With a title like “Becoming Santa,” Jeff Myers and Jack Sanderson’s crowd-pleasing new film sounds like a Hollywood comedy  what it is, minus the Hollywood part, but don’t confuse this for a Tim Allen vehicle. Instead it’s a wonderful documentary about the Christmas mascot and what it takes to represent him to kids -- sorry, I mean children -- all over the world.

Sanderson, a former producer’s assistant, writer and voice actor for Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place,” produced the doc and appears as its protagonist in the typical experiment-format narrative. Another name for the film could have been “Santa Claus Me,” as the man attempts to rediscover the holiday spirit by dying his hair and beard, dressing up, taking a special course (where you can’t say the ‘k’ word: “kids”) and then eventually playing Santa for special events and charities.

Along the way, as these sorts of documentaries are best to do, “Becoming Santa” sprinkles about the history of and facts on its subject matter. Think you know all there is to know about the origins, controversies and cultural depictions of Saint Nicholas, aka Sinterklaas, aka Father Christmas? There is probably much you’re unfamiliar with, particularly the bounty of info provided by a jolly old Civil War historian and details of the first department store Santa.  Not everything is covered, for sure, but it still provides a great scope of background on the legendary character.