Pam Dawber Once Shared What It Was Like Reuniting With Robin Williams in ‘The Crazy Ones’
Robin Williams and Pam Dawber both got to know each other pretty well working on the hit television show Mork & Mindy. After the series ended, their careers would go down different paths. But after three decades, the pair found those paths converging in the series The Crazy Ones.
How Pam Dawber ended up on the Robin Williams sitcom ‘The Crazy Ones’
Dawber continued to be a presence on television for a while after her Mork & Mindy days. She headlined another sitcom in the 1980s, My Sister Sam, where she played the titular character. She offered her talents to a few other shows, like The Twilight Zone before taking a sabbatical from the film industry. Her break from acting allowed Dawber to devote more time to being a mom.
The short-lived comedy series The Crazy Ones brought Dawber back to television after a long hiatus. The series starred her old sitcom partner Robin Williams as the brilliant head of an advertising agency. It would feature guest appearances from several actors, with Dawber being one of them. Dawber was told that people behind the scenes were excited by the idea of reuniting Mork and Mindy. But Dawber admitted she was skeptical about appearing on the show.
“Also, Bill D’Elia, who’s one of the producers, has been a very close friend of ours for 20 years or so. But I hadn’t seen Robin in 20 years, and… I don’t do episodic,” she once told AV Club. “I mean, I’ve obviously done it, but that was something I was never really interested in. But just to see Robin and work with him, Bill was directing it, so all these pieces were good. And I liked what they wrote for me. I said, “As long as I’m not just setting up Robin like I did for four years on Mork & Mindy!”
In the end, the producers behind the show were able to accommodate Dawber’s requests. And there was even the small possibility that the show hadn’t seen the last of her character.
“I said, ‘As long as there’s actually something to do, I’m in!’ And I think they also left the door open for me to be able to return, so we’ll see what happens with that,” she said.
Robin Williams didn’t know Pam Dawber would be on ‘The Crazy Ones’
It was noted that Williams was kept in the dark about Dawber’s involvement in The Crazy Ones. The idea was to wait until Dawber officially agreed to do the project before telling him the good news. Dawber was told that Williams held back tears upon hearing about their brief reunion, which she found flattering. She went on to reveal what it was like working with Williams again after so many years. Although their time together was very familiar, Dawber couldn’t get over how old they’d gotten.
“I hadn’t done anything like that in so many years—I hadn’t performed, really—and I was so surprised, actually, that it was like going home,” she said. “And Robin’s a different guy, you know? We’ve grown up. We’re older than Jonathan Winters was when he came on to Mork & Mindy… and to me he was an old guy! So it’s a little shocking to realize that we’re even older than that!”
But throughout their performance, Dawber recognized that Williams was still the same selfless act she’d always known.
“Robin is truly one of the kindest, most caring people I’ve ever met. He cares about all the younger cast members, and I’m so happy they’ve surrounded him with such talented kids. Robin was never one of those comedians that was competitive and had to have all the funny lines. It was always playtime for him. He’s just very generous. He’s not going to try to grab somebody else’s line if he likes it better. He’s never been that kind of guy. But it’s different. We’re different, and it’s a different show, and… he’s a grown-up,” she said.
The Crazy Ones ran for one season between 2013 and 2014. Williams died on Aug. 11, 2014, making the sitcom his final TV appearence.
