THUNDER BAY – Gerry Dee has always liked making people laugh.
The star of CBC’s long-running comedy Mr. D, currently the host of the wildly popular Family Feud Canada, and one of the top stand-up comedians the country has ever produced, the former hockey player and school teacher finds the spotlight thrilling, a chance to put a smile on people’s faces, but also a challenge to himself, knowing not every joke is going to draw laughs, not every routine is going to resonate with the crowd.
“I love having the floor,” said Dee, who takes to the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium Stage on Friday, May 5, the latest stop on his Best Medicine Tour, promising plenty of laughter as part of his time-tested cure to keep up the spirits of Canadians from coast to coast.
“I love doing something and people responding in a good way. I love seeing people laugh. I love seeing the physical look of that, knowing that I caused that. So once I transitioned into a professional, it was like, now I can get paid doing it.”
Though he began his professional career in the classroom, the 54-year-old says teaching was really just a stepping stone to a life in comedy, a road he was partially pushed down by his students and colleagues at De La Salle College, where he was a physical education teacher and hockey coach.
“When I left teaching, I knew financially where the risk was,” says Dee, recalling the decision to move into the entertainment sphere.
“I was already doing stand-up for about five years, so I was kind of moonlighting as a comic, starting to make some money at corporate (gigs) and clubs and that’s when I left. It wasn’t like I left it for nothing. I already had a bit of an established business going in the stand-up world.”
It led to a Comedy Network special in Canada and a third-place finish on the fifth season of Last Comic Standing, along with roles in The Trailer Park Boys: The Movie and as Wayne Cashman in the CBC miniseries Canada Russia ’72 to follow.
Not surprisingly, Dee’s comedy focuses on things he knows best.
“Things that are just relatable,” he says.
“To me, I’m not a dirty comic. I curse a couple of times, really, just out being in the moment or the bit. But other than that, it’s mostly family, kids, wife, work. Teaching is still a little bit of that. It’s really just my world, as they say.”
While Dee’s career has evolved, in many ways, how he’d envisioned, with stand-up leading to a Canadian comedy show — and now a role as Commissioner Templeton Dudge on Fox’s Animal Control — landing the host role in 2019 on Family Feud Canada came out of the blue.
“It was a quick yes,” Dee says. “It’s been a lot of fun to do the show. It’s a very different scenario. I miss acting. I’m on a new Fox sitcom now, called Animal Control, so I am getting a taste of that world again and I always want more of that.
“But the sitcom was from Day 1, that was always my goal — Ray Romano, Tim Allen, Brent Butt — it was always do what they did, take the stand-up and make it a show. That’s what I did.”
Dee also isn’t ruling out a return to Xavier Academy and his Mr. D role of Gerry Duncan, and if it ever happens, thank social media.
“The clips started taking off on TikTok and it’s starting to blow up again. It ended in 2018 and here we are, people are starting to share the clips. I realize how many clips we had. It was a lot of sharable, funny moments. It would have to be the right who, but it’s something we always chat about. So, we’ll see.”
Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. show are available through Ticketmaster.
