CraveTV’s hit Canadian comedy LetterKenny is known for its wild dialogue and phrases rooted in pop-culture deep cuts, hockey smack talk and good-old fashioned country living. The show’s cast of characters each bring their own signature sayings from “ferda boys” to “pitter-patter,” some being so foreign they are almost unintelligible to those of us living south of the Canadian border. Squirrelly Dan, played by K. Trevor Wilson, is known for his own idiosyncratic approach to dialogue as he interjects an “s” into seemingly random words. In a recent interview he shed some light on exactly how the team behind LetterKenny decided to use such strange dialogue for Squirrelly Dan.
When asked about the origin of Squirrelly Dan’s unique line delivery, K. Trevor Wilson noted that it’s a team effort to decide exactly where the enigmatic “s” will land:
It's funny. We actually have discussions before some scenes about what words I should add “s’s” to. I've sat down with Nate, Jacob and Jared. And we're like, ‘is it funnier if I say all the “s’s” here, or if I save up the plural to the very end of the whole sentence?’
Over the course of the show’s 9 Season run, there have been some notable catch phrases featuring that mysterious “s” including the famed “That’s what I appreciates about you.” But the origin story of Squirrelly Dan’s dialogue stems from K. Trevor Wilson’s stint as a standup comedian:
It really came from Dan, who was sort of the third Hick added. Nate and Jared had already established their characters in the YouTube shorts originally. So when I joined up, I wanted to do something different than the other two characters. Being a touring standup [I] spent a lot of years playing small towns. My buddy and I, Ryan Dennee, toured together a lot and we'd go to these towns and we'd have guys come up to us after the show and this was how they talked. English was their first language, but they mispronounced words left, right and center. They added “s’s” where there didn't need to be “s’s”. We would do these impressions on the road, in between gigs to each other to make each other laugh. So I brought that to the show. I was like, ‘I think this, this would work with Dan’ and started doing that. Jacob and Jared were both very quick to be like, ‘we liked that, that works, please keep doing that’. And it just became a permanent fixture to how to write Dan. But it did just came from being in small towns and having a hundred guys come up to me and being like, ‘You knows, yous a pretty funny standsup comedians’ And it's like, great. I don't know where that came from.
According to Wilson, the strange dialogue is actually rooted in real people he met on the road! The more I watch this show, the less I understand Canada. The choice makes sense though, as LetterKenny is based on small rural communities in Ontario.
Since the show’s first season, Squirrelly Dan has been a staple of LetterKenny, sometimes at the center of some of the show’s best episodes. Squirrelly Dan fans will recognize the character from his strange manner of speaking, philosophical prompts and the occasional dirty joke. K. Trevor Wilson has recently spoken out about some of the more promiscuous dialogue from his character being used as lewd jokes towards himself and his wife. So, if you plan on making jokes about the famed "butt stuff" scene to K. Trevor Wilson, expect him to tell you to take your tank top, tonka truck and to kick rocks.
Fans of LetterKenny are in luck, as its 9th Season just premiered on CraveTV. For the American folks reading this, you can pitter-patter on over to Hulu for the latest escapades from Squirrelly Dan, Wayne, Daryl and Katy.
