Robin Williams owes his big break to George Lucas and Dick Van Dyke.
That’s because Garry Marshall’s kid was a huge fan of Star Wars when it took over the galaxy in 1977. The son begged his father, who just happened to be the producer of the hit sitcom Happy Days, to create comedy about a visitor from outer space.
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Marshall, who stuck his finger in the wind and recognized a good idea, turned to Happy Days director, Jerry Paris. How about an alien who visits the Cunninghams in Milwaukee? It turns out that Paris had been cooking up a similar idea, all based on another sitcom episode he directed for The Dick Van Dyke Show.
“It May Look Like A Walnut” is probably the weirdest episode in the history of The Dick Van Dyke Show. It was also the first show Paris ever directed. Paris, who played the role of next-door neighbor Jerry Helper, got a shot in the director’s chair after Carl Reiner liked his ideas around the production table. Still, “the night before I directed for the first time, I threw up,” he says in The Dick Van Dyke Show: Anatomy of a Classic.
“Walnut” would have been a challenge for any director, a weirdo script by Reiner featuring thumbless aliens from the planet Twylo. Paris came up with the episode’s signature visual. “I invented the idea of the 1,100 pounds of walnuts in the closet,” he says.
While the cast thought the sci-fi flavored script was funny, producer Sheldon Leonard wasn’t down with the gimmick. According to Rose Marie, Leonard threw the script down and pronounced, “I don’t think it’s funny. Good luck.”
“He’d never done that before,” remembered Rose Marie. “We all looked at each other and somebody said, ‘It’s still a good idea, why don’t we try it?’”
The result was one of the show’s all-time classics, even though Van Dyke says, “We ate so many walnuts, the entire cast and crew got constipated!”
First-time director Paris hit it out of the park. After watching the episode, Leonard offered a mea culpa, telling the actors and crew members, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very funny show. I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
“It May Look Like a Walnut” launched Paris into a successful sitcom directing career and remained a personal favorite long after it aired. More than a decade later, when Marshall asked Paris about doing an alien-themed Happy Days episode, he knew just where to look for inspiration.
Paris and Marshall tried out several actors for the role of Mork, landing on Robin Williams after he came into the room and sat on his head with his ass in the air. Marshall later says Williams got the part in Mork & Mindy because he was the only actual alien who auditioned.
Content shared from www.cracked.com.