Big Bird ruins Mr. Hooper's invention ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Because a power outage is all but certain here today, this installment concerns a little Big Bird-induced outage that occurred on 'Sesame Street' back in 1969 (the year the show debuted).

This segment was before my time, but it's amusing nonetheless. In this sketch, Mr. Hooper - the now-deceased storekeeper - built a magical machine that could produce 10 of any object just by pointing an arrow at it.

In other words, if you point the arrow at all of Saxby Chambliss's brain cells, you get - well, no brain cells, because any number times zero is still zero. Still, it was a nifty invention.

But, as Big Bird proves, the larger the object, the more trouble Mr. Hooper's machine has reproducing it:



Oscar the Grouch might have been pleased with the emergence of 10 trash cans, but Mr. Hooper's machine wasn't. Reproducing such a large object utterly destructimated the brand-new machine.

Note that the ol' Hoopster appears ready to cry after Big Bird stupidly destroys his beautiful invention.

Notice also that Big Bird was more of a clownish character back then and not the 6-year-old professor he is today. His head was smaller, his beak was longer, and his voice sounded like Goofy.

Let's bring back those hilarious old days of 'Sesame Street'!