Of the more than 4,300 episodes featured over the years on Sesame Street, #1839, which aired on Thanksgiving Day 1983, stands alone.
That show has been identified as one of the ten most influential moments in the history of daytime TV.
During that episode, the Sesame Street cast confronted the real-life death of one of its own.
Actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Harold Hooper, was one of the first four human characters in the PBS children’s series. Mr. Hooper was the gruff, loveable curmudgeon who ran the local grocery store, and whose name Big Bird often mispronounced.
When Lee died of a heart attack in 1982, the show’s writers wrestled with how to explain his absence to their young audience.
They decided not to say that Mr. Hooper had gotten sick and died. Nor had he chosen to retire, quit, or move away. Nor would they announce that Mr. Hooper’s departure meant he had decided at this time to pursue new vocational opportunities.
They decided to face death head-on.
No children’s show had ever attempted this.
How do you tell preschoolers about the reality that life comes to an end? Sesame Street’s writers decided they should stick to three messages: Mr. Hooper is dead. Mr. Hooper will not be coming back. Mr. Hooper will be missed by all.
The human characters on the show cried real tears. Big Bird, hearing that his friend would not be coming back, became angry.
“Why does it have to be this way? Give me one good reason!” he stormed. Gordon answered gently, “Big Bird, it has to be this way…just because.” Big Bird was given a line drawing of Mr. Hooper – the picture is still hanging on the show’s set more than four decades later – and welcomed the consoling embraces of his Sesame Street friends.
The psychologists who were advising the show’s writers strongly advised against using the words just because. In their opinion, young viewers would need a more concrete answer, not something so open-ended.
The writers, however, decided not to change Gordon’s reply to Big Bird’s difficult question. In their view, there is never a good explanation for why people die.
Most observers agree it was a brilliantly written episode. It succeeded at its primary goal: confronting the reality of death.
But most of us would agree that all of us need more than just a dose of reality when it comes to facing death. We also need reassurance.
We need reassurance that death doesn’t win. That it doesn’t steal everything (and everyone) we’ve ever known and loved. That it doesn’t render all of our dreams and experiences meaningless.
If you’re saddled with a crushing debt – unyielding student loans, a mortgage locked in to punishing rates, a VISA bill that only seems to grow – it’s hard to stop thinking about it. The seeming impossibility of repayment shadows all your waking moments. It haunts your dreams.
Death is the ultimate creditor. And for every one of us, death is coming to collect. It will collect all of our tomorrows.
Can reassurance in the face of death ever be anything more than just wishful thinking?
Here’s the stunning Christian claim: Jesus of Nazareth paid off death.
The reality is that life in this world doesn’t go on forever. Death will find every one of us.
But the reassurance for Christ-followers is that death can no longer bankrupt us.
Why would God make such a thing possible?
Just because.
Just because his deepest desire is to share the gift of deep, lasting Life with all who are willing to receive it.
Comentarios