Angel >> Mr. Dressup Ernie Coombs, better known to generations of Canadian TV watchers as Mr. Dressup, died on Tuesday morning at the age of 73. Beloved by hundreds of thousands of children since he first went on the air with his own show in 1967, Mr. Dressup had a quiet, respectful approach to children's entertainment, which at one time was a hallmark of CBC programming. Alas, Mr. Dressup, Casey and Finnegan join the Friendly Giant, Rusty the Rooster, Jerome the Giraffe, Chez Hélène Baillargeon and Suzy the Mouse in the big Tickle Trunk in the sky.

Insect >> The death of Saturday Night After 114 years, the venerated national magazine has been killed, axed along with much of the now-CanWest-owned National Post. A victim of the Post's new fiscal responsibility, having lost an estimated $200-million over three years, Saturday Night never really found its legs as a weekly insert. Its high production costs and lack of advertising made it a white elephant, but it did produce some excellent journalism and had many fine regular writers and features. The magazine has been in dire trouble before, though, so let's hope it somehow gets resurrected again.