Editing Hooper's Store (section)

==Mr. Handford and Carlo==
The enthusiastic Mr. Handford was a new character brought to the show exclusively to run the store, a change from the previous management of David, who started out as a character before he became the store operator. This African-American man was a retired firefighter who bought the store to keep active. Gina continued to work in the store with Mr. Handford as her new boss.

Although [[Leonard Jackson (actor)|Leonard Jackson]] played him in Season 21, he was then recast and [[David Smyrl]] took over the role.  While Jackson portrayed Mr. Handford as something of a “grumpy old man” with little patience for his friends’ quirks, Smyrl made the character much more cheerful, friendly, and quite young at heart.

In 1991, Hooper's Store was beginning to fall into disrepair. The final nail in the coffin came when [[Sully and Biff]] tried to hang up a picture frame for Mr. Handford, but Biff's misplaced hammer swing caused the entire woodwork of the store to collapse. No one was hurt, but the store was ruined, and Mr. Handford considered closing the store for good. Everyone convinced him that they needed him, and the store, so they all pitched in to rebuild it. The construction brought minor, cosmetic changes to the store, most notably a back door accessing the basement and kitchen.

A [[Hispanic-American]] teenager named Carlo (played by [[Carlo Alban]]) first appeared in 1993 as one of Gordon's students.  In 1995, he was hired to work at the store.

These characters ran the store until 1998 when the actors left the show.  There was no on-screen explanation to the characters' departures, though it has been stated in canon that Mr. Handford had retired, and sold the store to [[Alan (Sesame Street)|Alan]] (played by [[Alan Muraoka]]) that year.