Mr. Dressup is a Canadian children's television series, starring Ernie Coombs, a former understudy of Fred Rogers, in the title role. It ran on CBC from 1967 to 1996, soon becoming an iconic presence in Canadian media.
Overview
Mr. Dressup is a Canadian children's television series, starring Ernie Coombs, a former understudy of Fred Rogers, in the title role. It originally ran on CBC from 1967 to 1996, soon becoming an iconic presence in Canadian media.
Production
Mr. Dressup was developed and produced by Daniel McCarthy, who later became the head of children's programming for CBC Television, as a replacement for Butternut Square, on which Mr. Dressup had been a featured character.
Premise
The series starred the actor Ernie Coombs as Mr. Dressup. The show aired every weekday morning, Mr. Dressup would lead children through a series of songs, stories, arts, crafts and imagination games, with the help of his puppet friends - a child named Casey and a dog named Finnegan - who lived with him and often played in the tree-house in Mr. Dressup's backyard. Some critics likened the series to the American series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which started being broadcast a year later in 1968 on the U.S. network PBS and was produced by Coombs' former professional associate, Fred Rogers. Judith Lawrence was the puppeteer who created Casey and Finnegan, along with other occasional puppet visitors such as Alligator Al and Aunt Bird.
