Mork & Mindy is an American sci-fi-based sitcom starring Robin Williams as Mork, an alien who came to Earth from the planet Ork in a large egg-shaped space ship, and Pam Dawber as Mindy McConnell, his human friend, roommate, and wife after they married in the final season.

The series was a spinoff of the sitcom Happy Days. The character of Mork first appeared in the season 5 episode, "My Favorite Orkan," where he threatened to take Richie Cunningham back to Ork as an example of a human, but his plan is foiled by Fonzie.

The character proved to be popular enough with the audience to rate a starring role in a series, though in the series Mork would reside in Boulder, Colorado, and in the (then) current day of 1978 as opposed to Happy Days' 1950s Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Mork's egg-shaped spacecraft lands on Earth, with his mission to observe human activity, assigned by Orson, his mostly-unseen and long-suffering superior (voiced by Ralph James), who has sent Mork to Earth to get Mork off Ork. To fit in, Mork dresses in a suit - but with the tie, shirt, and coat all on backwards.

He befriends Mindy after witnessing her and her boyfriend getting into an argument and him driving off in her vehicle, leaving her stranded. Mork offers assistance, and Mindy, not seeing his back or the on-backwards suit, assumes he's a priest judging simply by looking at him from the front, mistaking his wardrobe gaffe for a priest's collar.

Mindy is taken in by Mork's willingness to listen (unknown to her, he's simply observing her behavior as part of his mission), and the two become friends. The two walk back to her apartment, when Mindy sees his backwards suit and Mork's rather unconventional behavior for a priest. She asks him who he really is, and the innocent Mork, having not learned how to lie, tells her the truth.

After discovering Mork is an alien, Mindy promises to keep his true identity a secret and allows him to move into her attic. Complicating factors include Mindy's father, Fred (Conrad Janis), who expresses outrage that his daughter is living with a man. Fred's mother-in-law, Cora (Elizabeth Kerr), presents a much less conservative view, and approves of Mork and the living arrangement.

Mindy and Cora also worked at Fred's record store with Cora giving music lessons to a teenager, Eugene (Jeffrey Jacquet). Storylines usually centered on Mork's attempts to understand human behavior and American culture as Mindy helps him to adjust to life on Earth. At the end of each episode, Mork must report back to Orson on what he has learned about Earth. These end-of-show summaries allow Mork to comment humorously on social norms.

Mork's greeting was "Na-Nu Na-Nu" (pronounced "nah-noo nah-noo", sometimes spelt Nanoo Nanoo) along with a hand gesture similar to Mr. Spock's Vulcan salute from Star Trek. It became a popular catchphrase at the time, as did "Shazbot" (SHOZZ-bot), an Orkan curse word that Mork used.

This series was Robin Williams' first major acting break. It became famous for Williams' use of his manic improvisational comedic talent. Williams would make up so many jokes during filming, the scripts eventually had specific gaps where Williams was allowed to perform freely. In many scenes, Pam Dawber had to bite her lip to avoid laughing and ruining the filming.