The Death of Mr. Hooper "Will Lee"

[Medbe Monster]

So, I've heard of this infamous episode from my Book Sesame Street Unpaved, but just exactly what happened in the episode, my book only tells one scene. does any one have an episode summary?

 

[mikebennidict]

it's all about the same. also today marks the 23rd aniversary of Mr. Lee's passing.

 

[MuppetDude]

That's pretty much all the episode tells about Mr. Hooper. The last scene does show him putting Mr. Hooper's picture up on his wall, and meeting a neighbor's baby. A line from a previous scene was repeated; in an earlier scene, Gordon asks BB why he's got his head turned upside-down:

BB: "Because."
Gordon: "Because why?"
BB: "Oh, just because."

 

[Fozzie Bear]

There are some folks at MC who have the episode on VHS I'm sure would be willing to swap with you, or copy it for you if you send them a tape and return postage paid envelope.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Yeah, I've read lines of dialogue from the ep about Mr. Hooper's death at the Lyrics Archive and I looked through the book at toughpigs.com, but I do wonder how the whole ep went. How does the neighbor's baby fit in to this?

 

[SesameMike]

How does the neighbor's baby fit in to this?

It was to subtly teach kids that both death and birth are parts of the lifecycle. Earlier in the same episode, they showed a film of a kid visiting his mother in the hospital after she'd just had a baby.

Another observation: Just before that somber scene with Big Bird and the adults, they showed two films with upbeat musical scores: "That's about the size of it", and "Good things growing better, every day". These happy films beforehand appeared to be comparable to the barber lathering the man's face before shaving it. Then after that unforgettable scene, the camera gradually pulled back for a moment of silence, then they went into that water-dripping-from-a-sad-flower film set to Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D.

Noggin's showing of this episode might not have had all of these sequences included.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Thanks for the info. I guess they used at as sort of a "theme show."