‘Star Wars’ Was Responsible for ‘Happy Days's Weirdest Spin-off

There are certain inconsistencies of life that we tend not to think about too much just because it’s the way things have always been. You park on the driveway and drive on the parkway, French fries were invented in Belgium and Danishes in Austria and Mork from Ork first appeared on Happy Days before starring in Mork & Mindy. 

For a TV show that was based on nostalgia for 1950s America, the creators of Happy Days were unusually interested in science-fiction, starting with ol’ Mork and eventually including an animated series devoted to Fonzie’s travels through time. Yes, really.

There’s a logical reason, however, that the team behind Happy Days ventured into the realm of the theoretical. Those familiar with the show only through reruns might not realize that “My Favorite Orkan” aired toward the end of the fifth season, which notoriously opened with Fonzie jumping the shark. As that’s now become shorthand for the moment when a TV show starts running aground, it’s clear they were grasping for ideas. It was also 1977, the year the first Star Wars movie was released. In fact, the idea for Mork came from creator Garry Marshall’s son, Scott, who was so dazzled by George Lucas’ spectacle that he lost interest in primetime TV in favor of space operas. He might have come to regret it over the next few decades, but for the moment, it was all he cared about.

Garry Marshall didn’t get where he was by ignoring cultural trends; he was also probably a little tired of asking his son if he maybe wants to watch daddy’s show tonight instead of playing with his Luke Skywalker action figures. Whatever the case, he marched into Happy Days’s unsuspecting writers’ room and announced, “Scotty wants a spaceman!” 

After presumably several minutes of clarifying exactly what he was talking about, they got reluctantly down to business, creating the Mork character who visits Richie while his family is at the movies and battles Fonzie for the right to bring Richie back with him to his home planet. Now that we say it like that, it’s a little more homoerotic than we’d previously realized, too.

It was a desperate stab at pandering, and it could have been disastrous, as such stabs usually are. It nearly was, too. The first actor cast as Mork — Roger Rees, a decorated Broadway veteran nevertheless probably best known to today’s dirtbags as the Sheriff of Rottingham in Robin Hood: Men in Tights — was so affronted by the chaotic production and awful script that he walked off the job. 

It was at that point that someone on the crew, possibly Al Molinaro or Garry’s sister Ronny, suggested underground comedian Robin Williams for the part. It’s safe to say that Williams’ performance saved “My Favorite Orkan” from the shameful junk drawer of TV history and prompted the entire creation of Mork & Mindy. 

Whether or not that’s a good thing, we suppose, depends on how you feel about homoerotic Star Wars rip-offs.