Sean Cullen is hard to miss. In the past year he's hosted his own show on CBC, appeared in his own Comedy Central special and on Royal Canadian Air Farce, had a bit part on the sitcom Patti and has popped up repeatedly on The Tonight Show. He has also hosted more awards shows and specials than most people would ever willingly watch - fronting The Phil Hartman Awards, the WGC Top Ten Awards, the 20th anniversary of Just For Laughs and last year's Geminis.

Cullen will be back at the Gems in October - about the same time he makes his gala musical debut in the Toronto version of The Producers - and for this, the 18th edition of Canada's top TV honors, his Dream Square Entertainment company will help run things backstage.

But hosting shows, as Cullen recently explained to Playback, is tough work. Is he a consummate showman, or a glutton for punishment? Canada's answer to Bob Hope or Billy Crystal?

Why do you do so many hosting gigs?

I don't know. I guess it's because I can. It's hard to find people willing to do them and word gets around.

Really? Why won't other people do them?

They're kind of the hardest crowds in the world. It's a very anxious night. Everybody's quite worried about if they're going to win or lose, and if they don't win, then you've got 80% of the crowd not happy by the end of the show. If someone can do that and amuse everyone and make sitting through an awards show a little less painful, then everybody kind of jumps on them.

It's very daunting. But as long as you're respectful, a little bit cheeky but not too vicious, people won't take themselves too seriously.

Last year was a rough year for the Geminis - they drew poor ratings and mixed reviews. Why did you come back?

I think the Geminis are always struggling with that kind of stuff, that they're not slick enough or whatever. But I don't think anything I did drew ire from the media. I think what started it off badly last year was the press conference - the presentation seemed to go all awry and it got off on a bad note. But the actual show went off really well last year. I think I did a good job.

Will you do anything different?

We're going to try to improve on what we did last year, to bring a little bit of humor and fun to the show. We had a big musical number so we'll do that again and hopefully make it bigger.

How much control do you have over the show as a whole?

As the production company, we pretty much approve what's going to happen, but CBC and the Academy have the final say. The presenters are out of my hands. They're going to do however well or bad they're going to do, but I approve the whole script and I'm in on the writing. I have two guys writing it - Jason Belleville and Adam Sternbergh - who wrote with me last year. So we'll have a little more control that way.

Do you prefer to always work with the same people?

Once you find good people, especially writers, you want to keep them. Jason and Adam really get me and understand the way I think and the way I speak and they really can produce some very funny stuff. With writers there's a comfort level - a give and take that's hard to find.