Woke Mob Cancels Danger Cats
Comedy trio appears unclear on meaning of a 'killer set.'
Jokes and cats are a big part of what's made Wonkette the esteemed blog of record it is today, so the news that comedy clubs in Canada and the US are currently canceling shows by a group called Danger Cats caught our attention.
Danger Cats — Brendan Blacquier, Brett Forte, and Sam Walker — are edgelord wannabes from Alberta whose brand of comedy appears to specialize in punching down, and last month a Yuk Yuk's in Winnipeg called off a performance after footage emerged of Forte sparring with a woman who objected to a joke about unmarked graves at former special prisons residential schools where generations of Indigenous children were kidnapped to.
“You clearly are not native,” the unamused woman pointed out.
“Actually I am First Nations,” Forte responded. “Not ancestrally, I just live and sleep in a Jeep Grand Cherokee.”
Brett Forte is clearly no Will Forte when it comes to comedy chops although, to be fair, the joke was partly at his own expense by suggesting he lives in a car. Which may even be true.
But Danger Cats may have reached their ninth lives after it came out they were selling swag celebrating serial killer Robert “Willy” Pickton before an upcoming show in Vancouver.
T-shirts showing a grinning Pickton and the slogan “Over 50 Flavors of Hookery Smoked Bacon” selling for $34.69 CAD — har-har, “69” — are no longer available after a shit-storm erupted. It's kinda surprising they didn’t instead offer “wifebeater” tank tops as their target audience probably still finds the term funny.
There's also a decent chance the controversy could prompt a letter from Guns N'Roses' lawyers for stealing the Appetite for Destruction logo to hawk their merch.
The alleged joke here is Pickton, a former pig farmer, fed victims’ remains to his animals in order to dispose of the evidence. Many of them were Indigenous sex workers he picked up in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside, hence the hilarious hookery/hickory wordplay, and the awful truth is people actually did consume meat from this butcher's farm before his capture in 2002.
The Vancouver gig and others have since been called off, and Danger Cats put out a statement saying:
“What started as jokes has now moved into new territory. We've received death threats and so have staff at the venues we're scheduled to perform at. Now the three of us can weather the storm but when it comes to our friends in the industry, it's not worth the risk to their livelihoods. It wasn't their joke, it shouldn't be their problem [...] The Pickton T-shirt has been removed from our website and all proceeds will go to Ukraine.”
Yeah, we're gonna need to see the receipts on that. Also seems a bit presumptuous to think a nation undergoing 24/7 Russian atrocities will be all that grateful for a few hundred bucks from people who think mass murder is a knee-slapper.
There isn't really a GOOD time to capitalize on something like this but the timing is particularly egregious since this sick fuck (we mean Pickton) was back in the news again recently due to his eligibility for day parole. Like most civilized countries, Canada no longer has the death penalty, and Pickton was sentenced to life in prison for the second-degree murder of six women — although he boasted to an undercover cop posing as a cellmate of killing 49 — and now qualifies for parole after serving 25 years.
It seems inconceivable he'd be set free, but then again Canada has a long and shameful history of letting go unrepentant evil shits, including child-murderers, cop-killers and even cannibals. Just last week a 29-year-old repeat offender who likes to attack young girls was arrested in Kelowna for attacking a young girl after his latest release from custody, and nobody even thought to notify the community about him.
People typically like their serial killers three different ways — dead, fictional or behind bars — and the possibility of the 74-year-old back on the streets has sparked a national outrage. Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the federal Conservative party, saw this as an opportunity to chime in on the Space Nazi's generic social media site to express solidarity with public sentiment.
Polly said:
Today, one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers, Robert Pickton, has become eligible for parole. Monsters like this should never be released from prison. Common sense Conservatives believe that mass murderers should face consecutive sentences so they only come out of jail in a box.
Leaving aside Conservatives were in power when Pickton was put in the pen, a lot of people agree with him on this. Free Willy was a family film about a captive killer whale, not a misguided social movement’s slogan to free a captive killer pig farmer, which is a far better tasteless joke than Danger Cats' but still not something you'd want to put on a T-shirt.
There was a similar public outcry last summer when Paul Bernardo was moved to a medium-security facility after serving 28 years of his life sentence for the unspeakable killings of three Ontario girls. Most Canadians don't like the idea of the bastard having creature comforts of any kind, let alone a better chance of escaping.
No doubt Danger Cats are hoping their newfound notoriety might open some doors in MAGA circles. It seems unlikely Chappelle or Louis CK will want to take them under their wings, and frankly a guest appearance on Gutfeld! would be swinging for the fences for these guys.
While a big fan of Danger Mouse, I'd never actually heard of Danger Cats before all this, and one of the first search results was a YouTube video titled “Canada Learnins for Yankees.”
You can judge its comedic merits for yourself but I’m compelled to point out, if you're going to threaten to “fucking slap” Americans for being insufficiently informed about Canada stuff, it’s best to have your facts straight. Dude incorrectly suggests outsiders can get “screeched-in” — a strange but enduring ceremony where visitors kiss a dead fish and do a shot of Jamaican rum to become honorary Newfoundlanders— in every province in Atlantic Canada rather than specifically the island of Newfoundland, where the tradition is rooted in centuries-old trade with the West Indies swapping cod for hooch.
It's a bit like saying Anne of Green Gables is known for being from the Maritimes rather than Prince Edward Island, which would at least still be technically true.
The good news is I feel less threatened by potential competition in the aspiring new Canadian boyfriend department, eh.
My cats have been egregiously libeled and they are PISSED.
Oscars: Jodie Foster and Robert Di Nero were mentioned in referencing Taxi Driver. Jimmy Kimmel said when they made Taxi Driver Jodie was young enough to be Robert's daughter and now nearly 50 years later Jodie is 20 years too old to play Robert's girlfriend. De Niro made an uncomfortable grin. Jodie nodded a forceful yes.