Why is there a Vampire on Sesame Street?

I love Sesame Street. I grew up watching it; learning my numbers, letters, and how to discern when "One of these things doesn't belong." The show as been on for over thirty years now, and has been part of the childhood of countless people, throughout the world. So, naturally when my daughter (Jadyn, two-and-a-half years) seemed old enough to benefit from Burt and Ernie's life lessons, I started letting her watch it from time to time.

She loved it. LOVED it. And this is not a kid who is too interested in TV otherwise. I know that some of the stuff is still over her head, but we'll figure out which three things belong together soon enough. Jadyn soaked this show up. Sesame Street was becoming a part of the childhood of another generation of the Jones clan . I smiled the smile of a proud father that has not only introduced his child to PBS before the age of three, but had engaged his daughter in a program that was a respected part of early educational culture. No purple dinosaurs, or troupes of Australian men who go by the nomenclature "The Wiggles." No siree, not for my kid. Just Elmo, Gordon, and all of their wholesome friends.

Then the Count showed up.

You know the guy: monocle, widow's peak, has a tendency to laugh at inappropriate times. The Count creeps Jadyn out. Maybe "creeps" isn't strong enough language; he scares the bejeezus out of her.

I don't know what it is about the little purple guy that makes him any scarier than a giant flightless bird, or a furry elephant that everyone calls "Snuffy". What I do know is that whenever the Count shows up with his lady......Oh yeah, somewhere during the last 25 years or so, the Count got himself a girlfriend. Her name is, you guessed it, the Countess. She is basically another Count puppet minus the goatee and plus a blond wig. Kind of weird, like the Count married his twin sister.......to dispense the Number Of The Day, Jadyn loses it. You would think that the devil himself just walked into the room and strangled a puppy.

At first, I thought it was kind of cute. Now I am pretty obsessed with trying to figure out who thought it was a good idea to put a member of the undead on a children's show. What was that conversation like?

"Well Bob, we've got the cast of puppets almost all lined up. We just need a character to introduce numbers and counting."

"Not a problem Jim. I've got one all worked out. Here he is, I call him the Count. Get it? The Count who counts! Groovy, huh?"

"It's a cool play on words Bob, but that guy looks like he's supposed to be a vampire."

"Well, yeah. That's because he is."

"Wait a minute. You want to put a bloodsucking Nosferatu in a children's television show?

"It's PBS, Jim."

"Point taken, he's in."