"Gonna paint a 6!" ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Remember the Number Painter? He was cool!

The Number Painter appeared in a series of sketches on 'Sesame Street' that reportedly premiered in 1972 and aired until 1988. He was played by Paul Benedict, who may be best known for portraying the character Harry Bentley on 'The Jeffersons'.

In case you don't remember the Number Painter, his specialty was deviously painting numbers on various surfaces. He always wore a long, white coat and a derby hat. The only audio in most of the sketches was piano music and the Painter muttering a few words (which didn't match his lip movements).

It's unclear what sort of disorder the ol' Painter had that caused him to paint numbers on things. I've read on at least one website that the skits were taken out of circulation because they allegedly encouraged the show's young viewers to draw numbers on walls and floors. But this seems unlikely, for the Number Painter was such a clearly obsessive individual that nobody was likely to mimic his behavior.

In this sketch, the Painter hides out in the back room of a bakery just so he can paint the number 6 somewhere therein. But he decides instead to use decorating frosting to situate the numeral on a cake:



When the baker finds that the Painter has ruined his cake by putting a 6 on it, he smashes the cake squarely in the Painter's face.

But this fazes the Painter not a bit! He appears to be more than happy to walk around for the rest of the day pulling hunks of yummy icing off his face and eating them.

The Number Painter. What a cool dude!