Editing Count von Count (section)

==Character history==
The Count debuted on ''Sesame Street'' in Episode 0406, the premiere of Season 4 (1972–73). He was conceived by [[Norman Stiles]],<ref>"[https://www.newspapers.com/image/521436704/ WMC to conferr 300 degrees on Saturday]". ''The Evening Sun'' (Westminster, Maryland). May 23, 1985. p. 59.</ref> who wrote the first script. In the Count's very first scene, [[Ernie (Sesame Street)|Ernie]] told [[Bert (Sesame Street)|Bert]] to watch his [[pyramid]] of blocks and make sure nothing happened to it while he got his camera to take a picture of the pyramid. The Count then walked by, counted the blocks, and in the process, took Ernie's pyramid apart before Bert could stop him. He then counted the blocks again, moving them back into place. Bert yelled at the Count for moving Ernie's blocks, so the Count counted the blocks again, taking the pyramid apart.<ref>Luparello, Ben (October 29, 1972). "[https://www.newspapers.com/image/465791163/ Few New Sights on Sesame Street]". ''New York Daily News''. p. 20.</ref> The Count was performed by [[Jerry Nelson]], who brought the character to life. He is made out of the Large Lavender Live Hand Anything Muppet pattern.

Before a counting session, he originally greeted the viewers (and the characters) by saying, "Greetings. I am the Count. They call me the Count because I LOVE to count{{nbs}}... things." Nelson voiced the Count until his death on August 23, 2012. At that time, [[Matt Vogel (puppeteer)|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&nbsp;billion views.

Despite the fact that the Count is now friendly and non-threatening, in his earliest appearances from 1972 to 1975, he showed a much more villainous nature. To begin a counting session, the Count would enter the scene holding his [[cape]] over his face in an exaggerated Lugosi-style pose before reciting his greeting, and he was often accompanied by creepy organ music. He would not even let anything interrupt him while counting, and to prevent this, he shouted "SILENCE!" and used hypnotic powers to temporarily stun people with a wave of his hands (although he sometimes did this without shouting anything, and even did it for no reason, occasionally). He only did this twice. In his first appearance, he hypnotized Bert before counting Ernie's pyramid blocks, while on season 5, during a skit with Grover, the waiter, he hypnotized Grover to serve him more hot dogs to count instead of eating, leaving Grover breathless.<ref>''[[Sesame Street]]'' Episode 0406</ref> And after counting, he would [[maniacal laughter|laugh maniacally]], "MWAH HA HA HA HA HAAAA!!!", while thunder and lightning flashed in moody colors, and then he would exit the scene, once again, holding his cape over his face. This aspect of the Count's personality, however, was abruptly ended in 1975 out of concern that it might frighten younger viewers, and this practice was changed, as he became friendlier, did not have hypnotic powers, did not enter or exit the scene holding his cape over his face, and interacted more pleasantly with the characters (both live actors and Muppets).{{Citation needed|date=July 2016}} Also, the creepy organ music was removed, the lightning flashes were changed from moodily colored to normally colored, and his laugh was changed from a maniacal laugh to a more throaty, triumphant Lugosi-style laugh, "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"

[[Belvedere Castle]], in New York's [[Central Park]], was used for exterior [[establishing shot]]s 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]]'' (1985) as a supporting character and ''[[The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland]]'' (1999) as a minor character. The Count appeared onscreen during the closing credits of ''Follow That Bird,'' where he proceeded to read and count the credits. He also said, "Hi, Mom." when a credit appears for [[Joan Ganz Cooney]], creator of ''Sesame Street''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089994/trivia |title=Follow That Bird (1985) - Trivia |publisher=IMDb}}</ref>

In Season 33, the Count was given a daily segment on ''Sesame Street'', simply called ''[[List of Sesame Street recurring segments#Number of the Day|The Number of the Day]]''.

The Count was originally portrayed by [[Jerry Nelson]]. However, Nelson's health began to deteriorate in 2004, so he retired from performing all his characters except for the Count and his other ''Sesame Street'' characters. Due to his increasingly failing health, Nelson could no longer puppeteer the character of the Count, so he handed over puppeteering duties to [[Matt Vogel (puppeteer)|Matt Vogel]], though Nelson still continued to voice the Count. After Nelson's death in 2012, Vogel took over voicing and puppeteering the Count full time the following year.