He was born in Lewiston, Maine in 1927. After he finished school at the North Yarmouth Academy he decided to find work entertaining children. He first started learning how to do this when he moved to Canada in 1963 and started working for Fred Rogers on an early version of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood". This show was on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV channel. After Rogers moved back to the United States in 1964 Coombs stayed in Canada. His next work was on a TV show called "Butternut Square" which was on TV from 1964 to 1967.