Art director and 1967 Murray State University alumnus Jim Wilson is part of the team bringing Saturday Night Live's (SNL) “Mr. Bill” back to television. The clay animated figure who repeatedly suffered comedic abuse yelling “Oh Nooo!” is the latest star of the long running MasterCard “Priceless” campaign. In the MasterCard T.V. commercial Mr. Bill portrays a debit card holder who survives a very bad day. The Mr. Bill segments first aired on NBC’s SNL in 1976 when creator, Walter Williams, won the show’s home video contest using a reel of film that he shot in his living room with a budget of $10.

The MasterCard commercial featuring Mr. Bill was filmed entirely at various locations in New York . “It was almost the easiest production of my career,” said Wilson . He prepared the original story boards and designed and created special effects that allowed Mr. Bill to fly through the air for the MasterCard spot. Wilson is an expert model designer and creator. His personal favorite type of model making is miniature cars, planes and spacecraft.

Wilson and Williams have been working together since creating a Mr. Bill book in 1978. One of Wilson ’s former freelance art direction clients Running Press book publishers decided the popular Mr. Bill would make a great book character. In 1977 Wilson served as art director for the best selling Saturday Night Live book published by Avon Books. Running Press asked Wilson to use his contacts at SNL to make the Mr. Bill book a reality. The best selling Mr. Bill book was set as a family album with scenes from Mr. Bill’s childhood taking place within dollhouse-scale sets. When SNL began filming the Mr. Bill segments after the book was published, Wilson continued to work with Williams art directing on SNL.

Since his creation in the late 1970s, Mr. Bill has been featured in several advertising campaigns, including ads for Burger King, Lexus, Pringles and Ramada Inn.

“My major at MSU, studio arts, combined with my minor in industrial arts, has made me at least competent in almost any area of the logistics of film-making,” said Wilson . “My other minor, military science, polished my leadership skills for directing others in accomplishing goals.” His brother, Dave Wilson, a 1973 MSU industrial arts graduate, has worked with him on many Mr. Bill productions and projects over the years.

MasterCard hopes baby boomers will remember Mr. Bill from their college days and younger people seeing him for the first time will enjoy seeing the funny clay figure man. Executive vice president and chief creative officer Joyce King at McCann-Erickson, the ad firm who created the “Priceless” campaign for MasterCard, reported in The New York Times , “The spot is meant to tap into the current ‘unsureness about what’s going to happen next.”