You may know this already, but Sesame Street's count is based on a real characteristic of folklore vampires - they often have an OCD-ish need to count anything numerous near them, so you can foil a vampire by throwing a handful of seeds or beads in his path and running away while he counts them (or scattering them over his grave so he spends all night counting and has no time to stalk the night.) So actually, the monsters have to keep the Count counting in order to *protect* themselves from his sanguinary rampages ... it's kind of sad and pathetic, really.

And I have to admit I've never ventured past Lucky Charms in my exploration of representational cereal. Although really, eating a bunch of anti-evil talismans (like the hornéd crescent moon, that keep the night vapours sweet; horeshoes of cold iron, that mustn't be turned over lest all the luck pours our;e; the pink heart-shape that's descended from ancient vulvar talismans; and the four-leaf clovers that let you see the fair folk - so long as the fair folk don't catch you and put your eyes out for it. And then there's the red balloons, and what are they symbolic of? Nuclear apocalypse?