Mina and the Count

Mina and the Count
A poster for the Mina and the Count segment on Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons.
Genre	Comedy horror Fantasy Black comedy
Created by	Rob Renzetti
Written by	Rob Renzetti
Directed by	Rob Renzetti
Voices of	Ashley Johnson Jeff Bennett Mark Hamill Michael Bell Tara Strong Candi Milo
Composers	Thomas Chase Stephen Rucker
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producers	Larry Huber Fred Seibert (Oh Yeah! Cartoons episodes) Buzz Potamkin ("Interlude with a Vampire" only)
Producers	Rob Renzetti Larry Huber (supervising producer, in What a Cartoon!) Ken Kessel (supervising producer, in Oh Yeah! Cartoons)
Running time	7 minutes
Production companies	Frederator Incorporated Nickelodeon Animation Studio (Oh Yeah! Cartoons episodes) Hanna-Barbera ("Interlude with a Vampire" only)
Original release
Network	Cartoon Network Nickelodeon
Release	November 5, 1995 (1995-11-05) – 2001 (2001)
Related
My Life as a Teenage Robot

Mina and the Count is an American animated television series created by Rob Renzetti, which was never brought into development as a full-fledged series. Instead, animated shorts of this series aired on the two animation anthology showcases, Cartoon Network's What a Cartoon! and Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Despite much demand by fans to get it shown as an official series, Frederator Studios president Fred Seibert confirmed there is currently no development of the show as a whole whatsoever.

The original Mina and the Count pilot short, "Interlude with a Vampire," premiered on The What-a-Cartoon! Show on Cartoon Network in November 5, 1995, making it the only short to be featured on both creator-guided short projects guided by Fred Seibert. The short was about a seven-year-old girl named Mina Harper (a play on Dracula character Mina Harker) and her encounters with Vlad, a 700-year-old vampire one night while she is sleeping (Vlad had accidentally found her when he was looking for "Nina Parker," another reference to the Dracula character). The aforementioned further episodes concerned the vampire, known simply as Vlad the Count, his best friend Mina, her older sister Lucy, school bully Nick, Lucy and Mina's father Mr. Harper, a handful of monsters and Vlad's disapproving servant Igor. Everything seems to occur in a little town in North America where Mina's school and house is, including the Count's castle.

Voice actors and their characters

• Tara Strong (originally Ashley Johnson) - Wilhelmina "Mina" Harper: A 7-year-old girl with thick long red hair in a ponytail and red clothes. She likes to go to school and to play with her toys, and she doesn't get along with her sister Lucy. She meets Vlad one night and they become best friends. At school, Nick the school bully picks on her. The squeamish Martha is probably her only human friend. Mina knows how to cook, but unfortunately for Vlad, doesn't know that vampires find garlic hazardous. Lucy and Mina's mother is also inexplicably never seen or mentioned in any of the episodes.
• Jeff Bennett - Igor: Vlad's Quasimodo-like servant who wears sandals and green clothes and always has a maniacal laugh. He loathes Mina because she turned Vlad into a loving man, though he still tries to do what is best for his master. He hates kisses, hugs, love and everything near to it. In his free time, he likes to watch television.
• Mark Hamill - Vlad the Count: A 700-year-old immortal vampire with light blue skin and a blue cape and a black suit. In his past, he made a living drinking young women's blood. Thanks to Mina, he represses his evil tendencies. Vlad has many powers, including the abilities to transform into a bat or mist, use telekinesis, and to hypnotize people and animals to do his bidding. He finds comics and toys amusing and is very intelligent. Vlad believes that human food is disgusting.
• Michael Bell - Mr. Harper: Lucy and Mina's strict yet loving father with black hair. He is unaware that Vlad is a vampire. He initially believes he is a life-size doll with odd body odor. Later, he believes the Count is Mina's violin teacher and has him over for dinner. He is polite, but bemused by the Count's behavior and dismisses him as a "crazy European."
• Candi Milo - Lucille "Lucy" Harper: Mina's older sister with long blonde hair. She has a boyfriend named Bobby, who doesn't appear much. She also has a crush on Vlad, and Lucy doesn't know that he's a vampire. Lucy doesn't get along with Mina, but deep down she cares about her little sister.

Episode list

Note: The original pilot aired on What-a-Cartoon!, and the rest were animated shorts that aired on Oh Yeah! Cartoons.

Season 1 (1995–2001)

1. Interlude with a Vampire (1995)
2. The Ghoul's Tribunal (1998)
3. The Vampire Who Came to Dinner (1999)
4. Playing a Hunch (1999)
5. My Best Friend (1999)
6. FrankenFrog (1999)

External links

• Frederator Official Website
• Interlude with a Vampire - Cast and crew list