A spin-off after a highly successful episode of Happy Days, "My Favorite Orkan", it starred Robin Williams as Mork, an extraterrestrial who comes to Earth from the planet Ork, and Pam Dawber as Mindy McConnell, his human friend, roommate, and eventual love interest.

The show wanted to feature a spaceman to capitalize on the popularity of the recently released Star Wars film.

[1] Williams's character, Mork, attempts to take Richie Cunningham to his planet of Ork as a specimen, but he is foiled by Fonzie.

[2][3] The character of Mork was played by then-unknown Robin Williams, who impressed producer Garry Marshall with his quirky comedic ability as soon as they met.

He has been assigned to observe human behavior by Orson, his mostly unseen and long-suffering superior (voiced by Ralph James).

Landing in Boulder, Colorado, he encounters 21-year-old Mindy McConnell (Pam Dawber), who is upset after an argument with her boyfriend, and offers assistance.

Also seen occasionally are Mindy's snooty old high school friend, Susan (Morgan Fairchild), and the possibly insane Exidor (Robert Donner).

Storylines usually center on Mork's attempts to understand human behavior and American culture as Mindy helps him to adjust to life on Earth.

The show was moved from Thursdays, where it outrated CBS's The Waltons, to Sundays, where it replaced the canceled sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica.

[10] The second season saw an attempt to seek younger viewers, and premiered a new disco arrangement of the gentle theme tune.

Among the new supporting characters were Remo and Jeanie DaVinci (Jay Thomas and Gina Hecht), a brother and sister from New York City who owned a new neighborhood deli where Mork and Mindy now spent a lot of time.

Also added as regulars were their grumpy neighbor, Mr. Bickley (who was occasionally seen in the first season, and ironically worked as a verse writer for a greeting-card company), portrayed by Tom Poston, along with Nelson Flavor (Jim Staahl), Mindy's snooty cousin who ran for city council.

The show was quickly moved back to its previous time slot, and efforts were made to return to the core of the series; however, ratings did not recover.

The show acknowledged this attempt to restore its original premise, with the third season's hourlong opener, titled "Putting the Ork Back in Mork".

Also added was Mindy's close friend Glenda Faye Comstock (Crissy Wilzak), a lovely young widow on whom Nelson develops a crush.

Despite the show's steady decline, ABC agreed to a fourth season of Mork & Mindy, but executives wanted changes.

[13] Winters had previously appeared in a Season 3 episode as Dave McConnell (Mindy's uncle and Fred's brother).

Actor-director Jerry Paris was inspired to create the character of Mork after directing an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, titled "It May Look Like a Walnut", in which Van Dyke's Rob Petrie has a dream in which he believes the Earth has been surreptitiously invaded by walnut-eating aliens who steal humans' thumbs and imaginations.

When Paris moved on to direct Happy Days, he introduced Mork in a similarly atypical season-five episode, titled "My Favorite Orkan".

Mork freezes everyone but Richie with his finger, and says he was sent to Earth to find a "humdrum" human to take back to Ork.

After their duel, The Fonz admits defeat, so Mork decides to take Fonzie back to Ork instead of Richie.

When production on Mork & Mindy began, an extra scene was filmed and added to this episode for subsequent reruns.

In the scene, Mork explains to Orson that he decided to let Fonzie go, and was going to travel to the year 1978 to continue his mission.

The episode is mostly a retrospective in which clips are shown as Richie and Fonzie try to explain the concepts of love and friendship to Mork.

In an interview with Garry Marshall June 30, 2006, Pat O'Brien mentioned that Mork & Mindy was filmed on Paramount stage 27, the former studio for his infotainment program The Insider.