Sesame Street didn't really start having significant changes until the early 1980s

[minor muppetz]

Yeah... the format as well... it's like around the early 80s is when actual storylines for street scenes started becoming the norm, rather than various different street scenes in vignette style.

Of course the Mr. Hoopter's death episode (in my opinion the first of these big changes) didn't even have a major story within the street scenes, though the various street scenes had some minor connections (Big Bird giving Gordon the "just because" explanation to doing silly things, and then Gordon giving the same explanation to why Mr. Hooper had to die, or the adults talkign about a new baby, and then meeting that baby in the final scene, etc.).

Though for a long time I expected the whole episode (well, the street scenes, anyway) to be about Mr. Hooper's death. When I read that Sesame Street Unpaved included a script for the scene, I was expecting it to be a script for all the street scenes. But I guess it's better that the street scenes weren't all about that. I remember expecting the episode to have had an early scene with the adults telling Big Bird that Mr. Hooper died (since they mention that they told him about it), but I guess it's best that the didn't actually show what happened then; Since Big Bird didn't understand about death, it would have been hard to write such a scene without Big Bird seeming ignorant.