Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe’ on Amazon Prime Video, a Sweet Documentary Profiling a Canadian Children’s TV Icon

Today on Tears of Joy Theater is Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), a documentary about a guy who non-Canadians might call the Canadian Mr. Rogers, and who Canadians might call an icon. Ernie Coombs was on TV every day for 30 years, racking up a mind-boggling 4,000 episodes as the titular host of kiddie show Mr. Dressup. Every day on Ernie’s sweet and gentle show, he’d chat with puppet pals, draw pictures, sing songs, do crafts and, most famously, reach into his Tickle Trunk for costumes he’d wear for pretend play. Director Robert McCallum’s film takes such an earnest, linear approach to Ernie’s life, from birth to death, and in praise of his legacy, that even those of us who don’t know doodledy-squat about Mr. Dressup might end up being touched by his story.

MR. DRESSUP: THE MAGIC OF MAKE-BELIEVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: This documentary begins as all documentaries do nowadays, with a summation of what we’re about to see, as if the movie believes need to be teased with juicy tidbits so we’ll be less tempted to watch something else. Not that Mr. Dressup is particularly juicy, mind you – Ernie Coombs is easily in the top percentile of wholesome human beings. In fact, he’s depicted as such an upstanding, squeaky-clean guy who’s beloved by everyone, late in the movie when we see him at home post-retirement and spot a beer can in the frame, you may pass out from shock.

So here’s the thing: Ernie wasn’t officially Canadian until late in his life. He was born in Maine, spent some time in the military and studied art, hoping to maybe become a cartoonist. Before Fred Rogers was Thee Mr. Rogers, Ernie worked as a puppeteer on Rogers’ then-merely-local TV show in Pittsburgh. In 1964, the CBC invited Rogers to Toronto to develop a series, Misterogers, which would last three years before he returned to the U.S. to make Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and become the soft-voiced sweatermonger sweetheart we all know and love. Ernie tagged along with his pal Fred, sharing a vision for educational children’s programming, and ended up staying behind in Canada, working on a series called Butternut Square, where the Mr. Dressup character was born, and eventually spun off into his own series in 1967.

And so Mr. Dressup began, first as a scripted series, then as a largely improvised “live to tape” endeavor, a format that Ernie was more comfortable with. Mr. Dressup would frequently hang out with his puppet pals Casey, a purposely gender-ambiguous child, and his dog pal Finnegan; they were puppeteered by Judith Lawrence, who was Ernie’s collaborator for many, many years. Mr. Dressup and that puppet pair became HUGE, and they even took the show on tour for live appearances in between making a gazillion episodes of the series. About now is when the documentary gets really dishy – there’s a whole thing about a Mr. Dressup storyline where Casey wanted soup, and Mr. Dressup gave Casey soup, and then Casey decided they didn’t want soup. SCANDAL!

From here the film works through the history of the series, how it became ubiquitous throughout Canada, how it survived conservative politicians’ slashing of public-TV budgets, how it never changed to be more like the smash hit Sesame Street, how it evolved after Judith left the show – amicably, of course – and took her treasured puppets with her. No, Ernie stuck to his guns, just like Mr. Rogers, insisting his show be calm and quiet and soothing. Lots of people speak on Ernie’s character and Mr. Dressup’s place in Canadian pop culture: his children and coworkers handle the former, while Michael J. Fox, members of Barenaked Ladies, Bif Naked and others testify to the latter. Your heart warmed yet? 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The documentaries-about-beloved-kids-TV-series subgenre began with Mr. Rogers bio Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, continued with Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street and continues with Mr. Dressup. What’s next? The Life and Times of Captain Kangaroo? Bozos I Have Known? An epic Great Space Coaster exposé?

Performance Worth Watching: Judith Lawrence’s story might be more compelling than Ernie’s – she’s identified as a feminist who purposely made Casey non-binary before the term even existed, and rooted out and eliminated stereotypes in Mr. Dressup.  

Memorable Dialogue: “It’s a rare thing that someone devotes their whole life to something, lives up to everyone’s expectations of them, goes out completely classy and graceful, and is untarnished.” – Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson sums up Mr. Dressup’s wholesomeness

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: It’s pretty nice to see a sweet guy get some well-deserved love for being a part of Canada’s cultural fabric for decades. Funny, how Mr. Dressup became gigantic purely on the power of personality – there’s no mention of merchandise sales or branding or any of the exploitative measures that would become the stuff of crass capitalist franchise-building. That’s the subtext of the Mr. Dressup story; he’s a man, not a logo, and comes off as an approachable, humble celebrity.

Again, the documentary has nary a single bad thing to say or reveal about its subject, and maybe there are none. It may be a justifiable hagiography. Director Robert McCallum clearly targets Mr. Dressup admirers as his audience, since nostalgia is the key tool in his narrative toolbox. Those unfamiliar with the series and character (myself included) will find themselves yearning for greater context – it’s almost as if McCallum assumes his audience knows the topic reasonably well already. The film neglects to include any statistics that illustrate how wide-ranging Mr. Dressup’s popularity was, and continues to be; we’re left with the loosey-goosey assumption that, hey, if Michael J. Fox is a fan, Mr. Dressup must be pretty influential. It’s a sweet film, even if it sometimes feels sketchy and incomplete.

Our Call: STREAM IT. On one hand, The Magic of Make-Believe is soft, feelgood journalism, an endearing tribute that plays like a medium-vague Wikipedia entry. On the other, it makes the world seem like a little better place because Mr. Dressup was in it, so let’s just go with that sentiment. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.