My Dad Can't Beat Up Anybody

"My Dad Can't Beat Up Anybody"
Season 4, Episode #6 (#79) in series (95 episodes)
Despite Mindy's re-assurances that he has his son's respect, Mork is feeling increasingly inadequate and takes it on himself to prove to him that he's special.
"Mork & Mindy" episode
Guest Star(s):	Hugh Gillin Stanley Kamel Lee Weaver
Network:	ABC-TV
Production code:	406 (4x6)
Writer(s)	Dale McRaven & Bruce Johnson
Director	Frank Buxton
Original airdate	November 12, 1981
IMDB	My Dad Can't Beat Up Anybody
Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"Mama Mork, Papa Mindy"	"Long Before We Met"
List of Mork & Mindy seasons/episodes

My Dad Can't Beat Up Anybody was the sixth episode from Season 4 of Mork and Mindy, the 79th overall episode in the series. Co-written by Dale McRaven and Bruce Johnson, the episode, directed by Frank Buxton, premiered on ABC-TV on November 12, 1981.

Synopsis

Mork gets increasingly anxious over his son losing respect for him due to his not working outside the home.  With Mindy away on a job for the weekend, After Mearth finds his spacesuit and surmises he's an incognito superhero, to impress him Mork offers to go crime fighting with him.

Plot

The new family return from taking Mearth to see his first movie, Superman, with both father and son in flying mood, wearing their coats like capes as they zip around the room, while a tolerant Mindy watches before distracting them with Milk and Cookies.  As she serves them up, Mearth considers some of what he’s seen, noting that Superman has two jobs…and Mommy has one job…and Daddy watches General Hospital.  While Mork looks a little uneasy, Mindy reminds Mearth that his Dad has a job he watches him.  But Mearth hopes that when he grows up, he’ll be just like Superman.  Mork queries this, saying he thought Mearth wanted to be like him?  When Mearth says, Why?  Mork is stricken, and Mindy moves quickly to console him and tell Mearth that his Dad has lots of wonderful qualities. Yes, Mearth agrees, but he can’t fly.  Mork replies that he may not be able to fly but that doesn’f mean he doesn’t have anything in common with Superman. Superman he points out is an alien from Krypton…and eyeing his son, he asks him if the planet Ork means anything to him.  Interrupting rapidly, Mindy, suggests that is way past Mearth’s bed time and he should take his milk and cookies, go up and get changed.  Once he’s gone up, Mindy reminds Mork that they agreed they wouldn’t say anything to Mearth till he was older…or younger. But Mork is getting antse about Mearth’s hero worship of Superman, and points out that Superman can’t use his finger to move things, closing the stairs to the attic, and he can’t do the Carioca, pulling Mindy into dancing the dance with him.   Mindy tries to convince he doesn’t’ have to prove anything, he has Mearth’s respect, that all kids grow through a form of hero worship and it’ll pass.

Later, changed for bed, Mindy is brushing her hair while writing some notes while lying across the bed. Mork asks what the notes are for, and she tells him Governor Lamb is going on a skiing trip to Aspen and KTNS Anchor Dewy Fishbeck is going up to interview him, so she’s writing some questions to ask him. When Mork wonders why he’s not writing the questions himself, Mindy tells him he’s an Anchor, all he knows how to do is make fun of the weatherman’s sports coat.  Telling her he’s going to hit the hay, Mindy tells him she’s just going to leave the light on for a few minutes which he’s fine with, lying down, only to stand straight back up again and start pacing saying he can’t sleep.  That he has insomnia because he doesn’t have his little guys respect.  Mindy tries again to tell him he’s just infatuated with a movie, just like Mork was with Midget Wrestlers. But he feels that he has to get a job, and Mindy reminds him he already has one, as Orkan Observer to Earth, which she genuinely sees as being the equivalent of being an Ambassador to the entire planet.  He insists he needs to have job he can talk about, one that his son can understand and be proud of.  Mindy understands and it is fine with her if that is what he wants, but she wants him to be aware that good jobs are not that easy to come by.  But he declares he’s a superior being, there isn’t any job he couldn’t get if he tried, and if by some fluke he doesn’t, he can always write a diet book.

A few days later Mindy is sliding her tape recorder in one of her travel bags, which she rapidly hides as Mork enters, and turns to him smiling.  Mork waxes lyrical about what a glorious day It is, but Mindy isn’t fooled, and taking his hand solicitously asks him how the job hunting is going?  Mork with a fixed smile on his face tells her the possibilities are endless but he’s narrowed it down to giving blood every day for the rest of his life, or, nocturnal surveillance official for the Remtek Corporation, she starts to query what that is before she realizes and asks would that be anything like night watchman?  He confirms that’s the ‘generic’ term. He continues to enthuse about how he can expand into so many different areas, as he sits on the couch, and then asks her why there is one suitcase packed beside him ready to go?  Mindy confesses a little nervily that she has to go away for the weekend, to Aspen. Mork miffed, stands back up again, annoyed that as he’s about to lose their son’s respect forever she’s heading off skiing. Telling him its business not for fun doesn’t improve his dejected mood, and she appeals to him that she loves him and is not deserting him, but they get interrupted by Mearth.

Mearth is in full John Wayne mode after watching TV and wants to know if Mork ever strung up 12 outlaws by himself, Mork replies he once stopped a lady in the express lane with too many items. Mindy tries to talk Mork up, but Mearth has noticed the bags around the place, and Mindy fesses up that she’s going away, explaining to them both that Dewy Fishbeck who was supposed to go to Aspen had an allergic reaction to his toupee and she has to go in his place to interview the Governor. This impresses Mearth hugely, and though Mindy again tries to talk up Mork, Mearth thinks what she’s doing is really important, and if she can’t get the Governor’s autograph for him, he’d just as soon have hers.  Touched, but very aware of her listening husband, she asks Mearth to help her out by taking her skis down to the jeep, and saluting her he heads down.

Swinging around to Mork, she tells him not to over-react, that next week his hero will be Reggie Jackson, someone else, he says, he can’t compete with.  Feeling bad for him, Mindy feels like she should say, but he Mork gets a grip of himself and tells her not to worry, that he’s the eternal optimist, down one minute and back up the next. Almost as if to prove it the phone rings and it’s Remtek calling Mork back about the job, the call sounding incredibly positive to the listening Mindy, only for Mork to tell her that while he did great on the interview the computer said the Doberman would bite his head off and bark down his neck.  Both of them deflated, Mork feels that by the time she gets back from Aspen their son will have disowned him entirely.

A couple of days later, Mindy gets back, and Mork rushing to welcome her back, take her case and hug her, finds her untouchable, a mass of bruising.  The governor apparently liking black runs, she spent time skiing on her head. Sympathetically taking off her boots to give her a foot rub, he tells her she still had a better time than the disaster they went through. Definitely not wanting to hear that she sits as Mork relates to her what happened, in flashback form.

Mork gives up on trying to teach Mearth his geography lesson when his son turns the subject back to where Superman lives.  Agreeing to play hide and seek with him, Mork sits on his face and counts in Russian, pretending to be the Soviet Union after Mearth’s small 3^rd World country. Going to hide in the armoire, Mearth finds Mork’s space suit and forgetting about hide and seek and admiring the suit greatly asks Mork if it’s his superhero suit.  Mork is honest and says he’s not now or nor has ever been a superhero, which depresses Mearth, but Mork says that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be, and asks him would it make him proud if he was a crime fighter? Mearth lights up at the notion and asks if he can come with him if he goes.

Later, in their pursuit of crime to bust, Mork in his suit takes Mearth in his romper into a really rough dive for a cold drink before they head back out again, attracting a lot of attention for how they’re both dressed, and even more after Mork orders milk.  Dave, the Bartender wants to know who they are and Mork intros himself as Mork McConnell, Crimefighter and part time Superhero…laughing the Dave wants to know if that makes Mearth, Wonder Woman?  One of the barflies, Gus, warns them that they don’t belong there, that this place is rough, and suggests they head off down the street to another bar.   Mork takes Mearth to look at the juke box, and as they do a guy called Charlie enters and chats to the Dave  who warns him off, saying there have been people in the bar asking about him.  Charlie is super confident no one will find him unless he wants them too only for the barfly that Mork was talking to, to pull a gun on him.

Mearth seeing this demands Mork do something about it, and forced into it by his son, Mork puts his fingers in the barfly’s back and tells him to drop the gun in his ‘cop voice’, Charlie grabbing the gun and thanking him.  Unfortunately, the barfly is the cop.  With Mork and Mearth grimacing, Charlie, pleased, tells everyone he’s going to have to split town again, and he’s going to need their money to help him.  Getting Dave to empty the till, he starts to collect the contents of everyone’s wallets and pockets, and makes Mork help him collect it.   But Mearth follows him around telling him he shouldn’t be taking the money.  Mork tries to tell him that the man has a gun, and he’s not a superhero and he doesn’t’ want to see Mearth or anyone else in the bar hurt, and asks him to believe he’s not a coward.  But Charlie see’s that Mearth has moved, and hits him for doing so. Mearth bursting into tears.

Mork tries to tell Charlie Mearth was just helping him, but Charlie tells him to shut up and hits Mearth again telling him to empty his pockets.  Mearth says all he has is a frog, and Mork asks him to just take the money and go, but Charlie hits Mearth yet again…and this time Mork gets angry warning him to stop it.  But Charlie wants to see what Mearth has in his pockets and hits him once more, and this time Mork snaps, and pointing his fingers at him tells Charlie no one hurts his family.  Furious, a storm starts to whip up around Mork, lightning flashing and tornado level winds forming, blowing debris around the bar, and forcing Charlie back before the gun is dragged out of his hands and flies across the room into Morks, where he crushes it like it’s nothing.

The destruction of the gun ends Mork’s anger, and looking around Mearth who spent much of his time with his eyes covered, looks around at the wreck of the bar and asks Mork what happened?  Looking at his hands, and disturbed, Mork answers that he doesn’t know.  He just hopes it never happens again. Telling him he’s safe now, and it’s time go home, Mearth agrees saying they said it was Chicago that was the Windy City.

The flashback retelling ending, Mindy is holding his hand on the couch, as Mork tells her the newspaper reported a freak tornado had hit the bar.  He tells her it was really scary, that he did not know he has that kind of rage inside of him.  She points out that he was protecting Mearth, but he feels bad, he only wanted his respect and he put him in a very dangerous position. She agrees that he took it too far, but tells him it’s normal to want respect from his son.   

While they were talking Mearth had snuck down behind them, and tells Mork that he has a huge amount for respect for him, that he was great, telling Mindy how he took a gun away from a criminal and didn’t even muss his hair.  Mindy smiles telling Mork that he’s been looking for something he had all along.  And when Mork asks Mearth if that’s true, Mearth tells him he means everything to him, he plays with him, he reads to him, they watch TV together.  When Mork asks him about Superman, he tells him he’s a joke, he’s fictitious and doesn’t mean anything to him.  Mindy prevails on Mearth to tell Mork who his new hero is, and Mearth tells him…the Governor.  As Mork’s face falls, Mearth grins telling him that’s *his* sense of humor, putting the grin back on his father’s face.

The episode ends with Mork’s report to Orson, only Orson isn’t there.  Instead he gets Orson’s housekeeper, Geezbalita, who says Orson ‘no en casa,’ but who agrees to take a message.  He tells her tell him that Mork called, and that this week he learned that Father’s put too much pressure on themselves to be the apple of their child’’s eye.  And that they should concentrate on being loved for what they are not what they think they should be.   Asking did she get that, she says you bet…she’ll tell Orson that ‘Monty’ called, and saying Nanu, rings off.  Inhaling, Mork mutters that he works 5 hours on a report and someone called Monty gets all the credit, urging patience, he sambas off.

Trivia

Orkan 'Facts'

• When riled, Orkan's appear to have the power to unleash elemental forces. Mork whipping up forces the equivalent of a small tornado inside the bar.
• After snapping the ropes binding him in the previous episode (Mama Mork, Papa Mindy) when he discovered his family was on the verge of crisis, Mork again exhibits enhanced strength, crushing Charlie's gun. The third time (following Mork the Prankster) that Mork has indicated super strength. All of them apparently emotionally (both positively and negatively) triggered.

General

• The use of Superman is again in part a nod to the actor playing him and his relationship with Robin Williams as he and Christopher Reeve met at Julliard in 1973 when both were accepted by John Houseman to his prestigious scholarship class, and remained close friends for the rest of their lives.
• The ineffective and never appearing Dewey Fishbeck, again lumbers Mindy with more work when, this time, he gets an allergic reaction to his toupee and ends up with a head covered in hives.
• Mork wear his dress cape for the first time since his hollitacker with Xerko in  S2’s There’s A New Mork In Town.
• Mork uses the same finger in the back trick he used on George in S1’s Mork’s Greatest Hit
• Another mention for Jean Claude Killy the World & Olympic Champion French alpine skier, this time by Mindy who says the Governor makes Killy look like a 'snow bunny'. Pam Dawber confessed that during her teenage years as an Auto Model, one of the reasons she kept doing it was that Killy was also present at the shows and her ambition was to get her 'dream date' with him, the ambition acting as a motivating force for her to keep doing the shows. Albeit one that never came to fruition.

• This is the first ‘appearance’ of Orson’s new housekeeper Geezbalita (voiced by Robin Williams) when Mork puts in a call to Orson and finds him out.  

Pop Culture

• Mork cites Grace Slick to Mindy as one of the women who can fly, apart from being lead singer of Jefferson Airplane and Starship, Slick had a history with LSD and marijuana.
• Mindy tells Mearth he should go up to get ready for bed and put on his Doctor Dentons. Doctor Dentons were a well know brand of blanket sleepers, invented by Frank Denton, whose nickname was "Doc". He sewed socks to the ends of his children's knitted pajamas or long johns for them to sleep in during the cold northern winters.
• The Carioca is a song by Vincent Youmans, Edward Eliscu and Gus Khan, written for and perhaps best known as the first on screen dance routine Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers ever did, from their first screen pairing together Flying Down To Rio, actually danced with their foreheads touching near constantly.
• Mork decides to avoid future hero worship scenarios he’ll only take Mearth to see the yodeling Country & Western superstar, Slim Whitman sing Verdi's opera, Aida.  
• Mork sings a little snatch of Otis Redding / Aretha Franklin’s R.E.S.P.E.C.T. when talking to Mindy about wanting it from Mearth.
• When Mindy tells him he has the greatest responsibility of all, raising a child, Mork tells her that Gloria Steinem didn’t buy that one and neither does he. Gloria Steinem being one of the founders and leaders of the Women’s Equal Rights Movement
• Mork references Paul Newman’s famous blue eyes for how clear the sky is.  And how if John Denver isn’t writing a song he’s missing a million seller. Denver who wrote Rocky Mountain High, was adopted as poet laureate of the State he came to love so much, and Rocky Mountain High was adopted by the Colorado state legislature as one of the States two songs.
• Mork accuses Mindy of abandoning him to barrel jumping with Peggy and Rhonda Fleming. Peggy Fleming was a champion Olympic skater who won several medals, but is absolutely no relation to Rhonda Fleming the flaming red haired movie star of the 40s and 50s.
• Mearth comes down doing an impersonation of John Wayne from the movie he's been watching.
• Mindy tells Mork not to overreact when Mearth makes a hero out of her, that next week then NY Yankee's star (soon to be with the California Angels) baseball legend Reggie Jacksoncould be his hero.
• Mindy says that then Colorado Governor Lamm makes French triple Olympic Champion downhill skier Jean Claude Killy look like a snow bunny
• Mork suggests that his spacesuit could be part of an outfit worn by The Commodores, then still featuring Lionel Richie as lead vocalist.
• Mork suggests they check out the jukebox in the bar to see if they have the 'Love Theme' from Alien.
• Mork owes not mussing his hair during the ‘tornado’ to Ann Miller’s hairspray, the dancing movie legend much known for her massive black bouffant hair in her later years.

Quotes/Excerpts

• Mindy:  Well…it’s been about 2 and a half hours since we saw Superman, I think it’s about time you guys came in for a landing.
• Meath: C’mon Mom you can join in with us, just because you’re a girl you know we won’t make fun of you. You can fly just like we can!
• Mork: Yeah! C’mon Min, lots of women can fly! There’s Tinkerbell! There’s Grace Slick!  There’s…I mean, Amelia Earhart she may still be up there but her luggage always arrived!

__________________________________

• Mearth: Gee, you know something? I hope when I grow up I’ll be just like Superman
• Mork: Oh, I thought you wanted to group to be just like me?
• Mearth: *looks at him* Why?
• Mindy: Oh Mearth!!
• Mork: *stricken, pulls imaginary dagger from his heart* Take it out slow, son, real slow….
• Mindy: *moving to Mork consolingly* Mearth your Dad’s wonderful! He’s kind and…
• Mork: That’s alright Mind, I’ll take it over!  Son I’ve lots of wonderful qualities. I’m prompt! I’m…….jump in any time Mind.

__________________________________

• Mindy: Mork will you forget the movie!? You have your son’s respect!
• Mork: No I don’t Mind, and why should I? I mean you bring home the bacon, all I do is collect the grease.

__________________________________

• Mork: I mean Mind, I want a job I can talk about. I mean come home and complain about the boss! Hang around the watercooler, chat with friends, flirt with my secretary, get drunk at the Christmas Party and make a fool out of myself. Something a son can really respect.

__________________________________

• Mindy: Everyone always told me I as a good skier, but Governor Lamb makes Jean Claude Killy look like a snow bunny.
• Mork; Oh sounds like you were skiing over your head.
• Mindy: I was skiing *on* my head. The governor suggested we start out on something called Tammy’s Run.  I figured how difficult could anything be named Tammy? That’s before I found out it was named after the late Tammy Erikson.  You ski right past her headstone.  You can’t miss it.  And I didn’t.

__________________________________

• Mork: Min while you were off gallivanting with the Governor. I felt about as useful as a lawnmower on Astro Turf. It was a very crisp, clear day that began very innocently with a breakfast of fresh fruit and hog jowls.
• Mindy: Mork, will you get to the point?
• Mork: Come on now Mind, I was just trying to set the mood. No wonder the novel is dead as an art form.

__________________________________

Image Gallery

Cast

• Robin Williams as Mork
• Pam Dawber as Mindy McConnell
• Conrad Janis as Fred McConnell
• Jonathan Winters as Mearth
• Ralph James as Voice of Orson

Guest starring

• Hugh Gillin as Dave
• Stanley Kamel as Charlie
• Lee Weaver as Gus

External links

• "My Dad Can't Beat Up Anybody" at TV.com