Where were you when Mr. Hooper died?

[bandit957]

What were you doing when you watched the episode of 'Sesame Street' where Mr. Hooper died?

I was 10 when they first aired this episode, so I was otherwise too old for 'Sesame Street'. It aired on Thanksgiving Day 1983.

We had to watch it on the small TV set in the den, because my mom didn't want us Sessifying the living room. Like I said, I was too old for it, and my mom just thought it was beneath my maturity level if I used the bigger TV to watch it. I was standing by the doorway of the den when this scene came on, and I remember Big Bird talking about how he was going to give to Mr. Hooper a drawing he made when he came back from being dead. It was Thanksgiving, so I think I was getting ready to go to my grandparents' house. Strangely enough, I don't remember the kids at school ever talking about this episode.

Mr. Looper, you are a hero to us all.

[Max Rockatansky]

I was at home and remember my sister was watching it.  Freaked her out from what I remember.  If only we knew then what horrors Elmo would wrought in the next quarter century we would have stopped him then.

[Otto Yamamoto]

I was somewhere in the West Pacific or Indian Ocean on a large grey boat.

XT1254

[hbelkins]

Who?

I have no clue who Mr. Hooper is (was) or that he was dead.

[bandit957]

Who?

I have no clue who Mr. Hooper is (was) or that he was dead.

He was the old man who ran the store on 'Sesame Street'. They killed off his character when the actor Will Lee died.

[roadman]

Who?

I have no clue who Mr. Hooper is (was) or that he was dead.

He was the old man who ran the store on 'Sesame Street'. They killed off his character when the actor Will Lee died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Hooper

[GCrites]

Nope. But I remember when Hangin' With Mr. Cooper got cancelled though. I was more of a Pinwheel guy.

[1995hoo]

I was too old for the show by then and did not see it until many years later.

I heard his voice this past weekend, though. Back in the mid-1970s one of my grandmothers gave us a Sesame Street Christmas LP. I still have it and usually play it at some point during December for nostalgia and entertainment value (I know the lyrics to their "Twelve Days of Christmas" better than the real ones....."Four wooly bears/Three footballs/Two baby frogs/and One delicious cookie"). Mr. Hooper narrates a send-up of the old "Gift of the Magi" story.

[jp the roadgeek]

I was 8 and had recently graduated from Sesame Street to cartoons.  Remember hearing about it in the news.  Brought back memories of watching and the vinyls I used to listen to of Sesame Street

[formulanone]

I hadn't watched Sesame Street for a few years by 1982-83, and I didn't know about his death for a few years after that. The things you overhear in middle school, you know.

That still would have made him probably the first entertainer I'd known (from their performances) to pass away.

[triplemultiplex]

Doing baby stuff, probably, as I was an infant a the time.

[cjk374]

I was 9 then. I believe I heard it on the news 1st. Then a couple of months later I caught that episode as a rerun.

[Rothman]

I was 7 or 8. 

The bigger deal for me was when Mr. Snuffleupagus was finally revealed to be real, despite my being-too-old for Sesame Street by then.  When I heard about that, that was life-changing.

[BamaZeus]

They finally revealed Snuffeupagus because they feared that parents would not believe their children if they were reporting abuse. Big Bird represents a child's POV, so the Sesame Street adults didn't believe him when he talked about his invisible friend. 

[Rothman]

They finally revealed Snuffeupagus because they feared that parents would not believe their children if they were reporting abuse. Big Bird represents a child's POV, so the Sesame Street adults didn't believe him when he talked about his invisible friend.

Even though Mental Floss repeated this story, I still wonder if it is true.  Still sounds like a stretch to me.

[1995hoo]

They finally revealed Snuffeupagus because they feared that parents would not believe their children if they were reporting abuse. Big Bird represents a child's POV, so the Sesame Street adults didn't believe him when he talked about his invisible friend.

The explanation I heard is that they feared children would think their parents wouldn't believe them.

[empirestate]

Who?

I have no clue who Mr. Hooper is (was) or that he was dead.

This, as much as any political statement I've ever heard, illustrates the experiential divide that is so apparent between segments of our population, but yet we so often forget exists. I bet H.B. would be no less surprised to hear that I'm at an equally complete loss regarding any references from "Hee Haw". :-)

[GCrites]

Remember, much of Appalachia didn't have all the channels that other areas did. My grandma in Eastern Ohio only got CBS and and NBC station that would go ABC if it had an important sporting event -- both of which were Wheeling stations. My '80s G.I. Joe and Transformers jokes fell flat on my classmates at Marshall. That's where and when I learned not to use pop culture references as a crutch in making conversation. It has served me well since I spend less and less time around people around my age each day.

[bandit957]

Remember, much of Appalachia didn't have all the channels that other areas did. My grandma in Eastern Ohio only got CBS and and NBC station that would go ABC if it had an important sporting event -- both of which were Wheeling stations. My '80s G.I. Joe and Transformers jokes fell flat on my classmates at Marshall. That's where and when I learned not to use pop culture references as a crutch in making conversation. It has served me well since I spend less and less time around people around my age each day.

I guess in northern Kentucky we could reliably pick up 5 over-the-air stations in the mid-'70s, and 7 stations in the early '80s. We never got cable until 1983. I think one of the big cultural divisions here had to do with the fact that Cincinnati's leading pop radio station in the '80s had a very short playlist and refused to regularly play a lot of songs that I heard on 'American Top 40', MTV, or a small station. So if I mentioned some song that was a big national hit in the '80s, a lot of people around here who are my age won't remember it. (The big station around here refused to play a lot of David Bowie and Duran Duran songs that were big hits.)

[Pete from Boston]

Reporting on the truth about the cover-up.  Live with your eyes closed if you want.

[SP Cook]

Wheeling has had a PBS, actually 2, one wasting Ohio taxpayers money and the other wasting West Virginia taxpayers money for many decades.  WV's worst governor's wife was, and still is, a bigwig with PBS and in many places in WV the only station you can get OTA is a repeater of WV PBS.  Poor roads, poor schools, poor policing, poor everything, but unlimited $$ to pour down the PBS rathole. 

If I have HB's biography right, he would have had access to Kentucky's version of PBS.  He, like myself, is just too old to have cared about the show referenced. 

I remember when TV equaled three channels for me (Fox was not yet launched, we did not get CBS).  We considered it to be 2 channels, because nothing of merit was ever on PBS.  I remember when, first, sat delivered channels came to cable, and then, even better, home sat dishes became affordable.  What a great invention.  It fundamentally meant rural people had access to the mainstream of entertainment. 

[bandit957]

I remember when TV equaled three channels for me (Fox was not yet launched, we did not get CBS).  We considered it to be 2 channels, because nothing of merit was ever on PBS.

You don't like 'Sesame Street', 'Mister Rogers', and 'The Electric Company'?

[empirestate]

Remember, much of Appalachia didn't have all the channels that other areas did.

I do remember; that's precisely what I'm referring to. Although Sesame Street amounted to an institution of my upbringing, along with all of those around me, there is still always the occasional surprise of hearing from somebody else that it wasn't. Still, even for those who weren't heavily exposed to it, I would assume it to be a relative rarity to actually have no clue as to the characters and basic circumstances of the show. But, when you look at some other aspects of life and find that what's absolutely fundamental to one person's experience is completely alien to another's, and juxtapose that fact with the notion that both people are members of the same supposedly unified culture, that's when you're reminded of the constant effort that's always been required to preserve that unity.

[Scott5114]

I was —7 at the time.

"Where were you when this thing in 1983 happened" may not be the best subject for a thread on this forum.

[Otto Yamamoto]

Who?

I have no clue who Mr. Hooper is (was) or that he was dead.

This, as much as any political statement I've ever heard, illustrates the experiential divide that is so apparent between segments of our population, but yet we so often forget exists. I bet H.B. would be no less surprised to hear that I'm at an equally complete loss regarding any references from "Hee Haw". :-)

I liked Hee Haw a great deal and still do. It was probably one of the best of the variety shows on TV.

XT1254