His name has gotten shorter as his career has expanded.
He started out in life named Gerard Donoghue.
When he became a phys-ed teacher at his own former high school in Scarborough, he was called Mr. Donoghue.
When he was the hockey coach for De La Salle College in Toronto he was Coach Gerry.
When he became a standup comedian and got a spot on The Score sports network doing partially real but significantly humour-slathered celebrity sports interviews, he was Gerry Dee.
When he got an acting part on the television miniseries about the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey clash, the name on the back of his jersey was Cashman (he played Boston Bruins great Wayne).
When CBC-TV made him the eponymous star of a sitcom about a hilariously thinking-impaired school teacher, he and the character became Mr. D.
One and all are coming to Prince George to meet the public at Vanier Hall on January 30.
"We've been very fortunate to have these four years of the TV show, but I have to make sure the bills are paid, you can't assume things about the future, so we are going on tour. It's my first time ever, coming to Prince George," said D.
Er, Dee.
The show is an award winner (Best Comedy Show at the Canadian Comedy Awards), as is he. He was the 2013 recipient of the Canadian Screen Awards trophy for best actor in a recurring comedic role, but that's just the latest. He won first place at the famed San Francisco International Comedy Competition in 2002, becoming the first Canadian in its history to do that. He earned TV spots on Just For Laughs in Montreal, the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, was a guest on Star Search with Arsenio Hall and did a segment on The Late Late Show with host Craig Kilborn.
His career arch started getting steep when he won third place on NBC's television series Last Comic Standing (Season 5), and also got a high-profile role in the Trailer Park Boys movie.
It was about then that he got his recurring role on The Score as an interviewer of sports stars - interviews that didn't ever seem to go the way standard Q-and-As typically go. His wry, ironic and faux self-unaware personality made for hilarious awkwardness. Imagine Buddy The Elf asking questions of the hottest hockey star or major league manager.
The segments came to an end when The Score was purchased by Sportsnet (owned by Rogers Communications).
"Those were great experiences, there's no doubt," Dee said. "I'll never forget those amazing events I got to cover and the amazing people I got to meet. I think there's still a place for that. I'm still in touch with some of the Sportsnet people. I've mentioned to them that I'd love to do it. I hope they see a way to bring it back."
Dee isn't just a bystander in the sports realm. He is a quality golfer and played university-level hockey. When he got to play a big part of the NHL Awards events in Las Vegas in 2009, he may have been Canada's happiest person, and from there it was a short trip to the host's chair for the TV special Canada's Smartest Person.
But you can't convince anyone you're the smartest person of anything if you haven't even written a book. So he wrote a book. He called it Teaching: It's Harder Than It Looks. He was somewhat stunned when it sold in excess of 30,000 copies and counting, especially since he was somewhat out of his creative element.
"When you write for a stand-up show, you have to get to the laugh quickly. When you're writing for a book there is more space to explain things and move a story along," he said. "I wish I could be there to hear people laughing when they read the book, but that would be creepy for them. Maybe me, too. I do get people telling me that they do that, that the book made them laugh out loud, and to me that's just an amazing compliment and I think that's an accomplishment when you think about how people read.
"It's a much different way of taking in humour compared to a live stage environment or watching a TV show."
He gets the instant feedback of a live audience at the smattering of dates on his 2015 tour schedule. It isn't an epic junket across the frozen north: fewer than 25 scheduled dates between now and the end of spring. He is careful and conscious about keeping family time blocked off.
"I've got two kids, and they're young, so I want to be there for that period of their life. It goes by quickly," he said.
Then it's back into the view of the cameras for the making of the next season of Mr. D.
"We film in Halifax in the summer," he said. "We need to have an empty school, of course, so we can't film when classes are in session. We do it in Halifax because that's where [producer Michael Volpe, who was also involved in Trailer Park Boys, Moving Day, Afghan Luke, etc.] has his production base. That's his thing. But I love being in Halifax, it's just a fantastic city."
He will be in ours in about two weeks.
Tickets for the standup show (special guest Graham Chittenden is also on the bill) are on sale now via Ticketmaster or online by following the links at the Gerry Dee website.
