Wednesday, June 02, 2010

 

Mork, Fever, and Mindy


For the past few days, I have been suffering from a fever. It's pretty stubborn-- so far I have tried aspirin, Motrin, and more cowbell, and nothing seems to be working.

When I get a fever, it just makes me goofy. Today, for example, I woke up obsessed with Mork and Mindy, a tv show in the 80's that was a spin-off of Laverne and Shirley, which was a spin-off of Happy Days. TV was like that back then. Anyways, did Mork and Mindy ever get married? If so, what's the deal with Mork returning to his home planet at the end? Did he ditch his poor wife? And didn't Mork also give birth to Jonathon Winters (you can see that here)? Hmmmm... 80's jump-the-shark moments and feverish delusions are separated by a very thin line.

At any rate, I will call on someone tomorrow in Sentencing class to explain all this.

This morning, I did have an informative conversation with theater person Dan Buck, who pointed out that Mork and Mindy actually began as a jump-the-shark moment-- when an alien landed on the Cunningham's front lawn in Happy Days.

Comments:
Here's all you need to know:
Mork and Mindy lived in sin
Mindy used to date Ralph the Mouth
Fonzi wanted to date Shirley but got Leather Tuscadero
Joni loved Chachi
Mindy and the woman who married Gabe from Welcome Back Kotter looked very similar
ReRun would not have been friends with Mork or Fonzi

I hope you still have your fever when you read this. (Seriously, I would rather you feel better!)
 
In that first video, is "Urp" some kind of practice court parody? Also, who is that guy teaching it? Familiar, but I can't put my finger on it....
 
Feel better!

In real life I think Mindy (Pam Dauber) married Jethro ~ NCIS (Mark Harmon)
I also think Mork and Mindy were taking many illegal substances.

The Fonz was friends with everyone.
 
The Fonz was friends with everyone except Tom Hanks-- check this out!

(I spent a lot of feverish time on Youtube yesterday).
 
Sadly, shows today just don't jump the shark in the same way...
 
I rarely watched any of these, but I never could figure out how Happy Days was set in the 50's, yet Mork and Mindy was set in "the present," (the late 70's to early 80's).

I think Laverne & Shirley started in the 50's, but the producers got lazy and it became present day.
 
Letterman was better in Cabin Boy. Here he looks stoned.
 
But Happy Days is the show that first coined the phrase "jump the shark," when the Fonz jumped over a shark while water skiing. It was later parodied in Arrested Development, when Henry Winkler's character hopped over a shark down at the docks.

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with Mork and/or Mindy.
 
What if Osler had written his commencement speeches during a fever? What would those kids have been in for?
 
Also, your fever isn't going to go away until you obtain more cowbell.
 
there is always more cowbell to be had. there's also this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3caoy4cIXac
 
Aspirin and Motrin are (regrettably) the same substance. By far and away my favorite antipyretic is Ibuprofen. But if more cowbell won't fix it, then I wonder if you truly have a fever.

As an aside, the evolution of the phrase "jump the shark" from its original meaning as a defining moment of a TV show's lapse into absurdity for a new meaning of a TV show that used a once-promising concept but has now devolved into a mess (see, e.g., just about every long-running serial show). Linguistics, how does that work?
 
OK - you are really not feeling well if you went out searching UTube for that clip.

Oh, but they shook hands in the end.
~*~*~
May I recommend some chicken stock with pastina.
 
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