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40 years of Sesame Street: Death of Mr. Hooper

http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/entertainment/tv/2009/11/40-years-of-sesame-street/

40 years of Sesame Street
By John M. Guilfoil

It's been 40 years since Sesame Street first started educating and
entertaining children across the country.

I can think of a few things off the top of my head that I learned about
with my eyes glued to the television and my hand in a box of Cheerios as
a child: Counting, counting in Spanish, bottle caps, and a mastery of
the ABC's are a few examples.

But here's one thing I learned about on Sesame Street that you might not
think of right away: death.

When Will Lee, the actor who played Mr. Hooper, died of a heart attack
in 1982, instead of covering it up on the show or saying Mr. Hooper
moved away or went on vacation, the show decided to tell children the
truth: "Mr. Hooper died." They told Big Bird this in the episode
"Farewell, Mr. Hooper," broadcast on Thanksgiving 1983. Later in the
episode, Big Bird wants to give all the cast members drawings that he
made of each of them. When Big Bird asks where Mr. Hooper is, they
remind him that Mr. Hooper is dead, to which Big Bird replies that he'll
just wait for him to come back, so he can give him the drawing. The
adults pause and tell Big Bird that when someone dies, they never come
back.

It was real. It was powerful in a way that insulating modern television
may never be again. It was one of TV's most important moments, and it
would affect me just as much when I saw it for the first time in the
late 80s. (I wasn't born when it originally aired)
...

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