14 Interesting Facts About Robin Williams
13. Robin “The Alien” Williams
He played this sweet-natured, naive alien Mork on the “Happy Days” spin-off called “Mork & Mindy.”
Now, he got this part in such a ludicrous way that it has Robin written all over it.
When he came in for the audition, the producer Garry Marshall told him to sit down and Williams immediately did so, only he sat down on his head, completely upside down on his chair. Garry gave him the role right there on the spot saying he is the only real alien there.
If you look up literally any episode of that show, within minutes you will realize why he got the part. You’ll see an impossibly young Robin Williams in his colored suspenders doing all sorts of Robin Williams-y stuff. In almost every scene, Robin is unleashing one of his antic flights of energy and creativity, physical comedy, sound effects, and normal words said in a funny way.
In fact, Mork & Mindy’s writers would leave pages blank in scripts and it would simply say “Mork does his thing.” It’s no wonder producer Garry Marshall gave him the role. That kind of creativity simply had to come from outer space.
