TORONTO – Canadian comedian Gerry Dee has a big year ahead of him, with his own sitcom set to launch on CBC-TV in January, as well as a cross-Canada tour and a planned DVD and book release.
While the former contestant of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” has plenty to boast about when it comes to his comedy career these days, there was a time when he was shy about his standup, he says, noting it was during his days as a high school teacher in Toronto.
“That was a real secretive thing at first,” Dee, 42, said in a recent phone interview from his Toronto home, where he lives with his wife and two young children.
“I’m a fairly clean comic now; I was squeaky clean when I started because I would be so afraid that kids would show up, or parents. And I was teaching at a really reputable, private Catholic school. I also wasn’t the type of person to swear in my regular life that much, and it wasn’t like I was hiding anything, but I remember it being embarrassing that people started finding out.
“I was coaching hockey and the parents were like, ‘I heard you’re a comedian,’ and it was like I was afraid to admit it.”
Dee, who was born Gerard Donoghue, riffs on that part of his life in his current “Life After Teaching” Canadian tour and new DVD of the same name, which is slated for release in January.
He’s also writing a book about his days in the classroom, with the working title “Teaching: It’s Harder Than It Looks” and a release date of next October.
Dee’s teaching days are also the basis of his sitcom, “Mr. D,” which is set to premiere Jan. 9 (at 8 p.m. ET) on CBC.
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Filmed in July and August in Halifax, the 12-episode series sees Dee playing an exaggerated version of himself as a teacher, a career he held down for a decade until 2003.
Co-stars include Jonathan Torrens (“Jonovision,” “Trailer Park Boys”), Wes Williams (a.k.a. rapper Maestro), Mark Little of “Pinicface,” and Gemini Award winners Booth Savage and Bette MacDonald.
The show has “a bit of an edge to it” and has the look and feel of “The Office,” said Dee, who played Donny in “Trailer Park Boys: The Movie” and had a weekly sports segment on The Score network.
“It’s primarily about my character, who is teaching subjects that he doesn’t know, and is just trying to get through the day and pretend he knows and be (the students’) buddy and be their friend.”
Such was Dee’s experience in real life, too.
With a degree in physical education, Dee found himself outside of his comfort zone when he first became a full-time teacher and had to cover the subjects of history and geography for three years.
“You have to understand, I was teaching Grade 12 history, and normally a teacher teaching Grade 12 history kind of embedded their lives in history and they read a lot and they took it in university – and I didn’t,” said the Toronto native, who also details the experience in his 2007 live concert DVD, “No Reading Ahead.”
“I was a good teacher, I was good at managing the class and discipline, but I didn’t know the stuff so I just prayed kids didn’t read ahead.”
Dee recalls one kid in particular asking him about the ancient Mayan civilization.
“I didn’t know what the Mayans were. I couldn’t say that, though. I had to pretend I did (know) but I didn’t want to tell him, I wanted him to figure it out. It was just a chance for me to go home and look it up myself,” he recalled.
“Then you’d come in the next day and you’d talk about it like you were a Mayan, you were so confident. And then they’d have another question, deeper than what you’d read, and you’re like, ‘OK, gee, I didn’t look into that.’
“It was just a vicious cycle of like, ‘Oh God, smart kids.’ When you don’t know the subject, smart kids are not fun to teach.”
Dee developed tricks to help himself, though. When he marked tests, for instance, he would always tackle the smart kids’ papers first.
“Just because I knew the question didn’t mean I knew the answer, so I would just mark the smartest kid in my class, some kid that’s probably a doctor now or is going to be a lawyer in the Supreme Court, and I’d mark his first and then that would become my answer sheet,” he said.
Dee eventually landed his coveted position as the school’s athletic director. He also got heavily into coaching and ran a hockey school in the city.
Many of his former students now come out to his standup gigs, he said.
“It’s always the kids I like that show up,” he said with a laugh.
“I wish the kids that I didn’t like would show up so I can rip into them in front of everybody.”
Dee said he’s also asked to speak about his teaching experiences at universities, which he finds bizarre.
“It’s like, ‘You realize I wasn’t that good, right?'” he said with another laugh.
“But I’m honest, and that’s the thing. When I speak at teachers’ conferences, I say what they want to say but they can’t, and I can now say it because I’m done.”
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