Rothesay native working on Mr. Dressup documentary | CBC News

Children’s television icon Mr. Dressup is returning to the screen next year, along with Casey and Finnegan, and many of the folks who worked behind the scenes on the beloved program, which aired in Canada from 1967 to 1996.

“This is gonna feel like a big warm hug,” said Mark Bishop, a Toronto producer and Rothesay native working on a documentary about the show for Prime Video and CBC.

“There’s just so much love and warmth,” said Bishop, a co-founder of marblemedia, one of the companies working on the project.

“It really is an incredible, special story.”

The feature-length film will celebrate the life of Ernie Coombs, said Bishop, who describes Coombs as “a really remarkable individual who really had such an impact on generations of Canadians.”

Mr. Dressup inspired many people to be themselves and be kind, said Bishop, with his “power of positivity.”

“I want people to celebrate and feel that love and kindness and pass it on to the world the way Ernie would do,” he said.

“To share the kindness, to share the love, to be creative, to be yourself. All of those great values that we grew up with. Let’s make sure we hold on to them and pass them on.

“As Canadians we should be proud of that. It is a part of our history.” 

Besides starring in more than 4,000 episodes of the show, Coombs toured the country many times and met countless fans, young and old.

But one thing people may not know about him, said Bishop, and that the documentary will explore, was his friendship with another famous children’s entertainer.

“Fred Rogers was the best man at Ernie’s wedding, was the godfather to Ernie’s kids. I mean, they really had a beautiful bond.” 

The two of them were also good friends with another popular children’s entertainer of the day, Fred Penner, who would sometimes appear on Mr. Dressup to play music.

“They all had this wonderful friendship,” said Bishop. “They really supported one another.”

Music was a really important part of the show, said Bishop, and it was played live during every 25-minute episode.

“They had to play that music every single time and hope that they didn’t play a wrong note.”

The soundtrack will include a new version of the theme song, he said.

The documentary will also include “never-before-seen” archival footage, according to Prime Video, as well as fresh interviews being filmed this fall with show contributors such as puppeteers, members of the Coombs family and “notable Canadians.”

“I don’t think they’ve ever realized the impact that they had on Canadians,” said Bishop.

Coombs died in 2001.

His family members think he’d “be so tickled by this,” Bishop said.

This is a story Bishop has wanted to tell “for a really long time.” 

Meeting Coombs at a Woolco store record signing in Saint John was a formative moment for him when he was five-and-a-half years old.

“My mom tells the story that basically the entire way home I was asking questions. How did Mr dress up get from the TV? And is there no TV show today? How are they doing it?”

“My eyes were lit up. I was like, wait a second. There’s an industry in television. People make TV shows. I should find out about that.”

From there his journey went from making home movies with a camera rented from the grocery store, to working with the KV Players amateur theatre group, running a TV production summer camp for kids and starting a deejay/sound business.

He met Coombs again when he came to give a guest lecture at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson), where Bishop was studying television production.

“He was exactly the same wonderful person,” said Bishop.

“It didn’t matter that the cameras were off.”

Coombs told him he had fond memories of nice people he’d met on the East Coast.

Bishop said he got another look behind the scenes at making television at the former CHSJ television station in Saint John during the Empty Stocking Fund telethon.

After he moved to Toronto for school, he volunteered at CBC and worked on the Rita MacNeil show.

He co-founded marblemedia in 2001.

One of their first hits was This is Daniel Cook, a show about a seven-year-old boy who has adventures and learns about new things, such as taekwondo or the YMCA, in every six-minute episode.

It ran on the TreeHouse and Disney networks and has been distributed to more than 85 countries in 14 languages.

They also did an outdoor competition series called Splatalot, that sold around the world.

These days, one of their most successful shows is a Netflix series on glass blowing called Blown Away, now in its third season.

But the one Bishop says he’s “most proud of,” is Race Against the Tide, because it was filmed in New Brunswick.

The Mr. Dressup documentary is expected to launch on Amazon Prime Video at some point next year, he said, and will later air on CBC Television.