Word: mork
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Children love him because his daffy repertoire of Ork language can be mimicked endlessly. Already Mork's "nano, nano" (translation: hello) has replaced the Fonz's "aaaayyy" as the catchword of the nation's kids. Adults like his spontaneous riffs. On one program he launched into a singsong: "Shah, Shah, Ayatollah [I tol' yuh], Shah, Shah, Ayatollah...
People on Ork do not have emotions. Though he can be possessive about Mindy, sex is a mystery to Mork (he did once get a crush on a department store dummy). "He has the cootchycoo quality," says a casting director at NBC."You want to go up to him and pinch his cheeks...
...Mork appeared first when Robin played him in a one-shot appearance on Happy Days. The mail response to the episode was so large that a spin-off series was created for Williams. Mork & Mindy was a hit even before it went on the air. Director Howard Storm recalls the series' first taping: "Most of the time the studio audience for a new show is down. They don't know the characters. With Mork, they went crazy...
Williams finds TV's ratings struggle frightening. This season he became fascinated by a short-lived NBC sitcom, Who's Watching the Kids?, that was shot on a lot near Mork. "I saw its birth and death," he says wistfully. "I watched people fight for it. It is strange for me to know that I'm being used to cut the guts out of other new series." He chuckles at the talk that Mork & Mindy may soon have its own spinoff. "What would they spin off? It would be more like a skin graft...
Williams has an inhibiting five-year contract to play Mork, but he is moving beyond television. A comedy album is on the way, and next January he will star in the movie Popeye. Williams hopes that five seasons of Mork will not be too much. Says he: "If you find yourself stiffening up and not taking chances, then you become a situation comedy comedian...