Talk:Count von Count

Nelson's death

Since Jerry Nelson, the Count's original puppeteer, has just passed away, is there news about what is going to happen with the Count? Will somebody replace Nelson, or will the character be retired? -- Matt H. (talk) 19:20, August 24, 2012 (UTC)

I haven't seen any announcements yet, but I would assume Matt Vogel will take over the voice, since he's taken over pretty much all of Jerry's characters and had been physically performing his Sesame Street characters in recent years. Though considering the upcoming season was produced at the same time as the last, we'll probably have to wait a year before we get to hear a new Count. --Minor muppetz (talk) 22:42, August 24, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, Season 43 is done (and possibly other Count bits have been done). At this point, the Count and Mr. Johnson were the only Nelson characters still actively used, and it's fairly unlikely they'd retire the Count. But there's really no value in us speculating at this time. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:17, August 25, 2012 (UTC)

I have found a video on YouTube with The Count singing "Counting the You's in YouTube". I'm pretty sure that it's Matt Vogel singing. So i don't think The Count will be retired. The video is here --NRKfan (talk) 13:06, April 6, 2013 (UTC)

What year Did the Count Von Count debut ?

I was on Sesame Street.com 40 years area but the area where it Told something that happened When Sesame Street was that age. it said when they were three the Count Debuted [| SesameStreet'sBIGGESTFAN]

He debuted in season 4. That little "When we were..." thing on their 40 Years site is wrong on a lot of things. - Oscarfan 03:40, December 30, 2009 (UTC)

The Count vs Count von Count

Back in 2007, we'd decided on the Mr. Snuffleupagus talk page that we would name articles after the most common use of the character's name -- Mr. Snuffleupagus, Maria, Mr. Hooper, etc.

This article was used as an example in that discussion. Andrew said: "With something like Count von Count, the surname and the shorter "The Count" have been more or less equal in usage."

I've been realizing lately that that's not really true. There are some notable references to Count von Count, but the vast majority of the time, he's called "The Count". Check out our list of Count von Count books, including The Day the Count Stopped Counting, The Count Counts a Party, and on the records side, there's The Count Counts, The Count's Countdown and -- most tellingly -- The Best of the Count.

Even on this page, we only refer to Count von Count at the top of the page and in one caption; every other time, we call him "the Count".

So -- what do you guys think about moving this page to the Count? -- Danny (talk) 21:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Just as an aside, the announcer at the beginning of The Count Counts introduces him as Count von Count, but I've always felt that that was just a gag name, otherwise the record would have been called Count von Count Counts. I've never really noticed where else he's been called CvC, but I'm okay with moving it.

Also, now that I'm thinking about it, shouldn't we also consider how he used to introduce himself? "How do you do? It is I, The Count! They call me The Count because I love to count things!" Maybe the Count von Count thing came later? -- Ken (talk) 21:59, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Should we make a list of usages of both names, like we have regarding name spelling at Talk:Grundgetta or Talk:Simon Soundman, or even like the "Bert and Ernie" vs. "Ernie and Bert" list? --Minor muppetz 22:07, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Count von Count is better for SEO. —Scott (talk) 22:13, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the SEO... I looked at the Keywords Tool. "Count von count" gets about 9,900 searches a month; "The count" gets 368,000. We come up around #29 for "The Count" right now.

"Count von Count" is definitely a name that's used on the show, but I don't think it's the primary way that people know him. -- Danny (talk) 02:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The Count's father?

I hope I'm wrong, but I've just thought of something terrible. First, I confess to not really knowing how nobility works. In the real world, is the title of a Count one that is held lifelong? And if that's the case, if Count Von Count inherited his father's 'royal' title, would that mean his father might be listed, well, here? --Dave Splurge 00:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The Count's age

Sesame Street Unpaved says that the Count is almost two million years old. I wrote the following today:

"According to the 1998 book Sesame Street Unpaved, the Count is 1,832,652 years old. This figure seems questionable -- the first homo sapiens appeared on Earth about 250,000 years ago, and it doesn't seem likely that the Count predates all modern humans. It's more likely that somebody asked the Count how old he was, and once he started counting his birthdays, he got excited and couldn't stop."

Scott took out the two sentences that I wrote, saying "nixing speculation". I know that what I wrote is pushing the bounds a little bit, but 1,832,652 is so far off base compared to the history of the Earth that I think it warrants some kind of comment. Anybody else have a thought? -- Danny (talk) 00:34, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'd just fixed that, quoting the book. The actual sentence is that he is "written to represent an adult with the psychological age of someone who is...." and then the numbers. Most of the profiles have a "psychological age" section, usually taken from the CTW character guidelines or curriculum (or at least, most can be matched with CTW materials; Borgenicht doesn't include footnotes). In this case, however, as written by Borgenicht, it's not clear if someone made such a claim to him, or if he made it up, but either way, it's tongue in cheek and not a statement that the Count really *is* over one million years old. If his age is ever mentioned in a sketch or a book specifically, I'd be fine including it, even if it's a bizarre number, but as I said, the book doesn't state that's his literal age, and I have no idea how we could otherwise explain how anyone's psychological age could go back to prehistoric times (or how the staff writers could possibly express that in their scripts). By the way, the book also states that Grover "is written to represent the psychological age of a four-year-old," which is cute and much more plausible from the perspective of the Sesame educators and writers. But even then, I don't think we could claim that this means Grover *is* four (especially given the way the skits and books have played around with his age over the years, basically to fit the needs of the situation; sometimes he has a driver's license, at other times he lives with his mommy, in one book he fills in on his uncle's farm while in a later book he's going to kindergarten for the first time, and so on). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 00:39, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the Count's age as mentioned there is probably just as much a joke as Kermit's birthday being listed as Leap Year Day. --Minor muppetz 00:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that makes much more sense, and it's good to have the quote -- the bit about "still counting" makes the joke a lot clearer. Thanks, Andrew! -- Danny (talk) 18:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Grandpa Count

The trivia question from the latest Sesame Family Newsletter cites that Grandpa Count makes it snow after he finishes counting. Do we know anything more about him, when he appeared, etc? I looked for him in Grandparents and on The Count's sketches, but couldn't find him. —Scott (talk) 23:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Resemblance to Lugosi

This page and the Dracula page say that the Count has a particular resemblance to Béla Lugosi's portrayal. I'm not totally familiar with all the Dracula movies, so I'm not sure how the Count is more like Lugosi than any other interpretation of the Stoker book. The cape, the fangs, the Transylvanian accent, the castle... that's all from the book, isn't it? What's the specific Lugosi twist? -- Danny (talk) 20:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The impression I've always gotten (and may have read somewhere) is that The Count's exaggerated accent is supposed to be a reference to the way Lugosi played the character. There wasn't an accent in the book, but Lugosi gets the credit for establishing the silly voice that everyone spoofs. —Scott (talk) 21:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The Lugosi Dracula differs greatly from the book version, and indeed is the popular image. The book's Dracula is physically unattractive and hairy-knuckled and dressed only in black, and the issue of accent is largely ignored. Lugosi's portrayal added the voice, the hair (the Count's is identical to Lugosi's, but that specific pattern, while used by Lugosi in other non-Dracula vampire portrayals, was seldom used by anyone else except as a reference to Lugosi and the Universal movie), and the cape and evening dress, and the whole "children of the night" and "ah ah laugh" are part of the image (the latter, as with spoofs of Joe Friday from Dragnet, exaggerated beyond anything Lugosi actually did, but has become a part of the "Lugosi Dracula" image). In fact, for contrast, here's the book's description:

“face was a strong - a very strong - aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.”

None of that can be found in Lugosi and in very few of any other interpretations, with the sole exception of the teeth and pallor. Later interpretations, including Christopher Lee in the Hammer movies, specifically tried to move away from Lugosi, which by then had already become a pop culture icon as a cartoonish exaggeration (see also Count Chocula and just about any depiction of a vampire in a 60s non-Scooby Doo cartoon). So there's no question at all as far as Count von Count's cultural pedigree and inspiration. Jerry Nelson's vocal portrayal doesn't just have an accent but is specifically modeled after a mixture of Lugosi and the popular idea of the Lugosi voice (sounding especially similar to the Paul Frees version used in cartoons and record albums). Oh, and the hypnosis, the "look into my eyes" bit used in some early Count segments, is also taken from Lugosi (to some extent from Dracula but perhaps even moreso from his reprisal of the role in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which truly cemented Lugosi as the popular image of Dracula and was the first step towards the subsequent cartoon caricatures and parodies). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 22:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Wow, well said. —Scott (talk) 02:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, this is awesome. Can you boil some of this down on the Dracula page, and maybe as a footnote on the Count page? -- Danny (talk) 03:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I touched on it briefly on Dracula, but I just created a Bela Lugosi page which explains it in greater detail (and with two screengrabs from Muppet Babies clips, one of which is *not* as Dracula or any other vampire, but apart from facial hair, the piercing gaze, evening dress, and hair are identical, and given the heavy hypnosis and the fact that the movie ran on TV for decades, it was likely as much an influence as his actual Dracula portrayals). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 07:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! What you added to the article totally cleared it up for me -- I forgot about the mannerisms with the cape. Thanks! -- Danny (talk) 19:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

no more laugh

I took out the bit about SW discontinuing The Count's laugh that followed his counting and thunder. There's no source, but also it's very much still in use in season 37 when he teaches Abby Cadabby to count to ten. She even does the same and it's what causes her wand to break, creating a big plot point for the story. —Scott (talk) 18:46, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Cite

"He also has grandparents; in contrast to his counting summoning thunder and lightning, his grandmother can make it rain, and his grandfather can make it snow." What's the source for this? A book? An episode? Did they appear or were they just mentioned? -- Andrew Leal (talk) 01:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I read it on Wikipedia's page for the Count. --Wile e2005 00:00, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Wikipedia's not a good enough source for us. If we have to rely on second hand information, we privilege sources such as Jim Henson: The Works and other like books, interviews, TV Guide listings, but not Wikipedia. I'm going to yank it out for now. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 00:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Count's brother

Count's brother

Does he have a name? -- Scott Scarecroe 02:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Girlfriend Confusion?

The supporting pages for this entry are confusing. This article states that Countess_von_Backwards is the Count's former girlfriend, implying that they have either since broken up or the Count has a new girlfriend. However, no new girlfriend is mentioned or a reason (Real Life or fictitious) given as to why such a break-up occurred. Her page indicates that she is the Count's recent girlfriend, indicating no such break-up has occurred.

This page states that Countess_Dahling_Von_Dahling is the Count's recent girlfriend but her page states that she was the Count's first girlfriend. So, what is the order of the Count's friends? Does it go "No One, Von Backwards, Von Dahling," "No One, Von Dahling, Von Backwards," "No One, Von Dahling, Von Backwards, Von Dahling" or some other combination not previously clarified? -Sbartok 02:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)-

According to both the Sesame Street Unpaved bookand the Sesame Encyclopedia website, Von Dahling was the first one, in the 1970s, and Von Backwards was added in 1996. So the order should be corrected, but to the best of my knowledge, no real discussion of the replacement was given, especially considering how much time had passed. --Andrew, Aleal 02:50, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

No More Lightning?

I had read somewhere (years ago, at this point) that they had gotten rid of the lightning whenever the Count had finished counting. They said that they had found that the lightning was scaring the children. Is this actually true? -Sbartok 02:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)-

I thought they had for a while, but there was lightning in this past season. So either it never left, or it left and then came back. GrantHarding 06:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Are there new or newer stories with the count?

In Germany the stories (when they bring one) with Graf Zahl (that's his German name) are very old, because Alf Marholm (the German voice) died (long time before his death he was too ill or too old) and I believe he will not be replaced. He was too unique.