Franklin "Frank" Delano Bickley was a main and recurring character who appeared in 54 of the 95 episodes of Mork and Mindy. The part of Mr. Bickley was played on the series by Tom Poston.
About Mr. Bickley[]
Mr. Bickley is Mindy McConnell's downstairs neighbor, who moves into the building after Mork moves in with Mindy.
His first encounters with Mindy frustrate her massively as he is constantly complaining about the noise coming from her apartment, and despite her best efforts remains curmudgeonly towards her in the extreme. Mork suggests she just needs to be more tolerant, but she is disinclined to believe that Bickley can be talked around. Mork however is not to be put off, and despite Bickley's attempts to get rid of him, ends up inviting him to dinner upstairs, making his first stab at cooking (a disastrous) meal for Bickley & Mindy. Mindy gives it another shot with Bickley baking him a cake, but as she tries to talk him around, Bickley finally starts to warm up to them, after Mork arrives with a puppy for Bickley hidden in his jacket, the lonely introvert naming him Bickey, after Mork gives Franklin this nickname.
He slowly begins to open up to his neighbors, especially after they realize that often his complaining and even thievery (In Mork We Trust) is just his desire to have some kind of interaction with them. And eventually he comes to call them his best friends, even if they occasionally get on his nerves.
Bickley has a strong affinity for bourbon, and keeps a wooden cabinet stocked with travel-sized bottles of it at all times. He is a drinker, but is highly functioning. Franklin Delano happens to hate icing, along with Colorado winters.
There is one probable continuity error having to do with Franklin. In the episode "In Mork We Trust", Bickley says that he and his wife "tried for years, but [they] couldn't have one of [their] own," leading one to think that he's talking about children. But then Mork replies, "How sad, a dogless couple," and Bickley's reaction leads us further to believe that he was talking about children. But then in the episode "Mork Learns to See", Bickley does indeed have a son named Tom.
In "Looney Tunes and Morkie Melodies", Bickley is an incredibly good sport and in high spirits showing willing to help out Nelson in his TV appearance as part of his campaign. He reveals he was in the army and that he learned to juggle hand grenades there (which helped get him out of it) and shares this talent with Mork, Mindy and company, with balls instead of hand grenades, and does a sketch with Mork during the variety show.
It is through his fiscal mean-ness and drinking that a terminally bored Mork (Mindy being away) manages to convince Bickley to go out with him on the town (Mork's Night Out). An eventful evening where they manage to drive the Governor off the rode, end up at a swingers bar, and get picked up and robbed by a pair of mother/daughter crooks. Despite that, they resolve to go out again together the following week.
However Bickley, in later episodes, after Fred returns to Boulder, seems to strike up a close friendship with Mindy's father. (Even after Bickley initially saying that he never liked Mindy's dad much, in "Mork in Wonderland"). The two even go on fishing trips together. And it seems Frank is happier to hang out with Fred than Mork, as he declines (an again Mindy-less) Mork's invitation to go out on the town together as a 'drag' (Mindy, Mindy, Mindy).
In the episode "Mork the Prankster", it is revealed that Franklin used to be known as "Pranky Franky" in college. He recalls taking apart a '51 Studebaker and reassembling it in the Dean's house. Mork is inspired and proceeds to prank Mindy in this way, failing to take into account that Bickley did it downstairs, not in an upstairs apartment. It costs, Mindy her floor, and but for a timely trip to the kitchen for coffee almost costs, Mr. Bickley his life, but he manages to escape unscathed...his furniture is another question.
Bickley never finds out that Mork is an alien, not even when he sees the enormous nest for Mork's egg in the McConnells' apartment. He may have some sneaking suspicions, fueled only by Mork's strangeness and naivety, but never acts upon them.
Personality[]
Frank is, ironically, a greeting card writer, and often cries after reading his poems, but always follows it up with an utterance of "hog slop," or the like. Despite being a writer of sentiments, Bickley has a hard time expressing his own feelings. He often goes about getting what he wants the hard way, and sometimes seems to be in denial of his own feelings.
His cutting himself off from his emotions is possibly in part to a fractious marriage, and his relationship with his son Tom, who is blind. Tom reveals that Bickley was a wonderful and loving father, but Bickley recalls that he became concerned by his own concern, feeling as if he was actually so worried about Tom that his protectiveness would harm Tom's ability to be able to build his own life. Despite it destroying him emotionally he sent Tom away to school though Tom didn't want to go, to give him the best chance of standing on his own two feet. Where Bickley went wrong however was in cutting himself off from Tom entirely, partially because its too hard for him to see him, and gradually because of guilt. After Mork & Mindy get to know Tom, and realize how much he wants a relationship with his father, it is they that confront Bickley and ultimately facilitate their reconciliation.
Through this and other encounters, Mork and Mindy help him to unlock his feelings and eventually turn him into a happier and more sociable man. Culminating in a memorable 50th Birthday party for him, which showcases how far Bickley has travelled.
"The Threat" - Character Note[]
In his interview with the Television Academy Foundation, actor Tom Poston revealed two items of note about Franklin Delano Bickley. Firstly that his character was actually cast to be a surreptitious 'Threat' to Mork.
He was in fact supposed to be a far more inebriated character than he was (ala a Miles Sternhagen), however this inebriation was a mask, and when it disappeared, Bickley was actually revealed to be another alien, ominously watching the watcher. In effect a slow burning combo of Sternhagen and Kalnik. This idea was, to Poston's disappointment, shelved just before he began shooting, leaving Franklin Delano Bickley as the curmudgeonly neighbor downstairs with a propensity for Bourbon.
Secondly his character actually shot scenes with Jonathan Winters during Season 4, which meant his character appeared in further episodes, but they were evidently cut for time, most likely due the time given over to Winters and Williams extended riffing.[1]