Mr. Bill - A little puppet man made from Play-Doh who appeared in 25 short films on NBC's SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE between 1975 and 1982. Mr. Bill was an innocent character who was the recipient of enormous physical punishment courtesy of Mr. Hand, (a hand appearing from off-camera) and a mean puppet named Sluggo (whose name reflected what he did to Mr. Bill).

Each short skit began with Mr. Hand (Vance De Generes/David Derickson) innocently saying "Hey, kids its time for the MR. BILL SHOW." Of course, by the end of the skit, poor Mr. Bill would have been tormented, squashed, mutilated, tossed into scalding water or run over by a car.

Mr. Bill's popular catchphrase cry of desperation was "Oh Noooooooo!" His dog's name was Spot. The Mr. Bill film shorts were created by Walter Williams, an amateur filmmaker who submitted his primitive Mr. Bill films to the program.

A spin-off 1986 cable special THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MR. BILL starred Peter Scolari as Mr. Bill. In the 1990s a Mr. Bill-like character called Mr. Pizza Head (a whining slice of pizza chased by Mr. Pizza Cutter) debuted in a series of Pizza Hut commercials. In 1995 a video anthology entitled Mr. Bill's 20th Anniversary included an amusing short "Mr. Bill Goes to Washington." Mr. Bill returned to the Fox Family Channel in the fall of 1998 as the host of OHH, NOOO!!! MR. BILL PRESENTS with British physical comedy acts like Mr. Bean.

TRIVIA NOTE: Before Mr. Bill, there was Howard (voice of Eddie Adams), a small car propelled around a street-like platform via a magnet who was treated to all sorts of terrible abuse on ERNIE KOVACS in 1951.

In 1998 the MTV cable channel carried on the mayhem visited upon Mr. Bill with its animated series CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH (first seen on Super Bowl Sunday) that featured Claymation figures of famous celebrities battling it out to the death in a sports arena (Hanson vs. The Spice Girls; gothic rocker Marilyn Manson vs. accused murderer Charles Manson; and BAYWATCH's Pamela Anderson vs. cross-dresser RuPaul). In a TV Guide interview (8/15/1998 p.3) Mr. Bill mentioned he would be willing to battle The Pillsbury Dough Boy if asked to fight in the Deathmatch.