Hacker T Dog

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title: "Hacker T Dog" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["fictional-dogs", "british-comedy-puppets"] description: "Puppet-dog television presenter" topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_T_Dog" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Puppet-dog television presenter ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox character"]

Field	Value
name	Hacker T Dog
series	CBBC, Scoop & Hacker Time
image	HackerTDog.jpg
first	Scoop (2009)
creator	Neil Sterenberg
portrayer
species	Border Terrier
occupation	Presenter
gender	Male
nationality	British
lbl21	Birth date
lbl22	Owner
data22	Digby Digworth (Scoop)
::

| name = Hacker T Dog | series = CBBC, Scoop & Hacker Time | image = HackerTDog.jpg | caption = | first = Scoop (2009) | creator = Neil Sterenberg | portrayer = | species = Border Terrier | occupation = Presenter | gender = Male | nationality = British | lbl21 = Birth date | lbl22 = Owner | data22 = Digby Digworth (Scoop)

Hacker The Dog, more commonly known as Hacker T Dog, is a Border Terrier dog puppet who appears on the CBBC television channel in the United Kingdom. He is performed by puppeteer Phil Fletcher.

Development and history

Hacker was introduced as a character in the CBBC television programme Scoop, performed by Andy Heath. Hacker is the unintelligible non-spoken sidekick of Digby Digworth, as the two attempt to try and find a news scoop but chaos ensues along the way.

After the character became popular, Hacker was added as a weekday presenter at the CBBC office in May 2009, with the puppetry and voice now being performed by Phil Fletcher. Hacker from that point gained a much more noticeable characteristic, having a much more comedic and sarcastic personality and he now spoke in full words. These characteristics were added to the character within the second and third seasons of Scoop as well. In July, he began presenting on weekdays with Scottish comedian Iain Stirling.

In 2010, Hacker's "half-brother" Dodge T Dog joined the presenting team on CBBC, while Hacker went off to film the second series of Scoop.

In 2011, Hacker was given a solo presenting role on a separate chat show titled Hacker Time, where he interviews television personalities and other CBBC stars. The series lasted six seasons from 2011 to 2016.

In 2013, following Iain Stirling's departure from CBBC, he and Dodge began presenting with Chris Johnson.

The character took a hiatus from CBBC in April 2014 to film Series 4 of Hacker Time. During his absence, numerous guest presenters filled in for him during his usual weekday afternoon slot. Hacker returned temporarily on 24 May 2014, before making a permanent return on 18 June 2014.

A 2016 clip in which Hacker deadpans to host Lauren Layfield "We're just normal men... We're just innocent men", prompting Layfield to break character and laugh while Hacker continues to deadpan, resurfaced in 2022 and went viral. While some assumed the clip had context before the exchange, Fletcher later explained that there was none, and he just ad-libbed the line to make Layfield laugh.

On 17 July 2025, it was announced that Hacker would become the forty-fourth presenter on Blue Peter beginning in September.

Hacker is very fond of television presenter Sue Barker and mentions her often. In 2009 Hacker was the mascot for the Wimbledon Championship.

Hacker is known for saying 'cockers' – a Northern term for 'mate'.

In other media

Hacker, Cel Spellman and Amberley Lobo provided CBBC commentary on the Russia v Belgium match at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Hacker appeared on an episode of Celebrity Mastermind in December 2016, his specialist subject being the Pet Shop Boys. He came in second place, losing to television chef Paul Rankin.

Television

The character has appeared in the following roles: ::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Notes
2009–2011	Scoop	Main role
2009–present	CBBC Office/CBBC HQ	Channel presenter
2011–2016	Hacker Time	Namesake presenter
2013, 2016	Sam & Mark's Big Friday Wind-Up
2014	Wimbledon 2day
2015	Wimbledon
Hacker's Birthday Bash: 30 Years of Children's BBC	Main role
2015–2017	The Dog Ate My Homework	5 appearances
All Over the Place	Appears in cutaway segments recorded in the UK
2016	Horrible Histories: Gory Games	Contestant
Hacker's Olympic Rundown	Main role
Celebrity Mastermind	Contestant; 2nd place
Hacker's Crackers	Main role
Zig and Zag's Zogcasts	Appears in episode 17
Art Ninja	Appears in 4 episodes from series 2–5
2017	BBC Election Wrap
2017–2019	Saturday Mash-Up!	Presenter
2018	Remotely Funny	Contestant
2020	Pointless Celebrities	Contestant; children's TV special
Andy and the Band: Live at Home!
2022	Andy and the Band	Appears in episode: "BBC Shutdown"
2024	Birthday Party in the CBeebies House
2025	Blue Peter
::

References

References

1. Dog, Hacker The. "The 'T' in my middle name stands for 'The' #NationalTriviaDay".
2. "The Children's Media Conference".
3. "Radio Times".
4. "Awards Database – The BAFTA site".
5. "CBBC – CBBC Stars". BBC.
6. "CBBC – Hacker Time". BBC.
7. "Website".
8. (27 June 2022). "Lauren Layfield: 'Normal men, innocent men' and me – The Big Issue".
9. (17 June 2022). "I Interviewed the 'We're Just Normal Men' Puppet on Zoom".
10. (26 April 2022). "A CBBC dog saying 'normal men, innocent men' has become the internet's favourite meme".
11. "Hacker T Dog joins the Blue Peter presenting team".
12. "BBC Sport – Hacker's The Dog's Wimbledon quest". [[BBC]].
13. "BBC SPORT | Tennis | On the hunt for Sue Barker". [[BBC]].
14. (2012). "Wimbledon japes from CBBC's Hacker the dog – Liverpool Daily Post".
15. "BBC Sport – Tennis – Hacker & Dodge come to Wimbledon". [[BBC]].
16. "BBC Sport – Tennis – Wimbledon day 11 as it happened". [[BBC]].
17. (2012). "Today at Wimbledon – Dave Cheeseman | Cameraman & Picture Editor". davecheeseman.com.
18. https://www.wigantoday.net/news/hacker-t-dog-invites-stars-wigan-719276 {{Webarchive. link. (17 October 2020 Wigan Today. Retrieved 17 October 2020.)
19. https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/19/hacker-t-dog-almost-won-mastermind-and-everyones-fallen-in-love-with-him-6333612/ {{Webarchive. link. (19 October 2020 Metro. Retrieved 17 October 2020.)

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::