The BJ and Dirty Dragon Show

Did You Know?

• Jackson appeared for a presentation for the Museum of Broadcast Communications, 'Saturday Morning with B.J.
• Jackson received two Iris Awards for the best locally produced children's show in the United States.
• Jackson said the December 2009 performance would be his last time appearing as a performer.

WFLD and WGN-TV

Bill Jackson's earlier show, Clown Alley on WBBM-TV, earned critical praise but suffered in the ratings because it aired early in the morning. Despite that, executives at WFLD, an independent station at the time, were impressed and gave Jackson a time slot that went head-to-head with WGN's well-liked Garfield Goose and Friends. On his new program, initially called Cartoon Town with Bill Jackson and later renamed The BJ & Dirty Dragon Show, Jackson dropped his fictional clown persona and appeared as himself. He brought along several puppets from his previous show, most notably Dirty Dragon, a rough, smoke-snorting character inspired by a former coworker in Indianapolis. The show's concept placed Jackson as the mayor of a make-believe Cartoon Town, with the puppets as its citizens. Dirty Dragon acted as the postmaster, though he typically devoured most of the mail. Another puppet, the Blob, was a large clay lump serving as the town monument; it spoke in a strange, distorted voice that only Jackson could understand, and he would mold it as the Blob requested each day. This program is recognized for boosting the demand for UHF-compatible television sets in the Chicago area. Facing stiff competition from WGN-Channel 9, Jackson changed the show's format in the fall of 1971. He moved it to a noon time slot, directly opposite WGN-TV's Bozo's Circus, retitled it The BJ & Dirty Dragon Show, and introduced a live studio audience with the puppet characters now played by actors in full-size costumes. This version mirrored Jackson's successful live stage shows, but it did not work as well on television, and the show soon reverted to its original format, though it kept the new title. Jackson and his producer each won local Emmys for the season that featured the live actors. The BJ & Dirty Dragon Show ended its run on WFLD on July 27, 1973, after 1,311 episodes. The next month, it moved to WGN-TV Channel 9 for a year, concluding in August 1974. During that period, Jackson split his time between Chicago and New York City, also hosting a version called BJ's Bunch for WNBC. Later, he used the show's characters in a single holiday special, A Gift For Granny, which aired on Chicago's NBC affiliate, WMAQ-Channel 5, in December 1974.

Gigglesnort Hotel-WLS-TV

In January 1975, Chicago's ABC station, WLS-TV Channel 7, began airing the show on Sunday mornings as "Gigglesnort Hotel." Creator Jackson reworked the format to meet educational requirements from the FCC, playing the hotel's desk clerk while his puppet characters, including B.J., acted as staff or guests. The hotel was run by a new figure, Captain Gigglesnort. This version produced 78 half-hour episodes over three years and was sold to stations nationwide. In the 1980s, Karl-Lorimar Home Video released seven VHS volumes of the show. During the 1978-79 season, Jackson created a local segment for ABC's "Kids Are People Too" called "The Too Late Show starring Dirty Dragon," a parody of Johnny Carson's late-night program. His last Chicago series for WLS was "Firehouse Follies," which followed a similar structure and ran for 13 episodes in 1980. Each episode aired twice before the station returned to reruns of "Gigglesnort Hotel," which continued on weekend mornings until 1985. In 1995, Jackson gave the show's puppets to the Museum of Broadcast Communications.