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Ed Scharlach was born on 12 March 1943 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Mork & Mindy (1978), Quantum Leap (1989) and The New Mike Hammer (1984). He has been married to Maribeth since 1 August 1996. They have one child. He was previously married to Sheryl Ullman.
- Writer, Producer, Additional Crew
- March 12, 1943
- Ed Scharlach
Ed Scharlach was born on March 12, 1943 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Mork & Mindy (1978), Quantum Leap (1989) and The New Mike Hammer (1984). He has been married to Maribeth since August 1, 1996. They have one child. He was previously married to Sheryl Ullman.
- March 12, 1943
Ed Scharlach – Instructor | UCLA Extension. Instructor Biography: Writer-producer; WGA and PGA member who has had over 300 prime-time television episodes produced, ranging from Happy Days and Mork and Mindy to Quantum Leap and current series for Warner Bros. and Disney, including What’s New Scooby-Doo? Mr.
- Season Two
- Season Three
- Season Four
“I was told this was what we had”
In season two, Mindy’s father Fred and maternal grandmother Cora were gone, along with Fred’s music store—they were replaced by the siblings Jeannie and Remo, who were trying to open a deli. Howard Storm: ABC decided they didn’t like the idea of the music store, and brought in a little coffee shop. And they brought in Jay Thomas (Remo) and Gina Hecht (Jeannie), who were wonderful. But, I thought the music store was so interesting, because it was unlike any other sitcom. Almost every sitcom ha...
“Morko the Pin-Headed Boy”
Howard Storm: Robin did not want to play that character any more. He said to me that he felt the character should grow. And I said, “Robin, if Archie Bunker grows, then there’s no show.” It’s that simple. And Robin was tired of saying “nanu nanu” and “shazbot.” He started to refuse to do that. I kept trying to talk to him about why it was neccessary, and the conversation I had with him was, “Look, in reality, if you came from Italy, and Italian was your first language, you would use it when y...
The hour-long season two opener
David Misch: [Dale McRaven’s ambitions to make the show more science-fictional] came out fully in the opening episodes of season two. Which was an hour-long science fiction episode. Mork is somehow on a planet where laughing is forbidden, or something like that. And it was very scifi. It was shot scifi, and the whole plot was scifi, and it wasn’t the kind of standard sitcom thing. This episode, in my memory, was a disaster. It ended up, I think, not being fish or fowl. It wasn’t scifi in a wa...
“Putting the Ork Back in Mork”
Howard Storm: The show’s writers were trying to get it back on track. But unless Robin was willing to do that, they were hopeless. Jeff Reno: The producers and the people who created the show had decided they sort of needed a rebirth. And they sort of were trying to go back to more of the innocence they had in the first season. There were a lot of things about the season that were “back to basics”, and [trying to go] back to the first season. I think the first episode of the season, [”Putting...
“I know you’re two people, and I don’t like the other guy.”
Jeff Reno: [Robin Williams] was shooting Popeyejust before the third season [from January to May 1980]. And that was really the first thing he did, outside of the show—obviously, besides stand-up, and all his improv work. He’d become a really big star. Howard Storm: Pam Dawber had said to me [that] whenever I had to leave for a week or two and another director came in, there were problems. And she said the reason was that I was the only director who wasn’t intimidated by [Robin]. He respected...
Mindy’s Career
Wendy Kout My first episode that I [wrote] was about [Mindy] trying to move forward in a career. So we started that third season with [Mindy’s career] being the storyline. So it was prominent: “Oh, so we’re paying attention to Mindy now.” That was good for the character, and I think it was also good for Pam, to have a little bit more to do [and] more direction of where her character could go. Brian Levant: Mork is worried she’ll become this big career girl and going to lose him. You know? Whe...
Mork Has A Baby
Brian Levant: The whole thing of getting a fourth season was built on them getting married, having a baby [played by] Jonathan Winters, and reinvigorating the show—which it did, for a short time. And I thought that the stuff between Robin and Pam leading up to the wedding was just wonderful. Honeymooning on Ork, you know? It didn’t ever come out exactly the way we wanted it to, but it was fun. It was different. One of the beauties of the show was that it was very chaste, you know? And their r...
A New Executive Producer
Jeff Reno: Another guy came in to run it, a guy named Brian Levant. And the sensibilities just didn’t match [with the existing writing staff]. And so, [Ron Osborn and I] took off. We went off to do another show. [Levant] was coming from the Laverne and Happy Days camp, and I think his sensibilities were probably a little broader, and a little more zany. A little more “sitcom.” We were going for a certain kind of sensibility. Absolutely, humor was first—but we wanted a real warmth to the show,...
Pee Wee Herman and William Shatner guest starred
Brian Levant: My favorite thing to do was to go to the Roxy on Monday nights, and watch the original Pee-Wee Herman Show on stage—the one he actually pretty much revived just a few years ago. I loved him, and I brought him in [to Mork and Mindy]. And [as for] William Shatner, we had to beam the kids to school—so you know there was some trouble with the beam, and we beamed in Shatner. Shatner did it for a $2500 suit. That’s what we paid him. We couldn’t put him in an Enterprise uniform, so we...
May 26, 2021 · What an adventure Ed Scharlach's life and career have been! "Starring!" is a treasure chest of Ed's personal and working relationships with America's favorite entertainers and producers. As a successful TV comedy writer, Ed met many on the set when his scripts were being shot.
- Paperback
- Ed Scharlach
Ed Scharlach is known as an Writer and Producer. Some of his work includes Quantum Leap, What's New, Scooby-Doo?, Scooby-Doo! and the Loch Ness Monster, Scooby-Doo! in Where's My Mummy?, The Wild Thornberrys, Mork & Mindy, The Emperor's New School, and Duckman.
