Holmes And Yoyo: Richard B. Shull And John Schuck - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

This short lived sitcom aired on ABC from September until December 1976.

This was billed as the revival of the classic two-man comedy team. Said producer Leonard Stern, "For over 30 years we had the marvolous antics of Laurel & Hardy, Hope & Crosby, Martin & Lewis, Gleason & Carney, and then suddenly came an unexplainable gap. But now hopefully, Schuck & Shull will fill the comedy void." Schuck & Shull did not become another Laurel & Hardy; their series Holmes And Yoyo lasted a brief 3 months. Holmes ( Richard B. Shull ), was an accident-prone cop who never got hurt himself, but kept sending partners to the hospital. So the department decided to try its latest development., a lifelike robot "computer-person" named Yoyo(John Schuck), who was named after its inventor Dr. Yoyonovich. Holmes was not supposed to know that his new partner was a robot. He did, secretly, but few others were aware of it, certainly not officer Maxine Moon ( Andrea Howard ), who kept making amorous advances to Yoyo. Yoyo did have strong points, including a photographic memory, an independent power source, a silent trash compressor which permited him to digest anything, and the ability to produce color prints. But there were drawbacks too. Nobody could lift him because he weighed 427 pounds. And although he was uninjurable, an assailant's bullet once shorted out his rhythm system, causing him to tap-dance out of control during a chase. LOL.

A 1976 Interview with John Schuck from the book TV Talk 2, by Peggy Herz.

John Schuck Plays a Robot Cop

"John Schuck plays a what?" I asked.
"A robot policeman, in Holmes and YOYO," answered an ABC publicist.
Well, I thought, I guess that's one way to outdo Kojak and Columbo. After all, they are mere human beings.
"Would you like to interview him?"
"A robot?" I asked hesitantly. "What's he like?"
"He's very nice."
How could I resist? I've interviewed Kojak and Columbo - why not a robot named YOYO?

John Schuck also happens to be Sgt. Charles Enright in NBC's McMillan & Wife - so I had no trouble recognizing him when he walked in for our interview. He wasn't even wired up to his computer, in fact!

YOYO, I learned, is a robot with an electronic, computerized system. It is a very advanced system, but sometimes things go wrong, causing all kinds of problems for YOYO and his partner, Holmes.

"YOYO behaves like a human being," John explained. "There's no attempt to act mechanical in behavior. He's been programmed to be good at what he does - and that's police detective work. He has no amazing physical attributes. He's not a man of tremendous strength. He's not superior in that way. He has a photographic memory, he speaks many languages, he can do imitations very well. He can be hurt as any machine can be hurt. He can be broken - like a TV set with a picture and no sound.

"In terms of literature and humor," John pointed out, "monsters are something we've always identified with. That's basically what YOYO is. We love machines. We love gadgets. We love dolls we cam take apart and put together again. We're fascinated with circuitry."

John loves playing roles in two different TV series, he said. He's a policeman in both - but there's quite a difference between the two!

John has been acting for some time. I was born in Boston, but I spent most of my young life in Buffalo, New York," he said. "My father was an English professor at Buffalo State. He taught the romantics - Byron, Keats, and so on. He was a wonderful teacher. But at one point we lived in New Jersey." John smiled.

"We had an album of Oklahoma. I used to sing along with it. I loved it. On my 5th birthday, my parents took me into NYC to see Oklahoma on the stage. We sat in the front row and I sang along there, too. It was wonderful. That experience stuck with me. A year later our class sang in assembly. We finished singing, the people clapped, and they had to pull me off the stage. I think I probably wanted to be an actor from then on. I really loved the theater. I was in many school plays."

He loved drama, but he wasn't the greatest student in the school. "In my teens I was really a bad student, in fact," he admitted. "I politicked my way through school. I ended up with a low B average. I was back in Buffalo recently," he added. "It was fascinating to see my junior high and high school. The schools have changed so much. Kids can arrange their own schedules now, and that's exciting to see.

"I went to Denison University in Granville, Ohio," John said, "where I graduated with majors in theater, philosophy, and English. At Denison we had our own summer theater. In 11 weeks, we did 10 plays. Oklahoma was the first musical I did in college," he laughed. He hadn't even forgotten the words, he discovered!

After graduation, he appeared at the Cleveland Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, Woodstock Playhouse in New York, and the Buffalo State Arena Theatre. "The whole regional movement was very popular at that time," John said. "It was great. Here I was 23 and 24 playing a wide variety of roles, gaining wonderful experience, and improving my craft."

He was appearing at a theater in San Francisco when movie producer Robert Altman came to a performance. "We took an instant dislike to each other," John recalled. "He thought my acting was arrogant - and it was. I thought he was weird. We talked some. Five weeks later he called and offered me the role of the dentist in the movie M*A*S*H. That film changed so many lives, including mine. Altman saw something in me that he thought would make the part work. The whole thing was absurd but we did make it work.

"I'm a great believer that things happen if you're open," John continued. "Everything that has happened to me has seemed natural. You just have to prepare yourself so you'll be ready when things do happen. I consider myself fortunate. There is so little employment for actors."

John has also rediscovered another love. "I always loved music and musicals," he said enthusiastically, "but I could never finish the songs. I didn't have the range. So I stopped singing. Then three years ago I met a voice teacher - and I discovered I have a monstrous operatic baritone!" He smiled happily. "A whole new aspect of life has opened for me," he said. "I'd love to do opera or give recitals. I did sing with an orchestra in Buffalo and 1,500 people came! A woman in Florida called and asked me to do Carmen. I don't know if I will but it would be very exciting!"

John's life is on an upswing now and I asked him if he had any advice for young people whose lives and careers weren't yet formed. "I think it would be to learn to say yes to yourself," he replied eagerly. "We all fail. We all hurt at times. There are two kinds of hurt - dirty hurt and clean hurt. Dirty hurt is when you've been injured by experience and you allow it to have an adverse effect on you. Clean hurt is feeling, 'Well, I've been through that, I'm ready to go on.' I think many people say no to themselves," he emphasized. "Doing that gradually kills your impulses to do things.

"I went through a difficult period when I was in junior and senior high school," he revealed. "My family was supportive, but I felt a communications gap. I was painfully shy so I was late coming to dating. I really didn't date until college. I was a good ballroom dancer. Then Chubby Checker came along and I didn't know how to do the twist! For a long time I think I used the theater to hide in."

John is often asked to talk to groups of young people. "In my talks I keep emphasizing that one of the most horrible things that can happen in Hollywood or in the legitimate theater is that people lose a sense of who they are. They begin to believe the flattery. I know many people now who have noo sense of who they are. I'm determined that that won't happen to me."

So far, it has not happened. John is very aware of who and what he is, as he quickly demonstrated.

"I love acting," he said. "It's important to me that during an interview I say things that I mean and feel. I try to make everything meaningful. I'm not good at promoting myself. I consider myself average. I have no extraordinary hobbies or gifts. I've been late growing up. I'd like to get married.* I'm patriotic, but not overly so. I'm a thinking and feeling person. I'm very suspicious of compliments. The whole material ethic is to be avoided." He stopped for breath and continued:

"Creativity is something that starts inside you. Whether you like to act or paint or whatever, you can do it as an avocation and get fulfillment from it."

One thing John isn't, and that's a robot! He bubbles over with enthusiasm and enjoyment, in fact!

"I bought a small house last year," he said. "It has a swimming pool and a deck area. The whole house leads to the outside. I like to keep it like an open house situation so my family and friends can come in. My door is always open. I like to cook, though I cook fairly simple things. I love all types of food. More and more of my friends are not in show business. I don't like many people in my business. I find them selfish. They work hard, but there is so much more to life than films and theater. Many of them lack a certain vitality.

"I find great joy in everything I do," John explained. "I love to laugh and I'm getting good at laughing at myself. I love sailing. I had a boat, but I sold it when I bought the house. I play a little tennis. I'm an avid reader. I read everything! And I love music, of course. I think the assault of hard rock is over. We're not as angry as we were 10 years ago. I think we're going to start laughing again and have more plays in which people like each other. I think that's going to be necessary for our survival."

In two series, John is doing his best to make people laugh and like each other. No robot could have been put together with a more finely tuned sense of himself or the world around him. There are some things computers just can't do!

*John did get married - his first marriage lasted from 1979-83 and ended in divorce. He has been wed to his second wife since 1990. He is still involved in musical theater - playing Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Benjamin Franklin in 1776, and Buffalo Bill Cody in Annie Get Your Gun.

Here is Richard B. Shull's Obituary from The New York Times

Richard B. Shull, 70, Stage and Screen Actor
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: October 15, 1999

Richard B. Shull, an actor whose Walter Matthau-like face was familiar from television and film and who was portraying D. W. DeWitt in the current Broadway production of ''Epic Proportions,'' died yesterday in Manhattan at the age of 70. His wife, Deborah Thomas Shull, said the cause was a heart attack.

Mr. Shull was perhaps best known for his television performances as Alex Holmes on ''Holmes and Yoyo,'' Lieutenant Gillis on ''Hart to Hart,'' Jack Towne on ''Lou Grant'' and Diana Rigg's co-star on her show ''Diana.''

''Epic Proportions,'' a comedy that opened Sept. 30 to mixed reviews, marked Mr. Shull's third play under the director Jerry Zaks. The others were ''The Marriage of Bette and Boo'' at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, for which he received an Obie Award in 1985, and ''The Front Page'' at Lincoln Center Theater in 1986. A spokesman for ''Epic Proportions,'' Bill Coyle, said Mr. Shull's role will be filled by his understudy, Larry Cahn, until further notice.

In his review of ''The Front Page'' in The New York Times, Frank Rich -- who once described Mr. Shull as ''that amusing character actor who looks like a bloated fish'' -- singled out the performer for praise. ''Richard B. Shull, forever wincing as if life were one long embarrassing encounter with a whoopee cushion, plays the incompetent sheriff 'Pinky' as the exact kind of backroom 'moron' that he's called -- moronic enough to permit a jailbreak but not so stupid that he neglects to hire his relatives at city expense for the search party,'' Mr. Rich wrote.

Last season, Mr. Shull portrayed Dr. Migraine in Bill Irwin's ''A Flea in Her Ear'' at the Roundabout Theater.

The actor also appeared in ''Minnie's Boys'' in 1970; ''Goodtime Charley,'' for which he received a Tony Award nomination in 1975; ''Oh, Brother!'' in 1981; ''Ain't Broadway Grand'' in 1993 and ''Victor/Victoria'' in the mid-1990's.

He has been described as the bright spot in films like ''Private Parts,'' ''Housesitter'' and ''Splash.'' He also appears in the upcoming independent feature ''Two Family House.''

In reviewing ''Unfaithfully Yours'' for The New York Times in 1984, Vincent Canby said Mr. Shull ''would be completely at home in an authentic Sturges comedy.''

Mr. Shull's marriages to Margaret Ann Haddy and Peggy J. Barringer ended in divorce. His third wife, Marilyn S. Swartz, died in 1997. Besides his wife, there are no survivors.

To read some articles about Holmes and Yoyo go to http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rnsqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qFkEAAAAIBAJ&dq=holmes%20and%20yoyo&pg=6619%2C3020701 and http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iGdYAAAAIBAJ&sjid=COgDAAAAIBAJ&dq=holmes%20and%20yoyo&pg=4896%2C6687487

To watch some clips from Holmes and Yoyo go to http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=holmes+and+yoyo

For an episode guide go to http://ctva.biz/US/Comedy/HolmesAndYoyo.htm

For the 10 Most Outlandish Television Concepts Ever go to
http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/10outlandish.php

For a Review of Holmes and Yoyo go to http://web.archive.org/web/20040523083752/http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/h/holmesandyoyo_7773405.shtml