He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as an engineering major and traveled to Japan for a one-year internship in 2005 to develop English speech recognition software.
[1] Two years after he returned to Japan, he attended a show held by the Japanese comedy duo Xabungle [ja], where he became acquainted with Ayumu Kato and was introduced to his agency, Watanabe Entertainment.
[7] Danielson's comedy routines based on his confusion with kanji, which he writes on a board behind him and ends with him yelling, "Why Japanese people?!"
[1][3] After only four months of training, in October 2014,[2] he made his first television appearance on R-1 Grand Prix 2015, where he attracted media attention for being the first non-Japanese finalist competing in the history of the show.
[8] Shortly after the show ended, Danielson appeared in a web-exclusive video featured as part of the advertising campaign of Nissin Foods' yakisoba UFO [ja].