Uncle Hack and his Danger Cats comedy troupe partners, Sam Walker and Brett Forte, have been banned from venues, canceled from shows and faced protests and media smears for their unique and hilarious brand of oil-patch humor. The enemies of laughter according to Uncle Hack are Left wing-activists, pandering politicians and the media who have sought to cancel and profit from his group’s shows.
The Danger Cats sold out live performances and trending social media content have a wildly successful following in spite of the many attempts to silence their based take on Canadian society in the face of the so-called pandemic, the mainstream media, and woke culture.
As a recent featured guest on the GWU! podcast ‘Censoring Palestinian Pride,’ Uncle Hack lifts the curtain on the current state of comedy in communist Canada with an unredacted view.
What’s the main controversy around the Danger Cats?
Right now there’s a sentiment that we’re anti-indigenous, racist, misogynistic, white nationalists, so it’s quite interesting because none of us are that.
Right. We’ve seen your comedy and can obviously see that. Anyone who spends five minutes looking into The Danger Cats can figure that out. What were the beginning incidents where your comedy came up against these baseless charges?
Since the inception of Danger Cats, prior to me even doing stand-up, there’s always been a tad of controversy surrounding us just for the nature of the content that I’ve been doing. It’s always been kind of, I guess to say, degenerate oil-field type content. So that’s always drawn a crowd that’s against that. But once stand-up hit, the controversy, well that kind of comes from it. I was in a roast-battle, two years ago, and one joke has really followed me around and that got the ball rolling here again in 2024. Then another one of the members, Sam Walker had made a T-shirt and that caused, uh, the national uproar.
This is the bacon t-shirt linked to Robert Pickton?
Yes.
What was the joke that has been following you around?
It was a joke where I referenced residential schools to a woman spitting out jizz.
Okay. That’s a peculiar one for it to be following you around. How have you handled that? Did you double down on it, backtrack? Have you just ignored it?
Well, you know we as a group come together and we’re comedians, I’m not apologizing for a joke, especially when the joke isn’t what the media is portraying it to be. They’re saying that I made fun of residential schools. That’s not the case. I referenced them as like, uh, it’d be like a point of reference saying that this woman spits, a lot of it.
Are you bothered by it?
Just like, well, there are some factors that are bothersome. So is the, you know, the lies and the slander against us are definitely bothersome. But apart from comedy, I’m not going to apologize for doing stand-up. I was performing on a stage. I wasn’t at a rally. I wasn’t screaming this in a derogatory way towards anybody that is indigenous. Or doing anything that I would deem inappropriate. It was in a comedy club. The setting was a roast battle. So we were there to say egregious things towards one another and we did so.
It sounds like you entered, the live kind of sphere, when all this kind of stuff was kicking off unless I mistaken. Or did you have a career in comedy before?
No, I definitely got into stand-up when this was happening. I’ve only been doing it now for roughly four years.
Great timing.
Yeah, especially during a pandemic it was tough to get to Mics and there were rules and stipulations on shows and there were a lot of roadblocks put in front. But I’ve always really wanted to do this. So I guess it just made the journey more interesting.
What are some of the differences in doing live comedy vs. recorded viral videos?
Well, live, you get to find out in real time whether it’s funny or not and if what you’re saying is connecting with the audience. Are they vibing with you? Where online is … yeah, I can record it and if I don’t like it, I can go back, re-edit it, retool it. There are some similarities but a major difference is … I like it better with a live audience. Because there’s no lies to be told. People are there, they’re in front of you. What you’re saying, might not make sense. It might hit. It might not. It’s just the atmosphere, everything surrounding it. It’s so much more fun whereas the internet is finicky. People that are coming to a stand-up show know. “I’m coming here for stand-up comedy” … where the internet, this might just fall into your feet. And then all of a sudden, “I hate this guy and we gotta be able to cancel all his shows.”
With regards to the cancellations … walk me through when these groups first started coming out and trying to cancel your shows based on previous things that you said that are … not maybe even associated with the show that you’re about to perform. Diversity Thunder Bay comes to mind.
In 2022, we were promoting a roast battle and I used a clip with the joke that has been around. That’s where some of it kicked off. We got two shows canceled on us because of that joke. Then there was like … a mob that was very unpleased with it. That’s kind of where it stemmed from. It started in two years later we were supposed to be going to Winnipeg. And there was a comedian out there who didn’t really agree with the joke and was very vocal about it the first time. Seeing that we were coming to Winnipeg … that’s when it resurfaced.
That’s what kind of got the ball rolling here this year. It is kind of a bummer that it’s another comic and created such a wave. But I mean, hey I believe in free speech in every manner. So, if that’s how they felt about it they can. I don’t necessarily agree with threatening people, or threatening businesses and whatnot due to a joke.
I don’t want to see violence towards citizens going at one another. I think that there’s bigger problems to be had than a joke said on stage.
Who’s the comic that is giving you trouble?
Well, let’s keep that comic’s name (laughs) out of the question. I’d rather them not get any attention, you know.
Is this comic funny?
Not to me. But comedy is subjective so, I can’t say, in general but let’s just say they’re very new.
I noticed that one of the names of your detractors that keeps popping up is Anna Torontow. That’s not a real name is it?
It doesn’t sound real to me. I’m thinking it’s an actor’s name. It is hilarious that Diversity Thunder Bay, the group that claims to be so diverse, is three old white people. Looks like they’re doing an excellent job. Our group as Danger Cats is more diverse.
How is your group more diverse?
Well, Brett’s like fucking Persian or something like that. I don’t know what the hell’s going on there.
Do you think it’s strange that politicians choose bully tactics. It doesn’t seem to be a very effective Boogeyman.
I know. I don’t think so either. And that’s why if you have to resort to these tactics to try and elevate yourself it just makes you look dumber. And I think that more Canadians are waking up to the idea that, you know, things aren’t going that great. People are in jail for protesting. People got their bank accounts taken away. People got trampled at a protest by the RCMP. And that doesn’t look good in the citizens eyes. And that goes for whatever you’re protesting. Even the encampments that have been taking place here in Alberta in Edmonton and Calgary at the University of Calgary and at University of Alberta when these students went out and put up these tents. Politically I maybe don’t agree with them but I don’t think they should get the shit kicked out of them by riot police because they’re trying to get their message out there.
And what would be the difference between the current Liberal administration and a potential Conservative one?
You know what man – I think it’s all fear, personally. There’s pretty much no difference. You get the joy of putting the ballot in the box and you get a feeling like you did something that day when the polls are open, like change is about to happen. And the next career politician gets to work towards his pension, simple as that. It’ll seem good. These bills will get tabled that maybe you agree with more politically if you’re a Conservative. So that way, you know …“our guys are doing this for us!” But the censorship has always been there and it’s never going away. I think that the censorship is going to continue. Just because the Libs brought this up, it’s not just going to go away. Why would you not if you’re in office want to possess the power to censor those that stand against you.
How do you see this style of and continuation of censorship affecting your comedy going forward?
Uh, well. (Laughs) Jail maybe.
Yeah, it’s written down there.
But you know if the Online Harms Act gets passed it could be terrifying times here. You’re seeing it in the UK. A lot of comedy shows censor themselves out of fear of going to prison for not even jokes but just for a singular word. We just had one of our friends over there. He was doing a show when he said ‘Faggot’ and the room died laughing at the word. But after the show, the producer came up and said, “you can’t say that word here.” And he’s like, “what?” And he’s like, “yeah, uh, you say that, you can go to jail.” And he replied, “oh, that’ll be a great credit, going back to Canada saying that I was sent to prison in the UK.” But he responded, “No. It doesn’t end there. If you go to jail, I’ll go to jail too because I’m a producer of the show and I put you up.” So, it’s gone that far.
Was this a big name comic?
No, just a regular name guy you know. He’s not selling out stadiums or nothing like that. I think he’s moved on from comedy because of a lot of this stuff.
So you guys are obviously outliers, but how do you see these censorship laws and this current political climate affecting comedy? At a show that I went to recently I could kind of tell the comic was self-censoring himself. I’d seen him years ago and he was much edgier then. How do you feel that these laws and this type of thinking is affecting comedy other than yours?
I think it’s affected it already. With festivals they’re only looking for a specific type of person. You have to fit. You got to check some boxes to get into most of these festivals because of that. So it causes comics to clean up their material so that way they have a shot to even get in there. And that puts roadblocks in front of a lot of the creative process of how maybe you might write that joke. Nothing against anybody who wants to be clean, that’s your decision to make, but I don’t think that the state should get to influence this by funding a lot of these festivals and putting these roadblocks in front of it by having like uh… there’s booklets of things you cannot say on our show, you know.
There’s rules of engagement on stage and how you can act, what you can say, what you can’t say. The material that’s being said on these shows. So it’s very limited and for some of these guys, these big festivals are a major payday for them. So you’re kind of hanging the carrot in front of their eyes and encouraging them to go that way. So it’s like a double-edged sword in a way.
Are there actual booklets?
Yes. They’re always on most of the comedy festival websites. It’s right there in front of everybody. They have posters all across Green Rooms and whatnot that say this is a diverse space and a safe space. If you hear something, say something. They’re encouraging you to snitch. If dudes are just trying to be funny or messing around … well, the art of ball busting is not really appreciated.
I’m just trying to wrap my head around that.
It’s crazy, it’s weird. But to think that it hasn’t already touched down here, is, nuts. It’s here. It’s present. It’s slowly trying to seep its way into the internet. In some ways we kind of see that anyways. For us I wouldn’t even really say that our show is that edgy. It’s uh, you know, it stems from a clip, from two years ago that caused this. Brett has gone through something similar where he was making fun of just like a situation that happened with a Seek guy and he wasn’t like putting the guy down or anything. He was like putting him up saying he’s a hero and it was about a Seek gentleman that took his turban off to save a woman out of a river that she fell into during winter time. And then that led to like, you know, people going nuts and threatening his career. Threatening him, threatening venues, and he had to go quiet for a while. So, the sensitivity to comedy is quite high here right now.
Even we’ve noticed with some of the more humorous articles (we think they’re humorous), get banned and attacked frequently and it’s curious because we feel, okay, well, what we’re doing is either just a dumb joke or there’s some some deeper meaning that we’re trying to get at behind the sensational gag. Do you think people have lost that ability to have a sense of humour?
Yes. It’s an odd time that we’re living in.
Yeah, but I mean, it’s also a sort of a liberating time as well. Because now, there are very clear lines I would say, I don’t know if you agree, but it’s very clear lines of an almost… I don’t know, I don’t want to say them versus us but it’s like the imposed norm versus the, the actual norm, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I know what you’re saying. It’s like the fantasy world that they’ve built around them and the walls are down. We’re seeing behind the Iron Curtain, truly now. What it’s truly behind it.
How does that apply to say, the Lockdown era?
When it went from two weeks, we’re just gonna chill out and let this thing die to almost two years… Then that really started to change my attitude towards it. In the beginning it got me. I’m not gonna lie. I’ve never been through a pandemic. I don’t know what to expect. But then when I was seeing images of specific items being roped off in dollar stores that you couldn’t purchase. Rules for thee, not for me, were happening. Parties happening with politicians. No travel. But yet they’re getting popped down in Hawaii. That was the real eye opener for me. That didn’t sit, right. And it was like, okay this is all a sham at this point. You know, you’re making it difficult for anybody to survive and masking this with public safety.
Mental.
Mass hysteria, man. They still got a lot of people hook line and sinker that it’s real. Even though health officials have come forward. Dr. Fauci was talking about uh, yeah, no, we just said it was more of a suggestion with the six feet. The lockdowns … people voluntarily did them. No they didn’t. You were threatening them.
No, we didn’t force anybody!
They’re trying to wipe their hands clean. Yet we have folks who bought into this who still say we have to wear a mask in public. You guys are unsafe! It’s crazy, man.
I saw a guy jay walking his bike across a very, very busy six-lane major road with his bicycle this morning. It was very unsafe in the middle of the road. But he had a mask on and a bike helmet. I’m like, what are you doing? What you’re doing right now, is way more dangerous than the invisible virus that you’re afraid of.
Yeah, I’d love to understand the world that these people think they live in.
Let me come back to something here that we were starting to talk about before. Tell me a bit about your style of comedy and what it’s based around. You’re inspirations and so on.
I think it’s just the banter I had with most of my friends and colleagues that I’d work with. Hockey, I’d say is a bit of an influence, like, especially, you know, the banter that takes place in a dressing room, is hilarious. Just kind of the guys I would hang out with growing up. We weren’t like the brochacho guys that were running around, not being high school, bullies, or nothing like that. I kind of hung around the silly dudes that would do anything for a laugh and that was more what we were about.
Where was that happening? Growing up.
Southern Alberta. A small town called, Taber. We were influenced by, you know, CKY was popping back then, Jackass, skateboard culture hockey, you know, like that. Those were our influences and when you blend them all together, we were just small town kids, just looking to pass time by having fun. The internet wasn’t as big as what it is now. So you were still like, outdoors. You were hanging out. You were going, and linking up all summer long. Most of those days were just sitting around bullshitting, making jokes, cracking jokes on one another.
And years pass, you know, you start getting into the workforce and I took a path into the oil patch. There were a lot of similarities there. A lot of ball busting and whatnot. So, you know, anything to get a laugh out of anybody. It’s fun, man. It’s a great way to break the ice with new people. It’s a good way to find common ground with somebody, even if you’re the butt of the joke, it’s still worth it.
How old are you?
33
Would say that people in different age brackets fall into different perspectives on politics and comedy sensibilities?
That’s a good question. I think it’s person to person and your influences growing up. What demographic is around you. Did you grow up in an urban setting? A rural setting? The friends you hang out with. I think it’s a lot of things. And some people change their style of thought, so I guess it’s very different now, you know? We’re not limited in terms of information. With the internet so you can find out anything you really want. You can learn as much shit as you want, where, I don’t know in 19- I guess even like 2001 I remember when we were first kind of getting the internet, web pages weren’t as fast as what they are today. So you kind of just used it for chatting with your friends to go and link up.
There are differences. That’s for sure. You can definitely tell in the 10-year gaps. Christ I don’t even know how to relate to gen Z at times, you know? I’m at that age now where I’m not even cool anymore.
What would you say is the average age and demographic of a Danger Cat audience?
It’s all over the map. Some shows, there’s all young guys there. There’s young dudes and there’s people in their 60s. There is really no particular age that shows up to our shows. It’s a wide demographic that comes.
What’s the most common feedback after a show? What do people come and say to you after a show?
‘This is my first comedy show. I had a blast.’ They enjoyed themselves. ‘I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.’ I hear that quite often, you know, ‘thank you for coming here’, because, you know, like, a lot of these places we go to not … not too many shows go through. We do the major cities of course, but we like the small towns. And the small towns are almost more fun because they’re there because they want to do something. Shows don’t really come around to those parts. So it’s a big event for the town. And we see the town come alive. There’s been numerous cases where local restaurants are full because people are making a night out of it. It’s like a boost in the local economy and it’s nice to know that we have that kind of influence.
Hear Uncle Hack on his podcast and listen to his exclusive GWU! interview for more oil patch humour.
Find out how you can see the Danger Cats live in your area and buy their merch on their website Dangercatsshop.com
