I’m not saying Paramount is cheap. But when producer Garry Marshall hired Robin Williams to guest on Happy Days in anticipation of a potential spin-off series, the studio said, “Well, let’s see what we have hanging in the closet.”
Mork’s red jumpsuit was appropriately space-age, at least when seen through the lens of 1970s science fiction. But producers didn’t hire designers to cook up a Mork outfit — instead, they raided the wardrobe from the studio’s Star Trek series, which ended just a few years earlier.
Paramount Television
Phillip Pine guest-starred in the episode “The Savage Curtain” as Colonel Green, a badass in the exact same crimson onesie minus the silver triangle that the Costume Department ironed onto Mork’s version. Williams, who was a lifelong Star Trek fan, was no doubt thrilled.
The original Mork costume worked out so well that Paramount recycled more retread outfits for Mork & Mindy once it officially became its own show, according to startrek.com. In one episode, an unnamed character walks through the door wearing a mash-up of two Star Trek hand-me-downs.
Paramount Television
The helmet could have come from either Captain Kirk or Mister Spock in “The Tholian Web” episode, a variation on an interstellar beekeeper design that Gene Roddenberry must have imagined in a fever dream.
Paramount Television
As for that suit that resembles a red oven mitt, Spock and a crew member wore them to protect themselves from becoming popsicles in the episode, “The Naked Time.”
Mork & Mindy still wasn’t done crossing over with Star Trek either. In Season Four’s “Mork, Mindy, and Mearth Meet MILT,” Captain Kirk himself was transported into the show. It’s all a mistake — he’s trying to hook up with space harlot Roxanne in a jacuzzi but ends up in Mork’s apartment instead.
“Beam me up, Orson,” he commands, disappearing to meet up with his interstellar lover.
The childlike Mearth is confused. “Wonder what he’s going to do with that Roxanne.”
“Anything he wants, son,” replies Mork. “He’s a captain.”
Williams was such a Star Trek fan that he’d bike from his sitcom set to check out the soundstage where they were filming 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Walter Koenig, who played Chekov, says Williams was stoked to stand on the bridge set of the USS Enterprise. As long as he was there, the comedian probably borrowed a couple of costumes for Mork & Mindy while nobody was looking.
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