Mr. Hooper's Store, founded pre-1969, is an integral business and meeting-place on the television show Sesame Street. This fictional establishment has been turned over through many owners throughout the years, all of whom have maintained this establishment's stature, friendlyness and cleanlyness, and overall unbelievably cheap prices.
Founded by Mr. Harold Hooper before 1969, the store originally ran along the lines of a general store. They menu was extensive and suited to the dietary needs of the different cultures that lived on Sesame Street; along with traditional American diner-type food, the restaurant even served birdseed milkshakes for Big Bird. Not only was the menu broad, the store stocked up in everything from dry goods to soap dishes. The store even sold empty cigar boxes for a while, as evidenced in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street; this is unusual, as no one has ever smoked cigarettes, cigars or pipes in public on Sesame Street.
David, a young African-American who moved to Sesame Street part way through the 1970s was soon hired by Mr. Hooper as an assistant. Mr. Hooper left David the store in his will. David ran the establishment from 1983 onwards.
A few years into his ownership of the store, David hired a new resident of the area, Gina in 1987. This young teenage girl helped David as he himself had helped Mr. Hooper.
Though it was not discussed on the show, it is widely believed that David kept ownership of the store, but moved on to another job in 1989. Gina continued to manage the store until it was bought out in 1992, by Mr. Handford.
The enthuastic Mr. Handford was a new character brought to the show exclusively to run the store, a change from the previous new managements of David and Gina, who started out as characters before store operators. He ran the store from 1992-1998, at which time Alan moved onto Sesame Street to buy the store out.
September 11th, 2001 left many children in grave fear of the entire world, and left many parent scrambling to comfort them. Sesame Street takes place in a unnamed bourough of New York City; this fact, plus the monstrosity of the events in general caused the producers to react with a plot line dealing with fear. To start, the show created public service messages gingerly dealing with the events, and sent out parenting advice on this fragile topic to subscribers of their e-mail newsletter.
Instead of going with the obvious, distressing idea of, say, having the Muppets discuss how they feel and what they thought of the events, as done with the kids on ZOOM, Hooper's Store came into play. In one plotline, there is a grease fire. Elmo, who is in the store having lunch, talking with Alan at the time, is scared by the firefighters who come to extingush the blaze in their inhuman looking gear. Elmo and Maria are taken around the local station, to comfort Elmo and let him learn about what firefighters do. Hooper's Store was then renovated back to its original state, in all ways, except now, the store has a red canopy, rather than a dark forest green.
When Mr. Hooper died, a matter discussed in an infamous episode with Big Bird, it was also because of a real life passing. Will Lee, the actor/acting instructor who played Mr. Hooper passed away in 1982, leaving the producers with a dilemma. Do they replace Will Lee with another actor, and hope the kids don't notice, an unlikely event; do they just phase Mr. Hooper out somehow, and hope the kids don't care he left without saying goodbye; or do they deal with an issue never tackled before on children's television. The last and least inviting of choices turned out to be the wisest. This is not only one of the most historic episodes in television, but it dealt with the most delicate and nearly-impossible matter an educator could ever be faced with teaching young children.Discussion of real life
In real life, Northern Calloway, who played David, died in 1989, but the issue was never discussed on camera, and Gina (Allison Bartlett-O'Reilly) just continued to work at the store, allowing the character to be immediately phased out, without explaination.
