Who played the Number Painter in Sesame Street's 1972 short films?

Paul Benedict played the Number Painter in Sesame Street’s 1972 short films.

The Number Painter, also called the Mad Painter, was the protagonist of a series of brief live-action comedy films designed to teach children to recognize written numerals. Benedict played the eccentric, bowler-hatted character who searched for surprising surfaces on which to paint numbers, often provoking comic reactions from bystanders.

The films were produced in 1971, and the first one aired in February 1972. Ten shorts covered the numbers 2 through 11; there was no individual Number Painter film for 1 or 12. The sketches used slapstick, visual repetition and clear numeral shapes rather than conventional counting lessons.

Benedict later became widely known as Harry Bentley, the English neighbor on The Jeffersons, which is why viewers sometimes remember the Number Painter only as “the Jeffersons actor.” Bob McGrath, Will Lee and Bill Irwin were also associated with Sesame Street, but none played this recurring painter.