Howard Storm, Who Directed 59 Episodes of ‘Mork & Mindy,’ Dies at 94

Howard Storm directed 59 episodes of Mork & Mindy. Fifty-nine. For context: the show ran 95 episodes total. That’s not a TV credit — that’s a legacy.

Storm died on Tuesday, May 26, of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills, his son Anthony Storm told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 94.

Born Howard Sobel on December 11, 1931, in New York City, Storm grew up the son of a vaudevillian — which tells you something about where he was always headed. He came up as a stand-up comedian first, performing in Las Vegas, opening for Andy Williams, and making appearances on The Merv Griffin Show. Deadline reported that he was a fixture in those rooms before pivoting to a second career that would end up defining him far more than any stage ever did.

From Woody Allen’s Set to Robin Williams’s Living Room

The transition from stand-up to director didn’t happen in a straight line. Storm first got his screen credit as an actor in 1959, picking up guest roles in shows like The Untouchables and Love, American Style. His connection to the industry deepened when he became a member of Lucille Ball’s Desilu Workshop in the late 1950s — a training ground that shaped more than a few careers.

What actually taught him to direct, though, was working alongside Woody Allen. Storm had roles in both Bananas (1971) and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (1972), and watching Allen work changed the way he thought about filmmaking. The Hollywood Reporter recalled a detail Storm used to tell: after shooting a scene with Allen, the cinematographer would say “Good for me, Woody” and the sound man would confirm the same — a casual, efficient creative shorthand that stuck with Storm as a model for how a set should run.

He made his directorial debut on Season 2 of Rhoda in 1975-76, the Mary Tyler Moore spinoff starring Valerie Harper. That led to Mork & Mindy, and with Robin Williams at the center of it, no two days on that set were the same.

59 Episodes

The number is remarkable. Storm directed more than half of the entire run of Mork & Mindy, which means he was in the room for more of Robin Williams’s unscripted brilliance than almost anyone else behind a camera. Sitcom directing at that level isn’t just craft — it’s relationship-building, trust, and the ability to stay out of the way at exactly the right moment.

After Mork & Mindy, the credits kept accumulating: Laverne & Shirley, Valerie, ALF, Full House, Head of the Class, Major Dad, Perfect Strangers, Kenan & Kel, Everybody Loves Raymond, Angie, Doc. That list reads like a survey course in American sitcom history from the late 1970s through the 2000s. He was present for almost all of it.

Howard Storm was 94. He went out at home, quietly, the same Beverly Hills he’d worked from for decades.

Fifty-nine episodes of Mork & Mindy. Some careers speak for themselves.