He used to be more sinister — he was able to hypnotize and stun people and he laughed in typical scary-villain-type fashion after completing a count of something and thunder and lightning would occur.

He was quickly made more appealing to little kids, though. He is apparently quite the ladies’ man — he has been linked to Countess von Backward, who loves to count backward; Countess Dahling von Dahling and Lady Two.

Count Von CountI always remember the “more sinister” version of Count von Count. If you had asked me his name ten minutes ago, though, I would have just said simply, “The Count!” I had no idea (or had completely forgotten) that his name was Count von Count until I just read this excellent article on some Muppet back-stories (which I found on MeFi). I also didn’t know the bit about him being a ladies man, although I vaguely remember Countess von Backward.