Sesame Seeds (Episode 6): Count Von Count

 

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Sesame Seeds, the series where we look at the progression of a Sesame Street character from humble beginnings to the present day.

So, I did a few polls to see which character you guys wanted me to do next, and with ten votes altogether, The Count Von Count won, so he’s the subject for today’s episode. But don’t worry, if the character you selected on the poll wasn’t chosen, because I’ll be releasing episodes for all of them, in the order of votes they got. The Count just happened to be first.

Anway, Count Von Count, as we know him, is Sesame Street’s resident math whiz and spoopy guy, so aptly named, because he loves to count things, but just how did he get so famous for it? Let us count the ways, as we begin.

For those of you not in the know, unlike Big Bird, Oscar, and Cookie Monster, The Count wasn’t created in the first season, or the second season, or even the third season, nope. Instead, the Count was thought of by Norman Stiles during the production of season 4, when he thought of the idea to make a vampire-esque character, like Count Dracula, but instead of sucking blood from people, he just loved to count stuff. And the best part was that it wasn’t just clever word play (Something I noticed and appreciated, even as a kid.), it was a display of arithmomania, a condition vampires have that gives them the compulsive need to count anything they can find.

So once Jim Henson designed him and Caroly Wilcox built him, all he needed was someone to perform him. And when recurring puppeteer Jerry Nelson found out about it, he asked Jim if he could do it, and after hearing his best vampire impression, Henson gave him the okay.

So the Count made his debut in the first episode of season 4 (episode 406) in 1972, where he would appear in a sketch with Ernie and Bert that you can watch down below.

So, as you just saw, The Count originally had hypnosis powers that he would use to stun/control people who tried to stop him from counting. Not like the more friendly face he would go on to become.

The only other time they were ever brought up was in this segment where he uses them to hypnotize Grover into bringing him a bunch of hot dogs.

Luckily after that, the Count stopped with the hypnotism, but it didn’t make him that less eerier. Aside from his design, which really nailed how vampires looked back then, creepy music would play every time he entered a scene, when we got to see his castle, complete with cobwebs and bats, that place was VERY creepy looking, and his laugh was far more menacing.

As you can imagine this set off a few red flags with a few concerned parents. Some of them even went so far to write letters to the CTW, criticizing their decision to make a character even related to the monsters of Bela Lugosi.

Sesame Workshop never confirmed nor denied if the Count was really a vampire, but I like to think the Count IS a vampire, he's just not evil, doesn't suck blood, and can be in sunlight. Though if we’re comparing him to Edward Cullen from Twilight, he definitely IS a vampire.

But despite that, the Count would continue to make appearances in sketches and later street scenes, where his creepy factors were toned down more and more. He was no longer the creepy vampire you’d want to get away from, he was now just an eloquent guy who just really enjoys counting, much to the annoyance of whoever he interacted with.

For most of his time on the show, the Count was just the guy who they would use to execute math lessons and number jokes. Always ending his numeric statements with his trademark laugh and lightning/thunder. In Christmas Eve On Sesame Street he counted barrels for skating over, In Don’t Eat The Pictures, he counted every single piece of art in the art museum, and in Follow That Bird he literally started counting the end credits at the end of the movie.

But the Count wasn’t just funny, he could actually be very sweet most of the time. Like episode 2546, where Gina has a headache, and the Count tries to help Gina by suggesting things for her to do to get rid of it, but he can’t help but count his ideas as he lists them, and after she assumes he doesn’t care about her issue and tells him to leave, he starts to give a heartfelt speech about how he does care and really did want to help her. Or in episode 953, where the Count falls head over heels for a Transylvanian woman named Countess Von Numeral, and shows great sadness when he can’t win her over.

But speaking of Countesses, let’s talk about the different Counts we got to see throughout the series. We got to see the Count’s family, his count friends, his countess girlfriends and many others.

Like Countess Von Numeral, the girl Count falls in love with and eventually marries. When she counts and laughs, it’s followed by the sound of a bell.

Then there’s Countess Dahling Von Dahling and Countess Von Backwards, who are one of his girlfriends and his fifth cousin, respectively. Von Backwards however loves counting backwards, and finishes her counting with chimes and howling wolves. And Von Dahling, while still loving to count forwards, actually causes literal rainstorms to strike, no matter where she is. And she has a pet dog named Masha.

And the last Counts I wanna mention are the Count’s grandparents, who are pretty much just like their grandson, except Grandma brings rain whenever she counts (Like Von Dahling), and Grandpa brings snow.

But back to the Count, like his co-stars, he was very present in the 70s and 80s, but unlike a few of them, he was actually pretty present in the 90s. Mostly due to the fact that Jerry Nelson was much more involved with the show now than someone like Frank Oz was, and had a lot more characters he was still performing. So we got to see more Count than we did Cookie Monster and Grover.

But not only would we get more of the Count, we would also see him shift his purpose, sort of. He would still be the same eccentric guy we had come to know him as, and he would still be there whenever something needed counting, but he would also develop a mentor-like role to the younger characters who wanted to be as good at counting as he was, like Elmo, Zoe, and Baby Bear.

When the 2000s came, nothing had changed. Except for in season 33, where the Count got his own segment focusing on, what else, the number of the day, usually with the assistance of his talking musical pipe organ.

As Nelson got older and the Count continued to appear in street scenes and segments, he would eventually stop physically puppeteering him, but would still provide his voice. The puppeteering duties were passed over to Matt Vogel, who had previously also taken over Big Bird, for Caroll Spinney, who was also getting older.

But eventually, in the year 2012, Jerry Nelson passed away. Yes, another vital member of the SS puppeteer crew was gone, and Sesame Workshop was not gonna let him go out un-recognized, but I’ll get to that in just a bit.

Right now, as he did with Big Bird, Matt Vogel would take over full time for the Count, starting in 2013, where he would use the Count to address a major milestone the Sesame Street YouTube channel had accomplished, in this video.

But then it was time for Sesame Street to pay tribute to Jerry Nelson and the legacy he left behind, with a season 44 episode aptly titled “Count Tribute”.

In this episode, Elmo, Abby, Cookie Monster and Grover secretly enter the Count into a counting contest and he wins, but when the night he receives his nobel prize arrives, he’s a little late getting back from Chicago, (He was there for a counting emergency.) Alan, Chris, Telly, and the rest of the Sesame crew try all that they can to keep the Count victorious, but it fails. But Count doesn’t mind, because he knows he has so many friends that really care about him.

It was a great episode and an excellent tribute to Nelson.

Vogel would continue to perform the Count, even when Sesame moved to HBO, where not much would change for him. He was still around whenever the show wanted to teach a number related lesson, and was still getting along with everyone. He even got a chance to show off his awesome impression skills in a 2019 Vanity Fair video.

Nowadays, the Count hasn’t really changed. Like Ernie and Bert, he’s not as frequent as other characters, but he’s still around and still loved by the masses. As Telly so aptly put it:

“He IS the world’s greatest counter!! He’s taught millions of people how to count! His counting has made millions of people happy!!”

But how did the Count get this ability? Three simple words: Passion and enjoyment. All of the other Sesame Street characters, barring Oscar, do like to count whenever the time calls for it, but none of them enjoy it or have as much dedication to it as the Count does. Every time he comes in to tell us how many apples, or tires, or circles, or whatever, there are, you can tell he’s really enjoying himself.

But what really helped the Count survive is how nice he became. Like, Cookie Monster, another seemingly one note character, he could’ve gone south VERY easily. If he had stayed how he was in his first season, hypnotizing/stunning anyone who dared to stop him from counting things, I doubt many kids would like him that much. But his attitude evolved as the show went on. He started acting less creepy and more friendly. Caring more about his friends and wanting to help them out, and in turn, they try to do the same for him.

Also, like Cookie Monster, The Count shows us that not everyone needs a lot to be happy with their lives. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how many it is, if he’s counting, he’s happy.

Those three terrific factors are what kept the Count around for so long. That and one of Sesame Street’s prime goals being to teach numbers and math. And as long as they keep teaching that, I’m sure we can still count on the Count to be there when we need him most.

Well, that concludes another episode. And now that we’re done, that makes six, six sensational episodes I’ve written!! Ah ah ah!

Cool! I can do it, too!