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 in scalding water, pressed
by a a hot iron 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 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 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 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.
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