Count von Count Puppet

Count von Count is a hand-rod puppet originally performed by Jerry Nelson and currently performed by Matt Vogel. The Count began as a parody of Bela Lugosi’s film portrayal of the vampire Count Dracula. He first appeared in 1972 on Season 4 of Sesame Street and continues today counting anything and everything in his friendly, vampire-like manner. In a hand-rod puppet, like Count von Count, the performer’s dominant hand goes into the puppet’s head and operates the mouth and sometimes other facial features. The less dominant hand controls the arm rods, which are thin rods connected to the puppet’s hands.

This specific Count von Count puppet was built for the 25th Anniversary Sesame Street exhibit in Japan in 1994. The puppet was built using the same patterns and building process for performance puppets that are used on Sesame Street, but it was built for the exhibit and never actually used on Sesame Street.