The answer is he – the Sesame Street character – definitely was,
but the better question to ask would be: “when did you found out that Mr.
Hooper is Jewish?
By: Ringo Bones
Of all the human casts of the iconic children’s educational
TV series, those who were there since the show first aired back in 1969 would
probably cite Mr. Hooper as the most fascinating. The most probable reason is,
is that the “powers-that-be” at the Children’s Television Workshop allowed his
character to slowly evolve and reveal since he first appeared in 1969. Kids who
were closely following Sesame Street since 1969 to about the mid 1970s would
probably notice that Mr. Hooper – like the Children’s Television Workshop advisor
Gerald S. Lesser made him out to be – as someone who is “slightly mean and
abrasive but with a poorly hidden nice streak”. This was largely due to Big
Bird’s inability to say storekeeper Mr. Hooper’s name properly.
Even though it was only around the mid 1970s until towards
the end of the 1980s that Sesame Street was gradually building up for world
wide recognition, these were by no means politically stable times when it comes
to television viewing when compared to the first decade of the 21st
Century. Most viewers in the Philippines despite lucky enough to view that Big
Bird Went To China special just a week after it aired in the United States,
most Sesame Street fans here didn’t manage to watch aspects of Mr. Hooper’s life
on Sesame Street well until 1991 onwards via VHS and Betamax tapes.
That Sesame Street special where it was explained with
honesty to kids that Mr. Hooper had passed away that won a daytime Emmy only
became general knowledge here in the Philippines at about the same time when a
post Operation Desert Storm euphoria was sweeping around the globe back in
1991. On Mr. Hooper being Jewish – probably around 1993 and it wasn’t until
1994 that I saw that official CTW book “Christmas Eve On Sesame Street” being
displayed in our neighborhood’s second hand book store that I managed to read
first hand that Mr. Hooper is Jewish and celebrated Chanukah. By the way, the official
Children’s Television Workshop book was based on the 1978 special Christmas Eve
On Sesame Street were Mr. Hooper’s was revealed to be Jewish. But in actuality,
Mr. Hooper’s performer – the actor Will Lee who passed away back in 1982 of a
heart attack – isn’t Jewish.
When It comes to Mr. Hooper’s full name, it wasn’t until the
advent of Web 2.0 that I saw that episode where Mr. Hooper got his GED certificate
from attending night school that his full name was revealed as Harold Hooper.
Maybe we should be thankful of the modern internet for without it, most obscure
Sesame Street trivia will remain a mystery to most of us.
