Shields and Yarnell – Nostalgia Central

1 9 7 7 – 1 9 7 8 (USA)
14 x 30 minute episodes

This half-hour variety series from CBS was cohosted by Robert Shields and Lorene Yarnell, a husband-and-wife mime team who had previously worked as street performers in San Francisco. Their best-known sketch was “The Clinkers,” an inept robot couple.

Other regulars included Ted Zeigler and Joanna Cassidy in 1977, and Gailard Sartain and John Bloom in 1978.

The show was introduced as a summer replacement but proved to be an unexpected hit.

Unfortunately, when it returned in spring 1978, CBS scheduled it against Laverne and Shirley (the #1 show in the US at the time) and Robert and Lorene were cancelled two months later.

Shields and Yarnell divorced in 1986, and Lorene Yarnell remarried and moved to Norway. The pair remained on friendly terms and reunited periodically to tour with their act.

Lorene Yarnell Jansson died of a ruptured intracranial aneurysm on 29 July 2010, aged 66.

Robert Shields
Lorene Yarnell
Ted Zeigler
Joanna Cassidy
Gailard Sartain
John Bloom