WANTED: Count's Colorforms Castle

[Dearth]

I had this as a kid, and would love to get one for nostalgia's sake.

Saw some pics the other day on the Muppet Wiki and it was a real blast from the past.

Dearth

 

[Dearth]

I just got one of these in the mail today, and it was really great to see it again, even as beat-up as this one is.

It's missing two of the Colorforms pieces: two little bats. If anyone out there has an incomplete set they want to get rid of, let me know!

And the old 'wash them with warm water and a little mild soap' trick still works, even on thirty-five-year-old dusty Colorforms which had lost their static cling.

I fully immersed each piece, and also sponged off the background with a damp cloth, and they stick as good as new.

Dearth

 

[Kermieuk]

Congratulations on finding one.

Its always great to find the pieces that your looking for, just seen the set on Wiki, It looks great, Love the Muppet colorforms sets.

Chris

 

[Dearth]

Yep, I uploaded a couple of pictures of my set to the Muppetwiki to complement what was already there.

And then I scanned the artwork, repainted some details digitally, and printed it as a backdrop for my Sesame Street customs:

http://threads.rebelscum.com/imagep...p?file=162423&imagewidth=1024&imageheight=440

Dearth

 

[The Count]

Hi Dearth... If you could, could you talk about this Colorforms set? The pieces, the scenes, the characters it depicts? Thanks.

 

[Dearth]

Describe the Count's Castle for the Count?

Well, I'd be delighted to! I hope I can find words sufficiently descriptive for the honor...

I remember when I was a kid, the box seemed so huge! Now that I own one again, it's odd to think for a moment, "Hey, it shrunk!" before it dawns on me that I'm just a lot more immense now.

The box (and therefore the background to which you affix the pieces) is only one inch thick, but across the left and right sides, it's 16 inches tall, with a width of just over a foot.

(When I scanned the art and blew it up as a backdrop for my bendems, it was really odd to make the bottom third wider than the whole castle was tall!)

The artwork for the backdrop is done as if you are seeing a cross-section of three floors of his castle. The top floor is mostly open air, with parapets and pennants along the crinellated walls, and silhouettes of fluttering bats everywhere... one of them backlit by the yellow circle of the full moon.

The middle of the top floor is the interior of a turret, and at the center of that is the Count's "Counting Window". The images visible in the Counting Window are on a separate thumbwheel behind the main backdrop. It is controlled by thumbholes in the mouth of a cat-shaped fireplace in the bottom floor.

On the middle floor are cutouts for two other images on the thumbwheel. A television set shows various other Muppets, and inside a framed portrait of the Count labelled 'Guess Here', you can open and shut an iris to tell you how many objects were in the Counting Window on the top floor.

The mechanism to control the guessing window is the tail of a friendly-looking Muppet dragon who is drawn into the artwork, although the tail is actually a separate piece, of course. The dragon's face looks basically like a green cow with blotchy scales and a Muppety tuft of hair between her yellow horns. In fact, the horns look an awful lot like a banana peeking out from under her Beaker-like hair. See? I even assume it's a female dragon just because she looks so much like a cow.

Here's a rundown of the various images you can see at any given time together, in their clockwise sequence:
1 - Grover in an airplane ; The Amazing Mumford
9 - nine clouds with lightning bolts coming out of them ; Grover
5- five orange tabby cats ; Big Bird
3 - Oscar, Herry, and Frazzle saying "Hi!" ; The Count himself
7 - seven bats ; I think it's Betty Lou, waving a little pennant
8 - eight dangling spiders ; Cookie Monster eating a cookie
10 - ten twinkling stars ; Bert waving
2 - two dragons in flight ; Oscar the Grouch with a tin can
4 - four ghosts who appear to be dancing ; Herry
6 - six Twiddlebugs in flight (one holding another's ankles) ; Ernie snickering

Honestly, the artwork for all of this is so intricate, it's almost a shame to take out the vinyl pieces and start populating the castle. But, I suppose we must...

The diecut vinyl pieces are stored on two glossy black rectangles. There's a faint imprint around each piece, and that helps you know what goes where for storage.

Over the years, the vinyl pieces of Colorforms sets went from very monochromatic to very complicated. In the beginning, the pieces were basically one solid color each with black printing on them, although you'd get groups of pieces in four colors or so.

My wife has a later Disney set where all the vinyl is white on the back, and the artwork on the front is fully painted.

This set falls somewhere in the middle of that progression. There are six colors of vinyl, but their printing has one additional 'highlight' color besides the black.

On the left-hand black storage rectangle are the green pieces, the orange pieces, and the blue pieces. Their highlight color is an odd grey/purple. (I'm colorblind, so if anyone wants to argue that point, I will concede it.)

On the right side are the pink pieces, the white, and the red. Their highlight color is a golden yellow.

So, for instance, Oscar the Grouch is a green piece, with black ink details and a grey/purple trash can. Grover, Herry, and Cookie Monster are blue, with grey/purple used for the 'whites' of their eyes. Meanwhile, Frazzle is a red piece, with yellow for his horns, eyes, and teeth, and black for his line-art details.

The green pieces: Oscar, the Count (the green is used for his cape, his skintone is the purple/grey), a lamp with a bat motif on the shade, a potted plant, four bats, and a Twiddlebug.

The orange pieces: A striped tabby cat with its tongue stuck out, three chocolate chip cookies, a plate of more cookies, a torch sconce for the wall, two high-backed chairs, two stools, and a footrest. Oh, and a Twiddlebug.

The blue pieces: Herry, Cookie, Grover, a long-handled spoon, and a really funny prop for the Count... a big toothbrush with two clusters of bristles for his fangs. (This is the only color without a Twiddlebug.)

The pink pieces: A nightstand, two cups-on-saucers, a tall table for the potted plant, a table with a number-covered tablecloth, two spiderwebs (one with a spider on it), the obligatory Twiddlebug, the Colorforms logo, and a mysterious female Muppet with long black hair and a patched yellow dress. I always called her Cinderella when I was a kid.

The white pieces: Two clouds with lightning bolts (one has one bolt, one has two), a candelabra with three lit candles, two Muppet ghosts, the white Twiddlebug, and another mysterious female Muppet. This one looks like an ashen-faced Prairie Dawn or Betty Lou, wearing a globular yellow fright wig, sort of electrified looking, like the Bride of Frankenstein. To further enhance the 'bride' image, she is wearing a white dress and holding a bouquet of flowers with trailing ribbons. Since I didn't know the word Contessa as a kid, I just thought of her as The Bride of the Count.

The red pieces: A halved sandwich on a plate, a teapot, a broom, the red Twiddlebug, Frazzle, and a sofa with tasseled armrests.

Notice that all of the vinyl pieces were of monstrous characters or scullery maids, beings that might actually visit the Count's domain. The other Sesame Street Muppet characters might have been visible on the TV set, but they probably weren't going to be comfortable paying a call at the Count's keep.

The vinyl pieces could be placed anywhere on the backdrop and then repositioned without damaging anything. I think the after-play component of putting them all back on the black storage rectangles instilled a sense in me as a kid that everything should have its proper place, and all pieces should be accounted for... a sense that has slipped in practice, but is still there somewhere deep.

I hope these descriptions help, Count. Don't hesitate to ask any followup questions!

Dearth

 

[The Count]

Thanks so much Dearth, that was perfect. Unfortunately, I think I might've talked myself out of adding "Contessa" as a new member for my cast of counting characters since I have a ghostly bride in mind or the one you termed "Cinderella" as that would serve for the Zombie Maid. However, the female cowlike dragon, now that I could bring into the haunts' roster. Just need a name or term to call it by.

Thanks again for your help an have a great night.