Tuesday, July 21, 2009

ShortLived: Holmes and YoYo


I think if you remember this show you were likely a kid in the mid seventies as that had to be it's biggest audience. Premiering on my birthday (classy!) in 1976, the series followed the adventures of Alexander Holmes, a man luckless with partners until he's teamed up with YoYo (John Schuck), who just happens to be a robot.

The show had the same producers as "Get Smart", so it's essentially the "Hymie the Robot" show without the crisp writing. Many of the episodes as I recall had some laughs based on YoYo mechanics, one episode had him stuck in reverse during the climax. John Shuck actually left MacMillan and Wife for this and after it was yanked, he tried another fantasy sitcom with 1979's "Turnabout" more on that later...

The ending of the show is actually quite clever.




3 comments:

Jon K said...

Didn't this come out pretty close to the same time as Future Cop, which was a similar premise (robot cop), but played straight?

I can never recall which of those shows was the one Harlan Ellison sued out of existence due to copyright infringement and which one just failed on its own...

wee67 said...

I can't imagine finding a more unlikely pair of leads. But being a kid of the mid-70's, I absolutely remember this show.

BTW, The tele-movie Future Cop was 1976, but the series hit the following year and lasted 5 episodes (according to IMDB).

Neal P said...

The local ABC affiliate in Baltimore thought so little of this show that, instead of showing it in the normal prime time slot, they buried it on Sunday afternoon. I tried to hang in there with the show, but it was just too lame.