Count von Count, often known simply as "the Count" or "Count Count", is one of
the Muppet characters on Sesame Street. The Count is a vampire modeled after
Bela Lugosi's interpretation of Count Dracula.
Description The Count's main purpose is to educate
children about simple mathematical concepts, most notably counting. The
Count loves counting; he will count anything and everything, regardless of
size, amount, or how much annoyance he is causing the other characters. For
instance, he once prevented Ernie from answering a telephone because he wanted
to continue counting the number of rings in Season 6. Another time, while serving
as an elevator operator, he refused to let Kermit the Frog get out at his
selected floor so he could count on every floor in the building. The Count
is typically portrayed as friendly and cheerful, but he can lose his temper
when someone interrupts his counting, or get sad when he has nothing around him
to count. The Count lives in an old,
cobweb-infested castle which he shares with many bats and a cat named Fatatita.
He spent his childhood in the Carpathian Mountains. His pet bats tend to have
Slavic names, such as Grisha, Misha, Sasha, and Tatiana. He views the bats as
his "children" and sometimes counts them. As a running gag, his castle has a
squeaky door, which visitors always point out, only for the Count to
instantly change the subject to his counting addiction. The Count drives a
special car, the Countmobile, designed to look like a bat.
The Count has been shown with a number of girlfriends, who tend to be vampire
Countesses. These include Countess von Backwards who counts backwards; Countess
Dahling von Dahling; and one simply named "The Countess". The von Count
family includes an unnamed brother and mother as well as an Uncle Uno and
grandparents. According to BBC News, during an
interview with the More or Less team's Tim Harford, the Count said his favorite
number is 34,969. The Count was quoted as saying, "It's a square-root thing.":
34,969 is a perfect square, being 1872. The Count mentions 2:30 at any chance he
can get and often makes jokes about it. This number may represent an inside
joke. During the afternoon, his segments of the show always come on at exactly
2:30 p.m. or during the "fashionably late" segment, which airs at 2:31.
The Count's signature song is "Eight is Great".
History and evolution of the character on Sesame Street
The Count debuted on Sesame Street in Season 4, and was conceived by Norman
Stiles, who wrote the first script. The Count was performed by Jerry Nelson, who
brought the character to life. He was originally made out of the Large
Lavender Live Hand Anything Muppet pattern. Nelson voiced the Count until
his death on August 23, 2012. At that time, Matt Vogel had taken over
performing the puppetry of the Count. Upon Nelson's death, Vogel started
performing both the Count's voice and puppetry. His first performance of the
Count was in a YouTube video called "Counting the Yous in YouTube", a song
about the celebration of Sesame Street's YouTube channel reaching 1 billion
views. In the early 1970s, following a counting
session, the Count would laugh maniacally, "AH AH AH AH AH!",
accompanied by thunder and lightning flashes. He wouldn't let anything
interrupt his counting, and used hypnotic powers to temporarily stun
people with a wave of his hands. This practice, however, was discontinued in
the mid-1970s because of concern that young viewers would become frightened.
In the mid-1970s, the Count became friendlier, did not have hypnotic
powers, and interacted more with the characters. His laugh also changed from
maniacal laughter to a more triumphant, stereotypical Dracula-style laugh.
Belvedere Castle, in New York's Central Park, was used for exterior establishing
shots of the Count's castle on the show. The Count made an appearance in the film
The Muppets Take Manhattan at Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy's wedding, then in
the Sesame Street movies Follow That Bird and The Adventures of Elmo in
Grouchland. Notably, the Count appeared on-screen during the closing credits of
Follow That Bird where he proceeded to read and count the credits. He also says
"Hi, Mom" when a credit appears for Joan Ganz Cooney, creator of Sesame Street.
In Season 33, the Count got a daily segment on Sesame Street, simply called
The Number of the Day. Internationally
In the Dutch version of the series, Sesamstraat, the Count's name is Graaf
Tel Count"). In the French series 1, Rue Sésame, his
name is Comte von Compte. In the German series Sesamstraße, his
name is Graf Zahl. In the Hebrew series Rechov Sumsum, his
name is 'מר סופר', phonetically pronounced 'Mar Sofer', which literally
means "Mr. Counter". In the Mexican series Plaza Sésamo, his
name is Conde Contar. In the Polish series Ulica Sezamkowa,
his name is Liczyhrabia. In the Portuguese series Rua Sésamo, his
name is Conde de Contar. In the Russian series Улица Сезам, his
name is Graf Znak. In the Spanish series, Barrio Sésamo,
his name is Conde Draco. In the Turkish series Susam Sokağı, his
name is Sayıların Kontu Appearances outside Sesame Street
The Count appeared on a video package aired on the first episode of the Late
Show with David Letterman that was shown after Letterman's emergency quintuple
bypass operation. He appeared as a surgeon in an operating theater,
counting "One bypass... AH AH AH! Two bypass..."
The Count was interviewed in character on the BBC Radio 4 economics programme
More or Less on December 11, 2009, where he mentioned his favorite number, 34969.
He appeared on the Halloween edition of SportsCenter to count down the top ten
trick plays of the 2010 college football season.
He was a guest on Countdown with Keith Olbermann for the first anniversary
episode. He was animated in Family Guy counting
bats, then Peter Griffin asked if the Count had ever "done someone in." In a
later episode, when he's dating Meg Griffin, he counts, "One nipple! Two
nipples! Three..." and then beats a hasty disgusted retreat.
He was also animated in The Simpsons, this time counting coconuts. Marge
Simpson admits her dislike towards the Count. She gets upset and yells, "Go
back to your own country!". In another episode, Homer Simpson and Count Dracula
asked him where they could find Lisa Simpson and Edmund, who had run away
together. The Count is also seen sucking Big Bird's blood.
He was a guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers on March 27, 2015, to help out in
the feature "This Week in Numbers". In popular culture
The St. Paul Saints, an independent minor-league baseball team in St. Paul,
Minnesota known for unique and sometimes over-the-top promotions, announced that
it would give away 2,500 bobblehead dolls dressed as the Count at its May
23, 2009 game. However, instead of the Count's regular head, this doll's head
featured Al Franken on one side and Norm Coleman on the other, and was called
"Count von Re-Count"—referring to the extraordinarily prolonged recount and
legal battle surrounding the 2008 U.S. Senate election between the two men. The
team made further jabs at the election during the game.
Australian rugby league football international Anthony Minichiello has
been nicknamed 'The Count' due to his striking resemblance to the character.
See also Arithmomania#In folklore and
Vampire#Creating vampires for other vampires with a compulsion to count
Notes and references External links
Count von Count on Muppet Wiki, an external wiki