I flat-out didn’t believe the news when I heard it, for the record.  The Internet has killed Robin Williams more times than I can count over the past few years, at least once by suicide; the idea that the story might be right seemed incomprehensible, and I found out fast enough that any available confirmations were coming from places that I wouldn’t take seriously on their best day.

I was born in 1976.  This means that Mork and Mindy was airing when I was practically larval; I don’t know if the show had any real life in syndication/reruns back then, but the episode I’m about to talk about came out when I was four.  These are thirty year old memories, here; it’s kind of ridiculous that this story has stuck with me for this long.

I liked the show.  Appealing to the sense of humor of a four-year-old isn’t terribly complicated, but Mork and Mindy managed it.  Until (and I’ve looked this detail up; my memories aren’t that specific) the first episodes– an hour long premiere and a “part two”– of the third season, where– and I may be the only human being alive who can write these words and mean them– Mork and Mindy scared the overloving shit out of me.  

You probably don’t remember– in those two episodes, the boss dudes on Ork decided that Mork was getting too human, and sent (amazingly, I remembered this title correctly) the Ancient Elder to Earth to straighten him out.

I don’t remember what they said about the Ancient Elder, other than he was, well… old.  I do remember that I was terrified at what he was going to look like.  I remember hiding my damn eyes when the egg floated into their apartment.  Since it was a two-parter, I’m gonna guess the actual reveal that the Ancient Elder was, like, ten appeared in the second episode, and I feel like part of the reason this is so burned into my head 34 years later is that I spent the entire week in between the two episodes intermittently freaking out about it.

And then he was ten, and not actually ancient, because that’s how Mork and Mindy rolled, you dumbass little kid, and I can still remember feeling stupid about that, too.

Most of the Robin Williams stories you’re going to read over the next couple of days are not going to involve pants-shitting terror, I think.  What can I say; I like to be different.

Oh.  And I’ll have every word this dude said memorized until I die, too: