| "Mayhem for the Mayor" | |
|---|---|
| Season 1, Episode #17 (#17) in series (26 episodes) | |
 | |
| "The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour" episode | |
| Guest Star(s): | Stan Freberg Mark L. Taylor |
| Network: | ABC-TV |
| Production code: | 1x17 |
| Writer(s) | |
| Director | |
| Original airdate | November 20, 1982 |
IMDB 
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Mayhem for the Mayor |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "The Fluke Spook" | "Coo Coo Caveboy" |
| List of Mork & Mindy seasons/episodes | |
Mayhem for the Mayor was a Mork and Mindy episode from ABC-TV's The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour, the 17th episode in the animated series.
Summary[]
During Fred's campaign for Mayor, Mork accidentally lands him in the hospital. Further complications arise when Hamilton's father, Fred's political adversary, tries to sabotage his campaign.
Plot[]
At the Boulder County Fair, Fred McConnell is up in a tethered hot air balloon as part of his campaign for Mayor. Calling down to Mindy below he wonders if this will really help him get votes. Mindy calls up for him to trust her, as his campaign manager. And she's a great one, Mork echoes, feeling he's a shoe in for Mayor. At Doing's alert though, Mork looks over to see the breeze starting to blow away Fred's campaign flyers. Diving onto the table to stop them, he gets Doing to take his place while he looks for something to weigh them down, spotting a large weight with a rope attached near by. Jumping over to it, he unties the rope, right as Fred is confessing to Mindy that he's worried about the election. Specifically Hamilton's father, Hamilton DuPont the XXIV who, he feels, would stop at nothing to win the election. But Mindy tells him not to worry, nothing could go wrong.
With the utterance of those famous last words, Mork releases the rope, which is the one tethering the balloon to the ground, the balloon shooting upwards to Fred's fright and Mindy's alarm. Rushing to Mork to tell him what he's done, Mindy tells him do to something! Firing up his finger, Mork shoots at the balloon, puncturing it, sending it shooting out of control all over the place. This time when Mindy tries to get Mork to do something he tells her he can't, and it's down to what goes up, must come down. Both of them watching helplessly as the yelling Fred heads straight down and into the hay baler on display at the Farm Machinery Stand. Watching her father fall into it in horror, Mindy runs with Mork to the machine to see Fred emerge contorted and tied into a squared off hay bale. His head sticking out of the bale, and with Mindy wanting to know if he's okay, a furious Fred eyes Mork and says he's not sure what happened but he'll bet he's involved somehow. Upset, Mindy gets Mork to call an ambulance to get her Dad to the hospital.
At the hospital, one arm and one leg in traction, Fred is swathed in bandages from head to toe, Mindy trying to be encouraging in telling him he'll be out of hospital in a week according to the Doctors. But Fred is still focused on the election which is the next day. Mindy doesn't feel there's any problem though, the polls showing that he's leading Hamilton's father by a landslide. Mork tries to help by telling Fred, in order for him to keep his lead he'll be helping Mindy out on the campaign. Something Fred does not react well to, flatly refusing Mork's help, telling him if he wants to help 'him' out he should campaign for Dupont. Mindy complains that Mork is only trying to help, and while Fred acknowledges that he points out he's running against Hamilton Dupont (XXIV) Senior the sneakiest man in all of Boulder. Mork has to agree, the father tying his son for nastiness. But Fred asserts that he's worse! There's no unscrupulous, despicable, trick to win, and no telling what that cad might do. As he's talking we see that there's a wire coming out of the vase of flowers by Fred's bed, the room bugged.
As Fred continues how Hamilton Snr could spread lies, buy votes, or even bug his campaign office, we see Du Pont, listening in with his son behind him. Laughing at Fred, Hamilton Snr tells 'Ham' that they'll do worse than that, before sending him out, and switching the listening device back on to hear Mindy tell Mork they better get going, they have to get the food ready for Fred's picnic rally. Hearing that, Hamilton Snr, is sure they have something that'll put a crimp in those plans.
At the park, all set up for the rally, Mindy sure it'll help keep Fred's numbers up, Mork doing his part by using his finger to BBQ the hotdogs on the grill, piling them onto a tray. Thanking him, she tells him he can serve them while she gives her Dad's speech. Carrying the hotdogs over to one of the tables, Mork intercepts Doing as he makes a lunge for them, and carries them away, without seeing Hamilton up in the tree beside the table, or his lowering a tube to hoover up the hot dogs, and then replace them with a bunch of rubber fakes. Returning to pick up the dogs, Mork calls out to those attending the rally to come and get 'em. As Mindy starts her father's speech, people start discovering the rubber in their dogs, Fred she says being tough on crime, but flexible on social issues, a man who can stretch their tax dollars. As she's talking Mork discovers what's happened, Mindy figuring they've been sabotaged, and she can guess by who.
A few moments later a huge flat bed pulls up a curtain pulling back to reveal a huge DuPont banner with both Hamiltons below it, along with a small orchestra and a range of waiters with a full gourmet buffet. DuPont offers the crowd corn on the cob and whole fried chicken. Mork doesn't appreciate their trickiness, and using his finger starts the corn cobs popping violently causing mayhem on the truck. Before he brings the fried chickens back to life. With people running, claiming DuPont is causing a Corn Storm, an infuriated Hamilton Snr, tells his son no more Mr. Semi-Nice Guy, and he has a plan that will make even Hamilton Jnr. ashamed of him. But Hamilton Jnr. tells him that is what he loves about him, he's such a good role model.
In the hospital, Fred is sleeping, when two massive 'Nurses' push in another bed with a patient swathed in bandages exactly like Fred, looking exactly like Fred. On waking and seeing them, Fred demands to know who they are...the heavies dressed as Nurses telling him they're his night nurses. Hamilton Snr, in a helicopter outside via the bug in his room, , answering Fred's query about the patient who looks like him as being Hamilton Jnr. Hamilton pulling off the mask he's wearing to tell Fred that at the rally at the County Fair that night, he, as Fred, is going to tell everyone what a crook 'Fred' is, before Fred is airlifted from the hospital by Hamilton Snr. Outside, Mork drives Mindy up to the Hospital entrance, Mindy anxious to see how her Dad is. Hamilton hearing them coming, panics and tells the heavies to put his mask back on him, which they do. Upside down. Mindy and Mork entering the room freak out on seeing Fred's head the wrong way around, before it becomes clear that it's Hamilton when one of the heavies switch the mask back around, resulting the heavies grabbing hold of them. The heavies tell Hamilton not to worry, they'll take the pair to the same place they have the real 'McConnell'.
At the Cockroach Arms Hotel, under the guard of the two heavies, in his hospital bed Fred tells Mindy Hamilton's father's plan for Hamilton to give a speech as him to ruin his reputation and take the election. Mork resolves to get Fred out of there. How, Mindy asks. Through the window and down the fire escape Mork replies to Fred's disbelief, before Mork does exactly that, rolling the wheel bed out, and sliding it down the fire escape, with the heavies in hot pursuit after them down the street as they push it towards the County Fair.
At the Fair in Boulder Park, on the main stage, Hamilton Snr. is standing along the fake Fred telling the crowd that after years of telling them what an honorable man he is, Fred is now going to tell them what a truly rotten skunk he actually is. Still shoving Fred's bed as they enter the Park, Mork suggests to Mindy they take a short cut right through the exhibits. Their rush past sends a woman selling award winning pies into a spin, her pies smacking the pursuing heavies in the face, giving Mork & Mindy a brief reprieve, until Mindy warns Mork to watch out for an upcoming 'Boulder', the bed pushed up the slanted stone and out of control of the young duo. Yelling for help as he and his bed flies through the air, Mindy and Mork give chase, Mindy pointing that his bed is heading for the Milking exhibit. Seizing their chance, the two heavies grab Fred back out of the exhibit intent on taking him back to the hotel. Mindy pointing it out to Mork, he tells her to leave it to him, using his finger to nab some hoops from a hoop toss and fire them at the heavies. Trapping them and freeing up Fred, Mindy and Mork nab her father's bed again, determined to get him to the platform before the 2 DuPont's wreck Fred's reputation, but end up pushing the bed up a motorcycle stunt ramp without realizing it. Until they plummet down the far side.
Flying downhill, Mindy yells for Mork to do something. But as they shoot off the end of the ramp and fly through the air, Mork tells her there's no point doing anything now, especially as they are heading right for the platform, and the phony Fred. As Hamilton, masquerading as DuPont, reels off a litany of his misdeeds (including cheating on his taxes in 1965, scalping basketball tickets, and overcharging his customers) everyone hears Mork yelling 'Look out, below!' as he, Mindy and Fred in the bed plunge downwards onto the platform. The crowd immediately recognizing there are two Fred's, leads Mindy to declaim Hamilton Snr, stating he's leading a dishonest campaign, and that he had his son pose as her father. Hamilton Snr. affects shock at her allegations, amazed she could say such a thing, denying he knew anything about any such trick being pulled. Mork murmurs to Mindy that he'll get him to tell the truth with his 'Pinocchio Zap', and lets him have it, bouncing his power off several surfaces to hit him indirectly.
And right as Hamilton Snr is in the middle of proclaiming himself an honest politician. The result being his nose growing out several inches. Trying to blunder on he says the only way to win an election is through honesty and the people can trust him. His nose shooting out a couple more inches. Alarmed he stops wanting to know what's going on with his nose. Like Pinocchio, Mindy tells him with some satisfaction, it grows every time he lies. Tell the truth, she says, and it'll shrink. He never lies, he replies indignantly, his nose promptly shooting out to two feet long. Scared he gives up, admitting he's a liar and a cheat, and a bully. And what's more, McConnell is the right man for the job. Grabbing hold of a swathed McConnell, Mork is determined to prove that he's a fake and it's Hamilton Jnr. Until Fred, yells for Mindy to help him, saying Mork's cracking up. But Mork thinks it's just Hamilton trying to fool them and keeps trying to yank his 'face' off, even when Mindy tells him to stop, that it's her father. It's not until Mindy holds up the 'Fred Mask' saying she already took the mask off of Hamilton that Mork sheepishly gives up, apologizing profusely to Fred, while the crowd effusively endorse Fred for Mayor. Hugging her Dad, Mindy congratulates him, now a shoe in for Mayor. Hamilton Snr. concedes and promises he'll never pull a dirty trick on him again, only for his nose to grow again, Mork telling Mindy if he doesn't stop lying his nose won't run, it'll gallop!
Trivia[]
General[]
- The picture of Mork, Mindy and Doing that regularly appears on the title card is missing.
- Contrary to the Show: Mork brings the chickens on the truck (fried) back to life, but it has been explicitly stated that he can only restore life as a 1 in a Billion shot, and with the perfect conditions (To Tell The Truth)
- Hamilton Jnr. has a 'Fred Mask' impersonating Fred, ala Kalnik in the series (Gotta Run, Part 2)
Pop Culture[]
- Mork refers to Mindy as 'Tonto' when saying he'll get her dad down pronto, another reference (as often occurred in the series) to Tonto from The Lone Ranger.
- Mork tells Mindy he'll have the hotdogs ready faster than she can say Rin Tin Can, a pun on Rin Tin Tin the famous Hollywood 'Wonderdog' of the Silent Era.
- Mork refers to the rubber dogs as Mile Long Rubber dogs, a play on the Long Mile Rubber Co. which was a subsidiary of Goodyear, through to the mid 19802.
Gallery[]
Characters[]
- Robin Williams as Mork
- Pam Dawber as Mindy McConnell
- Conrad Janis as Fred McConnell
- Mark L. Taylor as Hamilton J. DuPont XXV
- Stan Freberg as Hamilton's Father