Mork & Mindy: The Complete First Season (1978)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Written by Cindy Begel, Gene Braunstein, et al.
Directed by Don Barnhart, Frank Buxton, et al.
Starring Robin Williams, Pam Dawber, Conrad Janis, and Elizabeth Kerr

Released by: Paramount
Region: 1
Rating: G
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Get it.

Mork & Mindy was an ABC spin-off from an episode of Happy Days, where Mork and the Fonz became friends, and lasted for five seasons. A second meeting is shown as a flashback and helps set the stage for Mork's problems becoming more Earthling-like. Misfit Mork doesn't fit in on his home planet of Ork; Mork has a sense of humor, and most Orkans have no emotions, much less humor. They feel that Mork would then be the perfect candidate to study Earth, a planet with bizarre customs they have never been able to understand, and report back to his superior, Orson. After Mork lands in Colorado in his ovoid spacecraft, he meets Earthling Mindy who has been abandoned by a wretched date and thinks he's a priest because he's wearing his suit backwards. Upon learning that he is an alien, she invites him to stay at her apartment. She agrees to teach him how to be more like an Earthling, and he agrees to teach her about Ork. Most people of course, think he's just insane, but that leads to some of the most comic situations.

Secondary characters include Mindy's ultra-conservative father who does not like the idea of a man, even a nutty one, living with his daughter, and Mindy's grandmother, an electric-guitar playing woman who thinks her son-in-law is a nerd. Together, Mindy's father and grandmother run a music store, which is incidentally where Mindy works. Mindy's problems with her father because of Mork are the source of much of the conflict/comedy of the show. Guest stars include Henry Winkler, Penny Marshall, and David Letterman.

The show of course, not unlike Third Rock from the Sun, provides plenty of opportunity for social commentary and observations on modern life. However, don't assume that the show is a disguised Afterschool Special; instead of overly serious and pretentious, it's just plain funny. Given our current flush of overly self-aware television shows and so-called "reality" shows that bear little to no relation to anyone's real life, it is refreshing to see a show that's just about humor and friendship without all the sexual baggage of modern "comedies." Much of the comedy here relies upon Williams' character voices, which makes for good TV anytime. Mindy's strength is in her very normalcy, a great foil for the eccentric Mork.

The video quality is very good, especially considering that the show originally aired before a good number of our readers were even born, premiering in 1978. Very few scenes look washed out. The sound is equally good, with sound effects nicely balanced with speech.

There are no special features on any of the discs, which is something of a shame. Interviews with actors and crew, especially of course Robin Williams, would have been great, as would any outtakes, though it's entirely possible that much of Williams' dialogue was ad-lib. So in that case, alternate takes would have been nice. I figure a good solid commentary from Dawber and Williams on the first episode and it would have been golden. But ah well.

In case you don't remember this show from the late 1970s/early 1980s, then let me tell you that this show is hysterical. A bizarre blend of slapstick and genuinely clever jokes about an outsider's look at Earth, it's never quite what you think it should be. Robin Williams is of course always extraordinary, between the different voices, the physical comedy, and the perfect delivery. There are a host of great one-liners, such as when the Fonz asks Mork if men date women on Ork, to which Mork responds, "hard to tell; parts are interchangeable." The only wrong "note" (pun intended) happens when Mindy's father refers to a double bass as a cello--and that's a pretty minor fault, wouldn't you agree?