Gigglesnort Hotel

I remember watching "Gigglesnort Hotel" when I was a kid. My dad used to tape the episodes for me when they aired on HBO in the early 80s. I just loved all the zany characters, my favorite of which was "Blob"! When Jackson would start molding the mumbling "Blob" into different shapes you'd just want to jump up and go grab your Play Dough.

The puppets were amazing looking and so funny. This was truly an entertaining kid's show, but not only was "Gigglesnort Hotel "so fun to watch it also had a lesson to be learned which so many of today's children shows lack. I say they should bring back "Gigglesnort Hotel"!

As for Alan Hines (I don't know who this guy is or what his problem is) saying that "Gigglesnort Hotel" is an utterly satanic show. He needs to stop attending so many back-water church tent-revivals! And if he really wants to do something to help kids he needs to volunteer for "Big Brothers of America" or something, but shut up about the Gigglesnort Hotel there is nothing evil about it! I mean, my gosh people said the same thing about the "Smurfs" and are today saying it about "Harry Potter". Come on yaw get real!!

Bring Back Gigglesnort Hotel!

I loved tuning in to this show as a child, but it was always a little creepy. This show was set in a hotel lobby. There was but one (non puppet)human character in the series and I believe he was the series creator. The puppets were so grotesque, to put it lightly. They for-shadowed those sick looking puppets from Britain's "Spitting Image" series. There was also a sense of palpable tension in the air in the hotel. It's like the puppets were on the very edge of becoming human. There was a depressed clay "mound" named Blob. He was hilarious and in definite need of Prozak. There were apes that fell in love, space aliens, an old couple, and a chain-smoking dragon. It was like an even lower production Sid and Marty Kroft type of a show. And to top it off there was a bell hop named "Weird". This show was a big influence on me and my artwork and still manages to disturb the hell out of me.

Trenton Doyle Hancock

I read this review of Gigglesnort Hotel, and wanted to share it with everyone, for I feel the same way about the show. I sued to watch this as a kid, and even though I thought it was funny, there was always something very disturbing about it. SO read this, by a gut named Alan Hines.

Gigglesnort Hotel was utterly Satanic. There was nothing cute or funny about it - it was horrifying and wrong. Eg: The Blob of Clay didn't "talk" - it continually whimpered in agony and terror as the other characters molded, manipulated and taunted it... All except for the lone human, who would sculpt, re-face and attempt commiseration with his fellow prisoner in Gigglesnort Hell. Then along would come the Dragon, who would eat some coal, let fly a litany of insults, and then spew huge amounts of smoke from his nostrils. I used to hide in the corner when it was on TV. It's one of those things that the media establishment has tried to wipe from the collective memory, kind of like Rankin & Bass's "The Year Without A Santa Claus" (also fairly Satanic) - but it was real.

• Alan Hines

I loved seeing it on Sunday mornings when I was a tyke, after having seen the "B. J. And Dirty Dragon Show" in previous years. That was a variety show; this was a puppet show with a theme of a hotel owned by a crazy old man, Gigglesnort, who thought the hotel was a ship he was piloting, with Bill Jackson the one human character as the manager, Dirty Dragon as the furnace custodian, Blob as a big lump of clay to be formed into whatever character was needed for the episode, and Weird, Wally, Fenster, Mother Plum Tree, and other puppets as various staff or residents, with occasionally other puppets as Footsie as Weird's literal leg as a friend, gorillas in suits, the Lemon Joke Kid as a villain, or a group of space aliens, both friendly and villainous. In the middle of the series, Dirty Dragon would get his own dragon girlfriend.

It was arguably as crazy as other entertainment of that era, but still fun for the kiddiewinks. You might see various crazy situations such as aliens arriving and causing trouble, or Dirty Dragon playing pranks, or Wally turning into a werewolf. But people doing bad things get their comeuppance, or bad situations get resolved, with even Gigglesnort showing an example of sensible bravery (as opposed to blind bravery, lose-your-head bravery, etc.) Something to enjoy years ago if you found "Sesame Street" too flashy or Mister Rogers's voice too discomfiting. (I knew several people who disliked "Mister Rogers's Neighborhood" even as children because they disliked the way he talked.)

As for the show supposedly being "Satanic", if you want a truly Satanic show, try "Caillou", which is about a spoiled, badly behaving brat whose parents never discipline him. God knows how that got onto PBS Kids.

"Gigglesnort Hotel" was one of three shows Bill Jackson did for the Chicago children's TV market. "Gigglesnort" aired Sunday mornings on the ABC affiliate, WLS/Channel 7. The show would be his last effort (of which I'm aware). Prior to that, he starred in "The B.J. And Dirty Dragon Hour" on WFLD/Channel 32 (now a Fox station). His very first effort (if memory serves me) was "B.J. and Dirty Dragon", also on WFLD. "The B.J. and Dirty Dragon Hour" differed from its predecessor mainly in that it had a live studio audience, much like the Chicago behemoth of the time, WGN-TV's "Bozo's Circus".

All three shows featured the same crew of puppets - Dirty Dragon, the somewhat belligerent, smoke-snorting dragon; Mother Plum Tree, a dowdy gray-haired woman; The Old Professor, a white-haired eccentric; W.C., a corncob-smoking do-nothing who sounded like W.C. Fields; Wally and Weird, a couple of weirdos akin to Ernie and Bert (one silly one, one not so silly); and The Lemon Joke Kid (the character Weird in an all-yellow zoot-suit tossing lemons inscribed with really bad jokes).

In addition to bantering with the characters, Jackson was an accomplished cartoonist and at least once per show gave a delightful exhibition of his skills.

The Bill Jackson era was a time when children's shows really were for children, were quite entertaining, and were hugely free from the marketing and commercialism now present in children's TV.