TORONTO - It must be tough to host a comedy gala when you're sharing the stage with six talented comedians. Especially when they're funnier than you.

Last night, Jason Alexander hosted the second of three galas for the Just For Laughs Toronto Festival. While the two-hour show featured a great mix of comedians, the Seinfeld alumnus turned out to be one of the weaker acts of the evening.

Afterwards, as patrons emptied out of Massey Hall and onto Yonge Street - which was animated with stilt walkers and other street performers for the festival - they could be heard complementing the other comedians: "I thought they were all funnier than Jason Alexander."

It's not that he was bad. He just wasn't as good as the others.

When most of the other comedians poked fun at themselves in creative ways, Alexander chose to fill his act with jokes about Jews and gays. And while none of the jokes were overly offensive, they mostly fell flat.

For example, Alexander, who is Jewish, opened the show talking about the severity of airline security. "I can't do it anymore," he said. "It's an Auschwitz experience."

At his best, he seemed like an easy-going uncle telling jokes around the dinner table. He grabbed the audience with a few jabs at Howie Mandel, host of Deal Or No Deal.

"He's wearing a soul patch on prime-time TV," Alexander quipped. "That's not right. My feeling is, if you're watching a guy with a shaved head, an earring and a soul patch, you're watching porn."

But as soon as Canadian Gerry Dee stepped onto the stage, the host was outshined. Dee, who finished third place on NBC's Last Comic Standing last year, delivered his jokes in a way that made him sound like he was yelling politely. He used to be a high school teacher, so that kind of makes sense.

Wearing a white blazer, Dee had the audience in hysterics as he described his career after appearing on the stand-up talent search show.

"Some people started telling me I was a celebrity when I got back from Last Comic, and I started to believe it. So I set up an autograph signing at HMV in Ajax...the most humiliating 90 minutes of my life. Three people came.

"You are not a celebrity when you have an autograph signing and you still remember the names of the people that came."

Dee's unassuming manner and humourous insights about his parents - such as his father's request for an "email number" - made him the funniest performer of the evening.

Later on in the night, Jeffrey Ross showed why he has earned the nickname "roastmaster" when he started ripping into people right away.

"Jason Alexander...wasn't he good in March of the Penguins?"

Other comedians that performed included Kevin Hart - a regular in the Scary Movie series - who entertained the audience with jokes about being pissed off at his young kids.

American Wendy Liebman pleased the crowd with her quick delivery, and her biggest laugh came when she confessed that she preferred receiving a massage to having sex, "because you can't give yourself a massage."

Comedy veteran Robert Klein brought music to the show, singing songs about uncontrollable limbs and uncomfortable medical procedures.

"Colonoscopy", he sang, "it stirs such feelings inside of me."

And American Robert Schimmel ended the evening with jokes about family vacations. Fathers in the crowd smirked as he talked about taking his daughter swimming with dolphins: "for the amount we're paying, we should be swimming with the Miami Dolphins."

Sun Rating: 3 out of 5