MR. DEE HEADS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM.
REGINA — With his CBC sitcom Mr. D recently renewed for a fifth season, it wouldn’t be surprising to find out that Gerry Dee was confident of the show’s success from Day 1.
That confidence, however, was challenged once Dee actually became involved in bringing the series to life. It turned out making a sitcom was a little more difficult than he imagined.
“I did think we’d have a good run. You don’t go into anything thinking it is going to be a failure,” Dee explained. “Once I did a year, then I wasn’t so confident because I realized how tough it was and how everything relies on ratings.”
In the sitcom, Dee portrays Gerry Duncan — or as he likes to be called, ‘Mr. D’— a bumbling high school teacher. The 46-year-old knows a little about teaching high school as that was his job before he decided to commit full-time to standup comedy in 2005.
He has been a busy man over the past 10 years — in addition to his standup gigs he’s acted in movies, appeared in numerous television commercials and wrote a book — but working on the sitcom was a learning experience for Dee as he grappled with all the ins and outs of the television business.
While he recognizes the role ratings play in the industry, Dee has been adamant he would not allow ratings numbers to dictate or influence how the sitcom was made.
“I said that once to someone at CBC when we were first starting, that I was more concerned about putting something out that we were pleased with rather than putting something out that was about hitting the masses and putting up the numbers,” said Dee.
Dee is busy with the sitcom from April to September, with his standup commitments filling the rest of the year.
Dee estimates half of every crowd are first-timers who know him from Mr. D with the other half being returning fans who enjoy his brand of standup comedy. Dee’s style, while containing adult situations, isn’t obscenity-based or shocking.
“Am I a person who swears a lot? No. Am I a person who swears? Yes. It’s no different on stage,” Dee said. “I don’t do sexual humour. I never have or never will because that’s not me.
“It’s me as a person up on stage and it’s not something that I could do well enough to make it funny for anybody else.”