Popular Culture Review 29.1 (Spring 2018) | Page 135

woman who works in her father ’ s music store and aspires to be a journalist . Mindy lets Mork sleep in the attic of her apartment and becomes his guide in learning about Earthlings , and eventually the two fall in love . At the end of each episode , Mork channels Orson to recount what he has learned about life on Earth . The key to the series is Mork ’ s growing awareness of what it means to be alive , to be human , and to experience emotion . The most repeated song on the series was “ Staying Alive ” by the Bee Gees .
Mork and Mindy is , of course , a sitcom , a rather silly one , and humor in the series centers on Williams ’ distinctive comic style . As Mork , Williams plays the frenetic , childlike Orkan , exhibiting the wild physical humor and impersonation style that became his signature . For example , after going out on a date with Mindy ’ s friend , he reenacts for Mindy his entire disastrous evening in one quick dramatic skit . Williams also creates comedy through Mork ’ s misunderstanding of language , taking words literally , again demonstrating his ability to improvise verbally . If someone tells him to “ button it up ,” he looks for something to button . If he hears “ go jump in the lake ,” he looks for a lake . Scriptwriters for the show learned to leave spaces for Williams to improvise his scenes , and he took great delight in shocking and amusing both Mindy the character and Dawber the actress , once by entering his scene right on cue , but naked . Finally , Williams as Mork expresses confusion about how earthlings act , especially regarding their connections and feelings . On Ork , babies are created in test tubes and raised by computers , and Orkans believe that love and emotions are “ hazardous to one ’ s health .” Mork creates comic mayhem by misreading situations and misunderstanding social conventions , each day discovering something new about humanity . Producer Garry Marshall and television critics seemed to agree that the first year of the series — when Mork falls in love with a mannequin , wants to buy a baby , and learns what Christmas means--was the funniest and had the best scripts . The show was a hit , and Williams won an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actor in a prime-time comedy series .
Gradually , though , traces of a new Robin Williams begin to show , as Mork experiences crises and human emotions . In his personal life , Williams was experiencing drama too . Although he had become a television celebrity , he continued to do standup , following a full day of filming with a gig at a comedy club , performing until the very last person in the audience decided to leave . As Garry Marshall observed , “ We couldn ’ t control this . It was just the way he was wired . He ’ d be tired the next day , but he would always show up ready to play Mork .” ( 108 ). He formed relationships with other actors who lived fast , drug-fueled lives and was with John Belushi the morning before the Animal House
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