If you’ve seen the photos of the upcoming NECA Sesame Street figures, you may have noticed something kind of funny. Maybe even in the photos specifically, not just in life generally.
Bert comes with a pigeon, his book of boring stories, paperclips, and bottlecaps. Ernie has the portrait of the two of them from their apartment, as well as his rubber duckie, of course. Even with Bert’s book being from one specific sketch, it kind of captures his whole deal, you know? Count von Count’s candelabra is also from a specific sketch, but it fits his vibe, and pairs nicely with his bat.
Then there’s the Count’s telephone.
They could have given The Count some Muppet numbers, or gone all out by including his whole organ, but they instead gave him a telephone, in reference to one sketch from 1973. You might remember it, as I do, from the Learning About Numbers VHS/DVD.
Watch it by clicking here or clicking the image below:
Since this sketch is kind of a core memory for me, the nostalgic part of me is delighted to see it referenced in official merchandise… but it sure is a strange sketch to highlight. Not just a random sketch – a strange sketch.
It’s strange to see Ernie without Bert, at least in a comedy sketch with no song. It’s strange that you can see the moment when Ernie’s right side is pulled down so the right-hander can get inside it. It’s strange to see someone fighting so hard to stop The Count from counting, and to see The Count fighting back… and that brings me to the strangest part.
In most of Sesame Street‘s history, pretty much every time The Count counts, it’s out of passion. He loves it. This sketch, however, reframes that passion as a compulsion.
For those of you who don’t know, “The ToughPigs Beacon” is an article series I oversee about the intersection of neurodivergence with The Muppets and Muppet fandom. For those of you who already knew that, please don’t read this paragraph. It’ll only bore you, and it’s over now anyway.
As you can imagine, given this angle from which I approach ToughPigs articles these days, I’m struck by this sketch’s take on The Count. To be clear though, this article is not about diagnosing Count von Count. As much as I like to think it’s abundantly apparent that ToughPigs is a very silly and very subjective website that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, I still wouldn’t be very comfortable playing doctor like that. What would those fact-checking folks at the Muppet Wiki think of me then?
Anyway, Muppet Wiki says this character has arithmomania. So. Huh.
That word refers to having a strong, clinically significant need to enumerate things (usually actions). In all honesty though, you’ll know as much as I do by Googling it, because I don’t have arithmomania – I just have Wikipedia. Arithmomania seems to be associated with OCD, and I don’t have that either. It also seems to be historically associated with vampires for some reason? While I know a lot of things still go undiagnosed, I honestly don’t think I’m a vampire either.
“But J.D.,” you scream, “if you don’t know anything about this, why are you writing about it?” I hear you. But you might be surprised to know that, for ADHD reasons, this sketch pops into my head all the dang time, to the point that I’ve come to refer to many of my day-to-day experiences as “Count the Rings” things.
It’s not that I see myself in The Count. It’s not that I see myself in Ernie. It’s that I see myself in the dynamic between The Count and Ernie… or, arguably, between The Count, Ernie, and The Count. My day-to-day internal life is a series of struggles just like this. For me, being an ADHDer is largely characterized by having an especially vast difference between what I want to do and what I want to do – that is, a vast difference between what I feel compelled to do and what I wish I would do.
I get the sense that a moderate (but usually manageable) divide of this nature is an entirely commonplace human experience, but for me, it’s unusually extreme and unusually frequent. Instead of answering the telephone, the job I need myself to do is pick up a piece of trash that fell on my floor. The job I need myself to do is reply to a text. The job I need myself to do is eat lunch. Yet, every time, after I’ve told myself to do the job, I fight myself, usually because of how desperately I want to keep doing whatever else I’m doing instead. Both wants are urgent and noisy and altogether too much, and they make most of my small, simple, daily tasks a shouting match between my inner Count and my inner Ernie. Just getting out of bed in the morning is a “Count the Rings” thing… every single day. It’s a loud and stressful life.
Which brings my attention back to how deeply bizarre this sketch is. Why is this cute little Sesame Street sketch depicting the depths of my despair?
Naturally, I wondered if this sketch was written by someone who was new to the show and didn’t understand that The Count isn’t usually like this. The Count enjoys counting! He’s supposed to be glad to do it, right? A seasoned writer on the show would know that, right?? Tell me I’m right.
I’ll trust you just said “you’re right” aloud during the paragraph break. Thank you.
Perplexingly, this sketch was written by the show’s long-term head writer, Norman Stiles. More perplexingly, he’s actually the writer who created The Count in the first place, so there weren’t many people who knew the character better except maybe Jerry Nelson. More perplexingly, he doesn’t seem to think this sketch was out of character. Quite contrarily, Stiles said in an interview just a few years ago that he often uses this sketch as an example of character-driven writing, and he considers it among his favorite writings for the show.
So. Huh. I guess that means a properly written Count von Count is like this. And here’s what makes this such a nuanced picture of neurodivergent experiences: he’s not trying to stop counting so he can get boring tasks done, or even so he can answer some of these callers who keep trying to talk to him. He’s specifically trying to stop counting telephone rings so he can go count other things! His passion is standing in the way of the pursuit of his passion!
That’s probably what I most wish everyone understood about life as an ADHDer, or at least what it means for me. It doesn’t just make the chores and busywork difficult – it makes the fun stuff difficult too. It’s hard for me to read the books I wish to read and even to watch the movies I wish to watch, let alone to take on the creative projects I want to create. There will be moments when certain tasks are easy because I get caught up in a whim, but these often get in the way of achieving more important goals, pursuing my dreams, and sometimes even living in accord with my values.
For as much as I have grown to prefer the Neurodiversity Paradigm and the wider Social Model of Disability over the Medical Model, there are times when I doubt that accommodations, improved environmental factors, and wider societal change can meaningfully support a brain that is fundamentally in conflict with itself. This sketch speaks to that feeling in its surprising depiction of the futility of help. The Count isn’t trying to deal with the telephone issue without accommodations – he has someone else to do the hard job for him, to regulate him, and to be his body double, but no amount of accommodation is enough. Sheesh.
Of course, there are other ways we can look at this situation. Even if he’s not counting in exactly the way he hoped he would be, at least he’s still doing what he loves, and that’s valuable! Maybe he needed that! Maybe he could stand to respect his own needs a little more! Couldn’t we all?
Furthermore, while his passion is sometimes what restricts him, the reverse is also true: the thing everyone else would see as a limitation is more often the source of his delight. Heck, this guy laughs out of pure joy all day long, and he laughs so strongly that it electrifies the skies! That’s wonderful!
For as often as we ADHDers might wish we weren’t ADHDers so we’d have more time for our passion projects and unusual interests… I mean, where else do we think those passions and interests came from in the first place, hmm? (Neurotypical people who have passion projects and unusual interests are also valid, rare as they may be, but if I were neurotypical, I’d be watching some dull sports game right now instead of writing about Sesame Street, and I very literally wouldn’t be me.) I for one am glad that The Count is The Count, and I love him for all that he is, just as I am glad to be me.
Of course, Ernie’s role in all this is also bizarre. Why is he the exasperated straight man in this sketch? Who died and made Ernie the new Bert? Was it Bert? Is Bert dead?
I think that’s for each viewer to decide in their own heart, but I should address that the “point of view” character in this sketch is decidedly Ernie. What Jim’s performance captures here in both his unusually Rowlf-ish yelling and his quietly weary sighing, at least for me, is the desperation of trying to do a seemingly-simple job that just can’t be done today. It’s a feeling we ADHDers all know too well, and it comes with a sense of futility that can be really heavy to carry. His performance also captures how silly puppets = good.
Say, have you noticed what the weirdest thing about this sketch is?
It doesn’t really go anywhere. It basically has no ending.
It establishes a dynamic, lets the conflict build… and then leaves our characters behind. No rule of threes, no resolution. One gets the sense that they just go on and on like this, trapped in an endless cycle of ringing and counting and fighting. It’s not exactly a hopeful ending for those of us who spend our lives counting the rings. It’s bleak as all get out. But it’s the honest ending.
Fortunately, today is not the 1970s. It’s getting a little easier to get others to understand neurodivergent experiences, and certain accommodations are more attainable than before. Today we could pop some noise-canceling headphones on that little lavender noggin and send him on his merry way. Problem solved. And yet, the sketch remains a pertinent portrait of the struggles many of us live through day-to-day that no one else can see.
So, the next time you don’t feel too functional, executively speaking, spare a thought for old Count von Count, and be kind to your inner Ernie, too. Think of them when you step over the pile of papers that’s been on your floor for months. Think of them when you take hours to cook a meal because you keep washing your hands. Think of them and remember that this is not a personality defect. It is not a failure. It’s just a Count the Rings thing.
And I guess now I’ll have to buy that darn action figure.
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by J.D. Hansel
