Later Career
Jackson and his puppets next appeared in the educationally-themed program Gigglesnort Hotel in 1975, which brought most of the old Cartoon Town characters back, plus a few new creations. Produced and broadcast by WLS-TV, Chicago's ABC affiliate, the show was very popular with the critics, though less so with the public, and ran for three seasons. Jackson said his influence for the show was Faulty Towers. He made a final program called Firehouse Follies using the characters in 1979-1980, then left television to teach at California Institute of the Arts for the School of Film/Video for 12 years, retiring in 1990. In a 2001 interview, Jackson expressed some frustration at seemingly not being able to fit into the criteria established for children's programming on network television. He said, "I am not "teachy" enough for PBS and am not considered worthy enough for Nickelodeon." By the end of its run, Gigglesnort Hotel was syndicated nationally, and reruns continued to air on WLS in Chicago through 1985. Several episodes were released by Karl-Lorimar Home Video in the 1980s in a series of six volumes, one of which actually consisted of two holiday specials Jackson produced in California after he left Chicago: Billy Joe's Thanksgiving --aka Salute To The Turkey-- and a later remake of A Gift For Granny, which featured a green incarnation of Dirty Dragon and a female voice artist as Mother Plumtree.
In recent years, Jackson has started a website to sell DVDs of his old programs online. He lives quietly in California with his wife, Jo. While his shows were on the air, Jackson received two Iris Awards for the best locally-produced children's show in the United States, as well as local Emmys for the shows and his role in them. In 2005, he became a member of the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle. Ten years earlier, he donated all his original puppets to Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications. In 2008 he published a memoir called The Only Kid on the Carnival. In 2009, he produced a documentary, Remembering Cartoon Town and B.J. & Dirty Dragon. Jackson said in an interview when the DVD was released, that many of the Cartoon Town episodes were not preserved. Jackson also appeared for a presentation for the Museum of Broadcast Communications, "Saturday Morning with B.J. and Dirty Dragon: Bill Jackson, Live in Person—One Last Time", in December of 2009. He indicated this would be his last time appearing as a performer.
Bill Jackson was recently interviewed by Rich Koz on WCIU-TV's Stooge-A-Palooza.
Read more about this topic: Bill Jackson (television Personality)
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