Mr. D

Mr. D
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Gerry Dee Michael Volpe
Starring	Gerry Dee Jonathan Torrens Lauren Hammersley Booth Savage Bette MacDonald Naomi Snieckus Darrin Rose Mark Little Wes Williams Mark Forward
Opening theme	"I'm Awesome" by Spose
Country of origin	Canada
Original language	English
No. of seasons	8
No. of episodes	88 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Gerry Dee Michael Volpe
Production location	Halifax, Nova Scotia
Running time	Approx. 22 minutes
Production companies	Topsail Entertainment Gerard ADHD Entertainment
Original release
Network	CBC
Release	January 9, 2012 (2012-01-09) – December 18, 2018 (2018-12-18)

Mr. D is a Canadian television series starring comedian Gerry Dee. The series follows the misadventures of an under-qualified schoolteacher named Gerry Duncan, nicknamed Mr. D. It debuted on the CBC on January 9, 2012, and concluded after eight seasons on December 19, 2018.

On December 11, 2020, Mr. D became available for streaming in the United States on Amazon Prime Video.

• Gerry Dee as Gerry Duncan:^[1] an under-qualified high school social studies teacher who prefers to be called Mr. D by the children and is jealous when the school's actual Mr. D (Paul Dwyer) returns to Xavier Academy. During season 8, he is promoted to the role of principal of Xavier Academy.
• Jonathan Torrens as Robert Cheeley:^[2] Robert is the vice principal of the school but his bizarre character traits make it difficult for his colleagues to respect him. He becomes co-principal with Lisa in season 6 and sole principal at the end of season 6. In Season 8, he is co-vice-principal with Mr. Dwyer.
• Lauren Hammersley as Lisa Mason:^[3] a competent and responsible former teacher and principal, known for her traditional teaching style. She has a Masters in Education and a PhD in Medieval literature. In the seventh season, she is the school guidance counselor.
• Bette MacDonald as Trudy Walsh:^[4] the school secretary who runs much of the day-to-day business at Xavier Academy.
• Naomi Snieckus as Bobbi Galka:^[5] the confident and respected PE teacher at Xavier Academy.
• Darrin Rose as Bill Cogill:^[6] Gerry's roommate and a womanizing bachelor who works as the local bartender, until the bar closes in the final season. He then runs a smoothie bar at Xavier Academy.
• Mark Little as Simon Hunt:^[7] the science teacher of the school, he is weak and a typical science geek who is also assistant coach of the girls' basketball team.
• Wes Williams as Paul Dwyer:^[8] Paul is cool and loved by all the teachers, and was the original Mr. D to the children before he left. During the final season, he is the co-vice-principal of Xavier Academy with Robert Cheeley. Gerry is often jealous of Dwyer and feels that he is in competition with him.
• Suresh John as Malik:^[9] the mysterious school custodian with an unusual history.
• Kathleen Phillips as Emma Terdie:^[10] Emma is the librarian who runs a tight ship and demands that rules are followed and that things are always done by the book in her library.
• Bill Wood as Frank:^[11] the school's guidance counselor and assistant basketball coach to Mr. D. He uses crutches to walk.
• Emma Hunter as Nisha Corcoran, who is hired in season 5 to replace Mr. D when he's fired by Ms. Mason. She has a relationship with Mr. Hunt.
• Booth Savage as Principal Mike Callaghan from season 1 to season 4. He retires at the end of season 4 to be replaced by one of the teachers, Lisa Mason.

Creator, writer, executive producer and star Gerry Dee based Mr. D on his ten years teaching physical education in high school before he left for a career in stand-up comedy in 2003.^[12][13] The pilot episode was directed by Steve Wright and produced by Gerry Dee and Michael Volpe.^[14] The show is filmed on location at Citadel High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia.^[15]

Mr. D was renewed for a third season on April 3, 2013, and for a fourth season on April 4, 2014.^[16]

For the fourth season, the CBC included the series in a production deal with City.^[17] Under the deal, Mr. D and City's new sitcom Young Drunk Punk will each air on their own originating network in the winter of the 2014–15 television season, then swap networks for a second run in the fall of the 2015–16 season.^[17]

The CBC announced that Mr. D had been renewed for a fifth season in a press release dated March 4, 2015.^[18]

16 February 2016, the CBC announced "Mr. D" had been renewed for a sixth season in a press release.^[19]

On April 6, 2017 Dee confirmed the show had been renewed for a seventh season.^[20]

On March 11, 2018 the show was renewed for an eighth season. Dee confirmed this would be the show's last.^[21][22]

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Canadian viewers (millions)
81	1	"Big in Japan"	Gerry Dee	Gerry Dee	November 1, 2018 (2018-11-01)	N/A
Continuing from the previous season finale, the "Insider's Look" exposé on Gerry costs him his job and makes it impossible to get a new one, so he has no choice but to get as far away as he can to start a new life in Japan, leaving Xavier behind. However, after the Board of Directors want to do damage control and make the "Insider's Look" look like "fake news", Robert must bring Gerry back from Japan or risk being fired from the Board. Meanwhile, after Emma claims she was once a gymnast destined for the Olympics 20 years ago, Lisa goes out of her way to prove Emma is lying.
82	2	"Finnished Teaching"	Steve Wright	Gerry Dee	November 8, 2018 (2018-11-08)	N/A
When Gerry's officially introduced as Xavier's new principal, the staff's obvious disappointment leads Gerry to try and gain their trust by making some drastic moves he thinks everyone can appreciate. However, his proposal to adopt the Finnished School System proves to be challenging to Gerry's work life balance. After Nisha is scolded for not being able to play with a student's emotional support dog, she gets one of her own that causes problems at Xavier. After Barrels declares bankruptcy, Bill proposes to Robert to start a smoothie bar at Xavier.
83	3	"Breaking Slime"	Marsh Horodyski	Shebli Zarghami	November 15, 2018 (2018-11-15)	N/A
Slime is all the rage across Xavier, leading Gerry to ban it. Gerry also learns, however, that slime is actually a pretty lucrative business... and his ban just created a vacuum, which prompts him to recruit Simon, Amanda-Susan and the primary students into his enterprise. After becoming co-vice principals, Dwyer and Robert have a lottery to determine what students they will be responsible to deal with. Lisa gets a blonde dye job and Bobbi cannot explain why she finds herself suddenly attracted to Lisa.
84	4	"Mister D"	Gerry Dee	Dane Clark	November 22, 2018 (2018-11-22)	N/A
Gerry is approached by a producer who wants to use Xavier as a backdrop for a movie, but he gets too caught up in the details to see the big picture: they're filming a porn at Xavier. Lisa becomes jealous that Lucy is taking Bill's career advice at the Smoothie Bar, which prompts her to try and provide better advice as the Guidance Counsellor. After Emma takes Nisha to a magic show, Emma then expects repayment for the tickets that she actually received for free.
85	5	"Security Threat"	Michael Volpe	Jason Packer & Shebli Zarghami	November 29, 2018 (2018-11-29)	N/A
After a near life-and-death experience, Gerry doesn't believe the staff care if he's in mortal peril, so he stages a threat against him prompting Robert to rehire Ron as his security guard. Nisha once again intervenes in advice to Dwyer to break up with Donna, which Nisha fears that her life is in danger when Donna breaks out of prison and comes for Nisha. Frank starts to irritate Dave, the Economics Teacher. Guest appearances: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir as themselves.
86	6	"The Dwyer Way"	Linsey Stewart	Linsey Stewart	December 5, 2018 (2018-12-05)	N/A
When Gerry realizes how poorly he's been taking care of himself, he adopts Dwyer's strict diet. Diets require the kind of discipline Gerry lacks. Nisha tries recruiting Lisa, Bobbi and Emma to go to an Escape Room on Friday night, but when Lisa, Bobbi and Emma rescind their plans, Nisha makes all stops to get out of going to the Escape Room when it's only Frank and the lesser known staff members who are eager to go. Robert tells Trudy that staff believe she's mean, so he needs her to turnaround if she wants a raise on her performance review, so Trudy becomes so nice, it starts to creep out the rest of Xavier's staff.
87	7	"Wedding Story"	Keith Samples	Michael Volpe	December 12, 2018 (2018-12-12)	N/A
Bobbi and Robert's wedding day is approaching, which Gerry looks into online dating for his plus 1. Bill gives Gerry advice to go online and find a date. After speaking to Trudy, Gerry checks his spam mail and reaches out a Klaudia from Poland. After she flies to meet Gerry, he learns Frank can speak Polish, so unknown to Gerry, Bill is trying to woo Klaudia. Nisha is depressed that Simon hasn't proposed, so she takes advice seeing Bobbi proposed to Robert, so she asks Simon's mom for her blessing to marry Simon. Nisha finds out that Simon's mom ran off with him, which Simon attempts to reach out to her leaving it unknown whether they tied the not over an iPad. In the end, Frank and Klaudia run off and steal Gerry's RV to ride off to the sunset. Bill reveals to Gerry he's made business deals to open smoothie bars in private schools across the country and hugs Gerry for the first time before leaving the series.
88	8	"Parting Gift"	Keith Samples	Gerry Dee	December 19, 2018 (2018-12-19)	N/A
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Nisha, depressed that another year is ending, tries to find methods to transform her emotional pain letting go her emotional attachment with students all year before the summer break and the departing graduate class. In the process, Nisha uses a gong after stopping in her hearing from using a gong to help ease her nerves. Lisa feeling dejected being overqualified as a guidance counselor agrees to accompany Brandon to the University where she graduated to help him cope with his anxiety only to get a lucrative offer for a professor position based on her credentials. Lisa finds true love with a former classmate allowing her to finally find happiness after having the roughest years of her life after joining Xavier prompting her to resign. All the while, Gerry is challenged by the graduating class, who he started teaching in grade 5 in the series premiere, to provide them a parting gift that they’ll remember him. Gerry seeks to do it better than the principals before him. Gerry plans on outdoing his predecessors, which he’s encouraged to break the world record for the largest time capsule using a dumpster. His contribution is that he believes he no longer needs his Bachelor of Education now that he's principal, so he throws it in the dumpster. Along the way, students and staff contribute to the time capsule, which revisits gags from previous episodes. Eventually, Gerry has the students digging up Xavier's grounds to bury the time capsule dumpster, only to stumble upon human bones prompting the local authorities to shut the school down indefinitely. With Xavier now closed and the students now on their way, the remaining staff realize their fates: Lisa reveals Frank sent them a disgusting postcard after taking off in the previous episode; Simon returns revealing he's on the run from his mother after trying to break away from her permanently, as he returns to take off with Nisha into the sunset; since Robert is actually rich and doesn’t really need the job, he and Bobbi are set anyhow, so they walk off together; Dwyer confesses that despite Donna's anger issues, this all works out as they got back together and already is planning to move closer to the prison where she's incarcerated, so this works out for him, as "every day is a holiday"; Lisa boasts she already resigned is above them all now and is in love; Emma reveals she's crowning and going into labour for seven hours, which Lisa agrees to take her to the hospital; Trudy is finally bored of all this nonsense, so she's glad to finally walk off; leaving Malik who plans to finally meet his long-lost sister in Des Moines and is the only one who comforts and hugs Gerry goodbye with the parting words to keep the school clean. In the end, Gerry realizes he's got nothing now (as Bill left in the previous episode), so he walks off trying to figure out where and what he’ll do next.

The first episode of the show was watched by 1.23 million viewers, which was the biggest midseason debut for the CBC 2011–12 season.^[23]

On October 31, 2015, Gerry Dee and Mr. D co-creator Michael Volpe announced an agreement had been signed with Will Arnett's newly formed TV production company, Electric Avenue, to develop an American version of the show for American network CBS.^[38]

Dee revealed the initial contact with Will Arnett came from a friend of a friend who went to school with Arnett. He stated that there had been small interest from American television in the past, but this was the first serious proposal to get an American version of the show up.^[39]

Dee and Volpe originally pitched the show as an American reboot with Dee reprising his role. However, CBS was looking to use the show as a vehicle for an American star with Dee and Volpe getting executive producer credits. Veteran comedic actor Tom Arnold had been signed to the title role. CBS also mentioned hiring Tom Hertz as showrunner. Hertz was previously executive producer of popular American sitcoms Spin City and The King of Queens.^[39]

While Dee understands a show about his life as a teacher before he became a comedian will be adapted to suit American audiences, with changes including a multi-camera American sitcom system rather than the single camera Canadian system, he hopes the American version will retain Mr. D's mix of character humour, physical comedy and authenticity, along with its use of talented young actors for students instead of 25-year-olds playing teenagers.^[39][40]

• Official website
• Mr. D at IMDb