Cartoonist Bill Jackson came to Chicago to do two little-remembered kids
shows for CBS' WBBM, but he flowered at then-UHF independent WFLD in 1968
with "Cartoon Town," which immediately attracted the attention of kids with
its colorful group of puppet characters, Mr. Jackson's cartooning talents
and his penchant for putting in as much production as possible regarding
the low budget he had to work with, writing, voicing and designing the
shows--which often included a running serial--with the assistance of only
two assistant puppeteers. Its hipness for the time immediately made
inroads with kids over the calcified lineup of WGN ("Bozo's Circus,"
"Garfield Goose") and probably sold more UHF TV sets than WFLD's expensive
package of White Sox games. Mr. Jackson moved the show (by then called
"The BJ and Dirty Dragon Show," giving billing to the smoke-billowing,
crabby, egomanical postmaster) to WGN in 1972, but only lasted one year.
He then moved to ABC's WLS in 1975 with the weekly "Gigglesnort Hotel,"
putting his characters in a more educational format (not that he had
already been slipping little bits of learning into his shows over the
years), which went into national syndication and ran there much longer than
the three years of production. To Chicago kids of a certain age, his
talents will be long remembered:
https://www.robertfeder.com/2022/01/19/bill-bj-jackson-1935-2022/
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