Hooper's Store

A snow-covered Hooper's Store in Episode 0837.

Interior, Episode 2615

Joan Ganz Cooney at Hooper's

Interior, Episode 4074 (2004)

The Hooper's awning in 2009

Exterior, season 45

The Hooper's facade in Season 46, with a new, neon sign.

The retro remodeling Hooper's has received for Season 46.

Interior in season 46

Products on the Hooper's shelves.

Hooper's Store is located on Sesame Street between what has traditionally been the Fix-It Shop and the courtyard. Described in early materials as a candy store, Hooper's functions largely as a lunch counter and general store, and also boasts a newsstand. The residents of Sesame Street visit Hooper's regularly, including Big Bird, who often drops by for a birdseed milkshake.

In the season 8 premiere, which aired on November 29, 1976, Hooper's Store celebrated its 25th anniversary, which means that Mr. Hooper opened the store in 1951.

Hooper's Store had gone through a few redesigns over the years: from 1969-1998, the building was green with its trademark yellow- and black-checkered design below the window looking out front with an old-fashioned Bell Telephone System logo on the left side, and a green- and white-striped awning overlooking the front window. Various murals have been painted on the building throughout those years. The store contains a basement for extra storage accessible via a trap door behind the counter.

In 1991, Biff accidentally damaged the store when he hammered a picture frame to the wall, and Hooper's Store was then rebuilt, with work completed in Episode 2795. The construction brought minor, cosmetic changes to the store, most notably a back door accessing the basement and kitchen. In Episode 2923, a new mural was painted on the side of the store by artist Speedy van Gough (played by Robert Townsend).

Later in 1998, when Alan took over, the entire front of the building was repainted a bright blue color and a new red vinyl awning stretching over the front window, and also around the corner of the building to a new side window (that was added that same year) with white letters reading "Hooper's Store" on both sides (no murals on the side of the store now due to the new side window, and the checkered design was dropped). In 2002, the building was repainted again, now a pale orange.

Starting in Season 39, Hooper's got a complete overhaul, interior, and exterior, to give it a modern look. It got a new exterior color (back to blue) and a new tan and red striped awning. The interior is no longer an old-timey soda shop, yet more of a convenience store. It is clad with refrigeration, and magazines and newspapers on a special shelf. The interior is now a light green and the "first dollar" of the business is hanging on the wall.

For Season 46, Hooper's received yet another overhaul, this time recapturing its old-fashioned soda shop roots, complete with repainting the facade framework green, bringing back the classic yellow-and-black checkered design (complete with the old Bell Telephone System logo, in addition to a new free WiFi symbol), and its old-fashioned striped awning. A new feature to the redesigned store is a vertical neon sign affixed to the corner of the building.

Hooper's Store has occasionally played host to outdoor music performances. In Episode 4031, the store held a karaoke night. In Episode 4067, The Cute But Not So Fuzzy Four gave a musical performance outside Hooper's Store.

In Episode 3843, Alan put up a sign in Hooper's Store, which exclaimed, "Hooper's Store, where you can get what you want just the way you want it." This sign, however, led to Telly Monster making an unlimited amount of requests.

In Episode 3981, Alan's fried chicken special ignited a grease fire that nearly caused the store to burn down. (This episode was written in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.)

As glimpsed in Bedtime with Elmo, the store's normal hours of operation are 8am to 7:30pm. During Jim Henson's Musical World in 2012, John Tartaglia calls the store (using the phone number 123-456-78910), where Alan's answering machine states their hours are 7 to 8am (referencing the show's air slot at the time on WNET, the main PBS station in the Greater New York Area).

Staff

Owners

• Mr. Hooper (1951-1982)
• David (1982-1989)
• Mr. Handford (1989-1998)
• Alan (1998-present)

Employees

• Tom (1971-1972)
• David (1972-1982)
• Piri (1984-1986)
• Gina (1987-1995)
• Carlo (1995-1998)
• Gabi (2004)
• Miles (2006)
• Chris (2007-present)

Helpers

• Gordon and Susan — Episode 0004
• Bob — Episode 0004, Episode 0456
• Ernie — sketch, Street Mission
• Cookie Monster — Episode 0406, Episode 0725
• Big Bird — Episode 0871
• Ms. Sharp (Anne Revere) — Episode 0965
• Olivia — Episode 1207
• Geraldo Ortiz — Episode 1497
• Oscar — Episode 2090
• Bert — Bert and the Broken Teapot, Street Mission
• Telly Monster — Episode 1696, Episode 1906
• Grover — Follow That Bird, Episode 3809
• Savion — Episode 3177
• Natalie — Episode 4060
• Norbert the Robot — Episode 4709
• Honkers — Episode 1651, Episode 4178, Episode 4814, The Magical Wand Chase

In The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, an unidentified curly-haired man can be seen tending to customers and patrons dining outside the store.

Brands

See also: Brands sold at Hooper's Store

In seasons 43 and 44 alone, consumer products seen on the shelves of Hooper's have included Goober Face Babyfood Mashed Thanksgiving Dinner, NoLogo Cruisers diapers, SPAM parodies SLAM and CRAM, Flochman's Yellow Mustard, Hinee Poo 99¢ Bathroom Tissue, and Glup It cups, spelling error represented on the package. Some brands reference in jokes; Sonia's Toaster Bread Plain Bread Crumbs references the fact that the Fix-It Shop regularly repairs toasters.

One episode of Sesame Family Robinson featured some of the various brands. [1]

Recreations

The store has been recreated many times for various exhibits and theme parks, as early as as the late 1980s for the "Sesame Street: The First 20 Years" exhibition at the the Smithsonian Institution. Other museum-based recreations were made for the Strong National Museum of Play and the traveling exhibition, "Sesame Street Presents: The Body."

In theme parks, Hooper's Store appears as a part of the Sesame Neighborhood area of Sesame Place. The similarly named "Mr. Hooper's Emporium" operates nearby, selling Sesame Street merchandise. Hooper's Store is a main fixture of the Sesame Street at SeaWorld area opened in 2019, with access to the area's shopping section.

Merchandise

The store has been depicted in several Sesame Street playsets, including the Fisher-Price Little People set. "Hooper's Store" also appears as a property on the Monopoly: Sesame Street Edition game board, in place of Park Place.

See also

• Hooper's Store (book)

External links

• "19 Wonderfully Silly Items Stocked at Hooper's Store on 'Sesame Street'" at Mashable.com