The Floating Face's Counting Sketches

[samtherobot]

Hi there. Perhaps someone can help me remember this sketch. It's probably mid/late 70's since my memory of it is VERY dim. It takes place on a pitch black background and features a face that looks like it's made out of three rubberbands- two eyes and a mouth only. It didn't look traditionally animated, it looked more like a video effect, kind of like rubberbands generated by an oscilloscope. Things would fizz and race across the bottom of the screen and the 'creature' would count them in a low, scary, machine-altered voice. Between numbers sometimes it would pause and then the lines would freak out. And that's when I'd freak out, running as far away as possible!

 

[Soul H]

Are you referring to the Hypnotic 10 cartoon, when the face says "Now then let's count to ten?"

Hi there. Perhaps someone can help me remember this sketch. It's probably mid/late 70's since my memory of it is VERY dim. It takes place on a pitch black background and features a face that looks like it's made out of three rubberbands- two eyes and a mouth only. It didn't look traditionally animated, it looked more like a video effect, kind of like rubberbands generated by an oscilloscope. Things would fizz and race across the bottom of the screen and the 'creature' would count them in a low, scary, machine-altered voice. Between numbers sometimes it would pause and then the lines would freak out. And that's when I'd freak out, running as far away as possible!

 

[samtherobot]

Hmmm...It might be. But it's so on the edge of my memory I can't recall much more. Does the face do it several times, each one faster than the last?

 

[mikebennidict]

check out i of the threadsw below titled Favorite SS 123 segments. i think it's listed there.

 

[fuzzygobo]

That's 10!

Yes, what you remember is actualy a Muppet character called Nobody. He actually appeared once in the late 60's on the Mike Douglas Show in a skit called "Idea Man". All he is is just string shot against the black background.
The graphics you see of dots whizzing by were generated by a very early computer animation called Scanimate.

And from talking with a lot of people my age, he was one scary dude. He totally freaked me out, and had nightmares for years because of him.

They've since used Scanimate more on the Electric Company, and thankfully, Nobody was given a very early retirement. Even more than Beautiful Day or any other monster, this was the scariest thing Jim ever came up with.

 

[samtherobot]

Yes!

That was it!! I love the early stuff, it was as though they had no rules whatsover. Thanks for the info... I would love to see this again. Does anyone know where to find it? I can trade but have little unfortunately.

 

[mikebennidict]

what do you mean by no rules?

 

[samtherobot]

Sorry, I should have clarified. By 'they' I mean the creative team (Henson, Raposo, etc...). By 'no rules' I simply meant that since nothing like Sesame Street had really been done before, there was no template, or formula- they may have had more artistic freedom. But it does bring up an interesting debate (probably for another thread really); is the show -actually- simpler and less innovative now, or did we only perceive it as innovative and complex because our minds were simpler back then? My -personal- opinion is that the show was more uninhibited, artsy, and edgy back then. But perhaps society was as well? Musically speaking, the older skits really capture the essence of the time period and often are fairly complex (lots of meter changes and complex chords/ chord progressions) whereas today's SS is musically much more simple. I think it followed the trend of pop music which was to become much more slickly produced but less meaningful...It's really impossible to measure if the wonderment (and sometimes fear) the classic bits produced in us create those same feelings in our own children...It makes an interesting sociological / psychological study.

 

[tutter_fan]

Anyone remember what happened after the rubber band man stopped counting, or how it began? I think there were some wierd sound effects in this animation, if I remember right.

 

[fuzzygobo]

10

Here's how it goes:

First a 10 appears on the screen. Then with an effect that looks like dropping a pebble into a pool of still water, the 10 dissolves and forms a spinning ring.
Then Nobody appears in the middle of the ring.
"Now then, a count of ten!" (The sight of him and the sound of his voice totally freaked me out, how about you?)
Then Nobody disappears.

The numbers 1 through 10 come on, and Nobody counts them. Each number
shrinks into a tiny spinning circle- five on each side of the screen. When the 10 comes on, it appears to explode, and Nobody's back!

"That's 10! Once again, let's count to 10". He counts to 10 again, and one by one the circles disappear.

"Watch the screen and we will try to count how many dots go by". Ten dots go by, and Nobody counts each one. After ten, there's another explosion, and ten vertical lines start filling the screen, and Nobody slowly fades away.

The last line morphs into a big 10 in a circle surrounded by yellow dots on a blue field, and we hear Nobody's voice for the last time "That's 10!"

I was always so relieved when this clip was over.

The Scanimate graphics were always nifty, as were the synthesized sound effects. Considering this was state-of-the-art back then, they still look cool today.