the funeral of Harding’s adopted father several years ago.

Robin Williams’s (Mork) maternal great-great-grandfather was Mississippi governor and senator Anselm J. McLaurin.

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Pam Dawber has been married to actor Mark Harmon for nearly thirty years. They have two sons but are incredibly private about their family life and rarely appear in public with their children.

Conrad Janis (Fred McConnell) plays the trombone and is a renowned jazz musician.

Elizabeth Kerr (Cora Hudson) died in January 2000 at the age of 87.

Gina Hecht (Jean DaVinci) is friends with actor Jason Alexander and played the role of his character George Costanza’s therapist on the wildly popular show Seinfeld.

Ralph James (Orson) was mostly known as a voice actor. Other than being the voice of Orson on Mork & Mindy, James was probably best known for his performance as the voice of Mr. Turtle in the classic Tootsie Pop commercials that ran throughout the 70’s.

Jim Staahl (Nelson Flavor) co-created the animated series, “Bobby’s World” with comedian Howie Mandel. He also wrote for the show as well as co-produced it for eight years.

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Robin Williams, then unknown, was the only actor to audition for the role of Mork. When Garry Marshall first met Williams and asked him to sit down, Williams instead stood on his head in the chair. Marshall hired him on the spot.

According to USA Today Life editor, Dennis Moore, Tom Poston (Mr. Bickley) appeared in more television sitcoms than any other actor. The shows include Murphy Brown, E.R., Home Improvement, Coach and Family Matters.

Jonathan Winters (Mearth) quit high school in his senior year and joined the United States Marine Corps, serving for more than two years in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

Pam Dawber is a national spokeswoman for the non-profit organization “Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.”

In 1973, Robin Williams was one of only twenty students to be accepted into the freshman class at the Juilliard School. In that same year, he was one of only two students to be accepted by the legendary John Houseman into the school’s Advanced Program. The other person was Christopher Reeve. Reeves and Williams became good friends and remained so until Reeve’s death.

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Gina Hecht has been married to her husband, writer/producer Brian Herskowitz, for almost thirty years.

Mork & Mindy was a spin-off from the Happy Days series.

Jay Thomas (Remo DaVinci) had a recurring role on the series Cheers as Carla Tortelli’s husband, Eddie LeBec.

In 2014, Pam Dawber reunited briefly with her former co-star Robin Williams on his television show The Crazy Ones, where she provided a love interest to his character. The show was cancelled after only one season.

Jonathan Winters’s career as an entertainer began with a lost wristwatch. He and his wife, Eileen, had only been married for a few months and could not afford to purchase a new one but his wife read about a talent contest where the winner would receive a brand new watch. She told her husband to “go down and win it” and was positive that he could. Not only did he win but it led to a job as a disc jockey where his ad libs and antics stole the show. It was the start of a long and successful career.

Robin Williams co-owned the Rubicon, a restaurant in San Francisco. The other owners are Robert DeNiro and Francis Ford Coppola.

Tom Poston won an Emmy Award for his performances on the The Steve Allen Show during the 1950’s.

Robin Williams was a stand-up comedian from the beginning of his career. In 2004, he was voted 13th on Comedy Central’s list of “100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time”.

Mork & Mindy was so popular in its first season that it even beat Happy Days, the series from which it had originated, in the Nielsen ratings. Happy Days ranked #4 and Mork & Mindy reached #3.

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Jim Staahl was the star as well as a co-head writer on the series Laugh Trax.

Robin Williams made a cameo appearance alongside actor and comedian Billy Crystal in the third season of popular sitcom Friends. They were not originally supposed to be in the episode but were apparently in the same building the day the show was being shot and were asked to make up some lines.

Pam Dawber did not audition for the role of Mindy McConnell but found out that she had been chosen for the part from the industry trade paper Variety. Garry Marshall had taken clips of Dawber’s performance in another television show and edited them together with clips of Williams as Mork on Happy Days. The resulting footage got ABC on board with the casting decision.

Jonathan Winters suffered from nervous breakdowns and bipolar disorder and spent time in a psychiatric hospital in 1959 and 1961. He made light of his hospitalization in his stand-up routines.

Conrad Janis has been married three times and has two children.

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Robin Williams agreed to do the voice of the Genie in the Disney film Aladdin for SAG scale pay ($75,000) in appreciation for the success he had experienced with the Disney-produced Touchstone film Good Morning, Vietnam.  He did, however, set two conditions: first, that his name or image not be used for marketing purposes, and secondly that his character not take up any more than 25% of the space on any advertising artwork. Also, Williams believed that the voice of the character was his property and did not want it to be imitated. Unfortunately, Disney did not keep their part of the bargain and the resulting dispute saw Dan Castellaneta replace Williams as the voice of the Genie in The Return of Jafar, as well as the animated Aladdin television series. Later, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chairman of Disney at the time, was fired and replaced with former 20th Century Fox production head, Joe Roth. Roth arranged for a public apology to be made to Williams, and Williams subsequently agreed to make the Hollywood Pictures’ film Jack, which was being made by a division of the Walt Disney Company, as well as voice the Genie in the King of Thieves sequel (although this time for a much larger fee). In 1999, Williams again fell out with Disney after they cut the budget to his film Bicentennial Man by around $20 million, which he believed was caused the film to flop. It was 2009 before they made peace again and Williams agreed to be inducted into the Disney Hall of Fame and designated a “Disney Legend”.

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Jay Thomas had two television shows of his own, Love and War and Married People.

Before she became an actress, Pam Dawber was a model who was signed with one of the top agencies in New York. However, she wanted more and began studying acting and voice. Just a few years later she won one of the main roles on Mork & Mindy.

A large number of the gags seen on the series were on-the-spot improvisations by the talented Robin Williams. The improvisations worked so well that the writers included specific sections where Williams could just perform freely, marked as “Robin goes off here.”

Robin Williams was married three times. His first marriage was to Valerie Velardi with whom he had one child, a son named Zak. His second marriage was to his son’s nanny, Marsha Garces, with whom he fathered two children. His third and last marriage was to graphic designer, Susan Schneider.

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Jonathan Winters was married to the same woman all of his life. They married one month after meeting and spent more than 60 years together. She died at the age of 84, having battled breast cancer for twenty years.

As of 2004, the house used for the exterior shots of Mork and Mindy’s residence is the most popular landmark in Boulder, Colorado.

Tom Poston was married four times and had three children. His second wife, Wilma Kay Hudson, was actually both his second and third wife, as they divorced after several years of marriage but remarried after less than five years apart and stayed together until her death in 1998. He married his last wife, actress Suzanne Pleshette, in 2001, although the two had had an affair back in the 1950’s. She died less than a year after Poston and, like her husband the cause was respiratory failure.

Pam Dawber is the aunt (by marriage) of actress Tracy Nelson, who has made appearances on shows such as St. Elsewhere and Melrose Place.

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During Robin Williams’s first marriage, he had an affair with a cocktail waitress, Michelle Tish Carter. She later sued him for supposedly not informing her of his infection with the herpes simplex virus before they engaged in a sexual relationship. She claimed that he had transmitted the disease to her and they settled out of court.

Jonathan Winters died of natural causes in April 2013 surrounded by family and friends. He was 87.

Conrad Janis has guest-starred on television shows including Diagnosis Murder, Murder She Wrote, The Golden Girls and Highway to Heaven.

Tom Poston is the ex-father-in-law of singer-songwriter George S. Clinton.

Robin Williams was a close friend of John Belushi and they frequently partied together. During the late 70’s and early 80’s Williams was severely addicted to cocaine. He ended up quitting drugs, according to him, because of the death of Belushi and the birth of his son. In his words: “Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped too.” In 2006, Williams checked himself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation center, and later admitted to being an alcoholic. This announcement was made by Williams’ publicist: “After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take protective measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family.”

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Pam Dawber was introduced to her husband, Mark Harmon, by Gina Hecht, a fellow co-star on Mork & Mindy.

Since 1998, Jay Thomas has been appearing on the Late Show With David Letterman to celebrate one of the show’s favorite Christmas rituals: throwing a football at a meatball on top of the tree. It started in 1998, with Thomas waiting in the wings to come on after Dave’s first guest that night, New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde. Letterman and Testaverde had picked up some footballs and started tossing them at the tree but always missed the meatball at the top. Finally Thomas, who was a quarterback in college, dashed on stage, picked up a ball and knocked the meatball off in a single throw. Since then, Thomas has returned every year to complete the ritual, with the exception of 2013 when he was recuperating after minor surgery. In his words, “Throwing a football at a meatball on top of a tree in front of a national broadcast audience is the greatest Christmas tradition there is, but it requires me to be 100 per cent healthy. Anything less would dishonor the ritual. I’ll be back in action next year for sure.”

Robin Williams was hospitalized with heart problems in March 2009. He had surgery to replace his aortic valve. The surgery was a complete success.

Robin Williams and his second wife, Marsha, started the Windfall Foundation, a philanthropic organization that raises money for a wide variety of charities. Williams also devoted a lot of time and energy to different forms of charity work.

Pam Dawber received critical acclaim for her performance in the Broadway production of Pirates of Penzance.

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Tom Poston was a former acrobat with the Flying Zepleys.

Jonathan Winters was longtime friends with actor Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H fame.

Robin Williams won an Academy Award for his performance in the movie Good Will Hunting. After the win, Williams had a small Oscar replica sent to Peer Augustinski, the man who dubbed his voice in German, along with a note that said, “Thank you for making me famous in Germany.”

Elizabeth Kerr had a small role in the movie Frankie and Johnny with Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino.

Robin Williams enjoyed cycling and trained with Lance Armstrong.

Jim Staahl has written many television pilots for networks ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX.

Ralph James died at the age of 67 in Beverly Hills, California.

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During the filming of Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg regularly called Robin Williams and put him on speaker phone so that he could cheer up the cast and crew by telling them jokes.

Tragically, in 2014 Robin Williams hanged himself at his home in Paradise Cay, California. He was 63 years old. His wife, Susan Schneider, blamed his death on Lewy’s body dementia, a neurological disease which she called “the terrorist inside my husband’s brain”.