| "Mork Man Vs. Ork Man" | |
|---|---|
| Season 1, Episode #5 (#) in series (26 episodes) | |
 | |
| "The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour" episode | |
| Guest Star(s): | Conrad Janis Frank Welker |
| Network: | ABC-TV |
| Production code: | 1x5 |
| Writer(s) | |
| Director | |
| Original airdate | October 9, 1982 |
IMDB 
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Mork Man Vs. Ork Man |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Orkin Without a Cause" | "Which Witch Is the Witch" |
| List of Mork & Mindy seasons/episodes | |
Mork Man Vs. Ork Man wss the fifth Mork and Mindy episode from the ABC-TV The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour animated TV series.
Summary[]
Mork receives an Ork Man video game from Orson for his birthday. When it breaks, Mork zaps it with his finger and accidentally unleashes the hungry little characters upon the real world, Discovered by two delinquents from Downtown High School, they decide to use the monsters to destroy the parade float Mindy created for Mt. Mount High, for the inter school competition.
Plot[]
In his attic room in the McConnell's house, Mork unwraps birthday presents, singing happily to himself when Mindy enters with a large candle filled cake for him as a surprise. Which it is. Mork reacting to the cake being on fire, grabbing it from her and using his finger to shoot water at it, as Doing sounds a siren. Amused, Mindy tells him that it was meant to be blown out. Embarrassed he apologizes saying he's still getting used to how Earthlings do things. Unfortunately for Mindy when she tells him he'd better hurry and serve up his cake before they have to leave for school, he misunderstands again, grabs the cake and a tennis racquet and volleys it, right at her. The cake landing all over her clothes and boots. Mortified Mork crawls to her on his knees begging for her forgiveness and trying to clean it off with his finger.
It doesn't quite work however, and resigned Mindy tells him she'll have to go to her room to change. Smiling, Mindy tells Doing what a good sport she is, and how proud of his Mind, he is, as she's the first 'girl-person' to have ever been chosen to create the Mount Mt. float for the Boulder City parade contest. As he eulogizing Mindy, Doing notices a large unwrapped egg shaped present and drags it over to Mork. Reasoning it must be from Orson, Mork reads the card, confirming it and opens it to find an Orkan style Video Arcade Game, Ork-Man. Joyous, Mork immediately starts playing, and at such a rate that the Pac-Man like game starts to overheat, and incredibly swiftly starts to smoke before burning out. Swearing, Mork wonders if he can fix it with his finger. When he tries though, he sees the Orkan equivalent of the games 'Ghosts' suddenly flash and become 3-Dimensional a moment before they literally leap off the screen and start chasing Doing around the room. The Hibijonee segments to escape them, but the Ork Ghosts destroy the bottom of the attic room door to escape the room.
Mork and Doing give chase, but the little monsters cause havoc through the McConnell's house, eating up carpet and Fred's favorite chair en route to disappearing, just as Mindy arrives back looking for Mork. Horrified at finding a pile of wood chips where her father's chair was, she asks Mork what happened, and as he tells her the hungry little Ork critters ate it up, they re-appear to devour the TV bar the tube. Grabbing a broom, Mork drives them out of the house. Mindy warns him that when Fred gets home and sees what's happened he's going to be in real trouble. But Mork tells her he's in big trouble right now, pointing to the mini monsters who are rapidly eating the tyres off a car, a pile of garbage and a fire hydrant. Panicking Mindy wants to know how they can stop them before they chew up the whole town. Telling him to hurry or they'll be late for the parade, Mork dashes back into the house and runs back with the Ork Man game, explaining to Mindy that this is where the monsters came from, and they'll need it to get them back inside.
Piling into Mork's Grimbel Pazetti with the machine, they race into town. With the parade gearing up to begin, a woman ordering a hot dog has it eaten out of her hand by the 'Critters', and a man his entire soda scoffed, before they eat the Hot Dog Stand around the vendor for good measure. As people start to run in fear, a pair of young grungy Downtown High students, Mutt and Bull see what's going on. But rather than being scared, Mutt tells Bull they're going to capture them. When Bull wants to know why he wants to capture something that could eat the shirt off his back, Mutt tells him they're going to loose them on Mt. Mount's float in the parade, Mindy's design a shoe in for the main prize, their own float second favored. With Mindy's float destroyed, they'll get the 500 dollar prize. Grabbing up a metal garbage can, they trail the 'critters' currently destroying a souvenir stand.
Mindy and Mork catch up to the creatures when they reach the Park, Mork carrying the Ork-Man machine out, as the critters turn and head towards them. Mork's plan is to vacuum them up with his finger and blow them back into the game. Hiding in the bushes, Mutt and Bull overhear Mork's plan, and acting immediately, Mutt runs back to the destroyed souvenir stand to retrieve a jar of Mexican Jumping Beans. Scattering the beans out near the bushes where Mork and Mindy are, the beans movement makes Mork mistake them for the tiny critters and he hoovers them up with his finger. As he preps to put the perceived creatures back in the machine however, the beans take an effect on Mork, who starts to bounce up and down uncontrollably. As Mork bounces away from her, Mindy finds the empty jar and realizes what has happened, chasing after him. Meanwhile Mutt & Bull trap the critters in the garbage can and make for Mindy's float.
Mork's bouncing gets worse and out of control he leaps up into a tree, ending up hanging from a branch by is suspenders, reasoning that his bezerb body means he must have the Gorgles. Arriving, Mindy reassures him its not the gorgles, but the beans he's accidentally ingested and gets him to blow them out quick. As Mork breathes a sigh of relief, Mindy looks around to see Mutt and Bull dump the critters on her float, watching as they start to devour it. Urging Mindy to get him down quickly before the creatures reach the judging stand, their attempts to get Mork's suspenders free from the tree, results in her, him and Doing all being catapulted onto one of the other floats. Mork leads the charge back down the row of floats, but they arrive too late, Mindy upset at seeing the everything but the metal skeletal structure completely devoured.
While Mutt and Bull, aboard their float, gloat over now being the shoe in for the 500 prize, Mindy, on hers, bemoans how everything is ruined. Trying to comfort her, Mork tells her there's still a minute before they get to the judges, which naturally only upsets her more, crying into his shoulder that she knows, and there's nothing they can do in a minute. But Mork assures his Little Mama that a Mork in Time Saves Nine, and considers his options. First being to send the judges into orbit, before deciding there's enough space junk up there already. But Mindy is convinced it's no use, telling him the games up. At which, Mork lights up. A game, he tells her, they'll show the judges a real game. Telling Doing to supply the sound, he'll take care of the colour and they'll make like Orson's game.
Using his finger, Mork points at the remaining metal structure magentising the critters to the metal poles able to move around them, but unable to break its pull and in doing so creating an aura of color and movement around it, Doing hooting and hollering to add the audio to the visuals. As they past the judges stand, the judges are struck by what they're seeing as a giant Electronic Video Game, considering it creative, ingenious and clever. Jubilant, a delighted Mindy grabs hold of Mork's suspenders claiming he did it, his game terrific and having given them a chance. When she points out there's only one more float to go before the judges make their decision, Mork notices who it is the 'splinkers' Mutt and Bull on the Downtown High float. Indignant at their sabotaging them, Mindy is even more annoyed that their float is good. Mork tells her on Ork they punish splinkers, before running through a quick 'trial' where he plays prosecutor, judge and the accused, sentencing them to be 'Ork-Man-ised'. Moving back to the Ork Man critters, he frees them and directs them towards the Downtown High float.
The critters devour every bit of the float, leaving Mutt and Bull on the road. Before they return and eat Mutt and Bull's clothes leaving them running away in their underwear. Sniggering, Mork hoovers up the critters again, and then blows them back into the Ork Man game proper. As he does so, the judges announce, by a unanimous decision, that Mt. Mount High is the winner. Overjoyed, Mindy grabs a hold of him again telling him he's out of this world, hugging and kissing him as the float moves on.
Back at home later, Mork and Mindy look on as Fred relaxes in his new automatic recliner, thanking Mindy for something he always wanted. And especially for her spending all her prize money on it. Only for Mork to assure him they didn't. Having also paid out to replace a lot of the stuff the critters had destroyed. As Mork lists them off, Doing makes his way back to the Ork Man machine, messing around at it, and causing it to futz again. Peering at it he opens the glass screen to peek at the innards only for the critters to bite him on the nose, sending him squealing back to Mork.
Trivia[]
Orkan 'Facts'[]
- Frabbeled - Orkan word for Breaking/Burning it out.
- Fribbelfouled - Orkan work for Sabotaged/Destroyed
General[]
- Mork thinks his out of control body is a sign of the Gorgles, the state that immediately proceeds death for Orkans as in the live action episode Mork Runs Down.
- Mork describes Mutt and Bull as 'splinkers' referring to splinking, those who pull stunts/practical jokes (To Tell The Truth) giving it a much more negative spin this time.
Pop Culture[]
- Ork-Man is a sendup of Pac-Man, which was also featured in an ABC animated Saturday morning series the same season.
- Mork's 'accused' voice in his mock trial of Mutt & Bulls is that of Richard Nixon
Gallery[]
Cast/Characters[]
- Robin Williams as Mork
- Pam Dawber as Mindy McConnell
- Conrad Janis as Fred McConnell
- Frank Welker as Doing
- ? as Mutt
- ? as Bull