Count von Count, often known simply as "the Count", is a character on Sesame Street. The Count is a vampire modeled after Bela Lugosi's interpretation of Count Dracula.
The Count's main role in the show is to educate children about simple mathematical concepts, most notably, as his name implies, counting. The Count loves counting so much that he often will count anything and everything regardless of size or amount, and the other characters can sometimes be quite annoyed by this. In Season 6, for example, he once prevented Ernie from answering a telephone because he wanted to continue counting the number of times the telephone rang. At 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 every floor in the building. The Count can occasionally lose his temper when somebody or something interrupts his counting, or feel sad when there is nothing around for him to count, but apart from these, he is typically portrayed as friendly and cheerful.
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, which makes it clear he is Romanian. Perhaps not surprising, he speaks in an accent from that area of the world. 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 (debuting in Sesame Street's 28th season) who counts backwards; Countess Dahling von Dahling (debuted in the 12th season); and one simply named "The Countess" (first appearing in season 8). The von Count family includes an unnamed brother and mother as well as an Uncle Uno and grandparents.
The Count mentions 2:30 at any chance he can get and often makes jokes about it. This number is likely a tooth-related pun ("Tooth Hurty"). During the afternoon, his segments of the show always come on at exactly 2:30p.m. or during the "fashionably late" segment, which airs at 2:31.
The Count's signature song is "The Song of the Count".
