alternatehistory.com

One of the most memorable points in the history of the famed PBS educational show Sesame Street had to be the death of Mr. Hooper and the actor who portrayed him, Will Lee. Lee died of a heart attack on Dec. 7, 1982 just after taping segments for Sesame Street as well as appearing in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that year.

The producers of Sesame Street were very gutsy in their decision to realistically deal with Mr. Hooper's death. They actually debated continuing to have the character but have a different actor play him just like with Dick Sargent & Dick York with Bewitched. They even could have taken the easy way out by saying Mr. Hooper retired and moved away to Florida. But they didn't - after consulting many experts on how to discuss & deal with death, Norman Stiles wrote a powerful script that made for a very memorable episode of Sesame Street. Airing on Thanksgiving Day in 1983, Big Bird and the cast of Sesame Street dealt with the death of Mr. Hooper. The show was praised and still is for handling death so well for children.

Now here comes the $64,000 question - what if Mr. Hooper's death was not handled well on Sesame Street? Let's say the POD involves a different writer making the final script, not enough research being done or just a bad job done by Norman Stiles.

Would a poorly handled episode about Mr. Hooper's death have led to Sesame Street's demise? Could angry parents of traumatized/confused children bombarding PBS with hate mail and nasty phone calls could have led to PBS executives, media watchdogs or even the federal government pulling the plug on Sesame Street? Thoughts?
Top