NARRATOR: Robin
Williams is known
for his fast-paced
knee-jerk comedy.
And those wild, unpredictable
performances actually
changed the way TV is made.
This is "Biography."
[music playing]
Robin Williams broke onto
the scene in a big way,
playing the zany alien Mork
from Planet Ork on the hit
TV series "Mork and Mindy."
And when Robin stepped
in front of the camera,
nobody had seen anything
like him before.
He would throw himself
around the stage,
grabbing props, speaking
in alien tongues,
and almost never
hitting his mark, a mark
being the spot an actor
is supposed to stand
to deliver their lines.
See, filming TV shows was
pretty much down to a science
by the late '70s.
The actors would
take the stage, and
three cameras placed
strategically around set
would film the action.
That's where the term
three-camera sitcom comes from.
And that style of filming meant
that actors had to be really
precise in hitting
their marks, standing
in the same exact
place take after take.
But Robin broke all the rules.
His frenetic movements
and constant improvising
meant that he was rarely
in the same spot twice.
So the show's director, Gary
Marshall, changed the game.
He added a fourth camera
to catch all of Robin's
wild antics, and it caught on.
From then on, four
cameras became
the sitcom standard,
from "Seinfeld"
to "The Big Bang Theory."
So remember, Robin Williams
might be known best
for his big-screen
roles, but at just 27,
he changed the small
screen forever.
