Orson is the unseen supervisor of Mork. In the Wedding he could be considered the main antagonist on Mork and Mindy, as well as seven episodes of The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour cartoon series on ABC-TV. The part of Orson was voiced on both series by Ralph James.
About Orson
While normally unseen other than his silhouette in the pilot, he is regularly described by Mork as being incredibly fat and often makes jokes about his girth and calls him names which Orson takes with mild indifference. Even Mindy referred to him as fat on one occasion. He is very confused on how humans behave, survive and why they fight and not hide like Orkans do.
Orson also doesn't understand emotions, love, jokes (due to the law that you get arrested if you tell a joke and it gets a laugh) and friendship. He soon allows Mork to marry Mindy as "it would help him understand more about 'Earth Traditions'". Mork later made him Mearth's Godfather.
While he and Mork try to maintain a somewhat professional relationship, Mork shows very little respect for Orson's girth but has admitted that he thinks fondly of Orson and seems to consider him 'family' in a way as he was more than happy to make him his son's godfather despite their differences, and while Orson cannot express emotions, he does show some inexpressive fondness for Mork and Mindy. By the final episode "The Mork Report", Orson finally gained emotions, as he was very touched and almost moved to tears by Mork's last report on his marriage to Mindy to the point where his voice was filled with genuine emotion for the first (and technically last) time.
Trivia
- In the episode "Mork Runs Down", Orson implies that he is older than Mork after Mork's birthday ended and expected Mork to act more like him. Despite this, Orson has no characteristics of a child despite Orkans aging backwards, implying that he is only a little older than Mork or that Orkans aged normally in the original continuity (a fact which was also implied in Old Fears).