ALL SCI-FI

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The science-fiction sitcom Holmes and Yoyo debuted on ABC in September 25, 1976 and ran for 13 episodes.

Premise: Detective Alexander Holmes (Richard B. Schull) is a down-on-his-luck cop who chronically injures his partners. The department gives him a new partner, Gregory "Yoyo" Yoyonovich (John Schuck), who is clumsy and naive, but good-natured and very strong.

During one of their first cases together, Yoyo is shot, and Holmes discovers that his new partner is an android, a sophisticated new crime-fighting machine designed by the police department as their secret weapon.

Over the course of the series, Holmes teaches Yoyo how to be more human, while trying to keep his quirky partner's true nature a secret, from both criminals as well as fellow cops.

Leonard Stern was the Executive Producer for the series. Stern previously served as EP for Get Smart, and a staff writer. Hymie the Robot (Dick Gautier) was a recurring character on Get Smart, and served as a prototype for Yoyo. Both robots would take everything literally which would cause problems.

Yoyo possesses super-strength, speed reading capability, and the ability to analyze crime scenes. Yoyo has a Polaroid camera located in his control panel chest. The chest opens by pulling downward on his tie; pressing his nose activates the camera. If Yoyo's batteries run too far down it'll erase his memory.

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A robot with jowls? I guess we had to expect something of the sort. With six-million dollar men and women chugging away profitably for ABC, someone someone at the network was sure to suggest a bionic dimwit.

Hence Holmes and Yoyo, a half-hour comedy that gives us a bumbling police detective and his mechanical partner --- a junkbox of sight gags and a laugh machine left over from My Mother, the car. Put them all together and they spell malfunction, but you can't blame John Schuck or Richard B. Schull. Schuck, a talented comic actor who looks like a slightly depraved baby, has been an asset to the McMillan show as that earnest innocent, Sergeant Enright. Physically he's an odd choice to play Yoyo, who is supposed to be 427 pounds of hardware in a wash-ans-wear suit. Schuck reminds me of Poppin' Fresh, that doughy little Pillsbury character: you feel you could poke him anywhere and never hit a bone, let alone a gearbox. Given any kind of chance, Schull can be quite funny.

So can Schull, with his hangdog countenance, flyaway eyebrows and general aspect of rubbery anxiety. The boys mesh well, and there is some affection flowing between their characters. But what have they got to be funny about?

Well, Holmes is the kind of dithery soul who feeds his tie into the typewriter and can't get it out. Yoyo, being a machine, has a problem about being too literal. "Whyntcha try a bit of my blue plate?" says Holmes in a diner --- So Yoyo takes a bite out of the plate. Garage-door openers make Yoyo flip over; magnets stick to him; and if he stands in the wrong spot, he picks up radio broadcasts in Swedish. He can eat anything through: he contains a trash compactor.

Strictly for kids? No, unfortunately. Children might like the lead character and some of the physical comedy, but even kids will tire quickly of running gags like Yoyo repeating "the bunco squad, the bunco squad, the bunco squad when his circuits are jammed. Also, somewhere in the unfathomable corporate processes that gave birth to this muddle, it was decided that the series should have real crime plots --- even realistic dead bodies. Get Smart worked --- for kids, anyway --- because it set up a loony little world of its own, with silly villains to match the heroes.

Holmes and Yoyo, largely shot in realistic locations, drops its pair of gentle dopes into everyday police-show environments, and the minor characters are no fun at all. What's most wrong, maybe, is the thing that sold the series in the first place: the gimmick. The writers are too busy inventing robot gags to create a funny story. You might laugh the first time Yoyo does a split when Holmes says, "Let's split." But that kind of thing gets a bit thin fast, and all the plodding around after standard burglars and counterfeiters doesn't produce enough hilarity to pay for Holmes shoe leather or charging Yoyo's batteries.

I suspect the show is programmed to self-destruct in thirteen weeks anyway. What's next, a bionic chimp?

Robert MacKenzie, TV Guide Review for November 29, 1976.

Sidebar: Well, Mr. MacKenzie called it. Holmes & Yoyo ran for 13 weeks and was placed into the cancellation graveyard. By the way, speaking of bionic chimps. The Bionic Woman did a two-part episode titled "The Bionic Dog." Max, the bionic dog, was introduced with the intention of spinning him off into his very own weekly series. However, the network passed on it.