Nathan For You

The "Souvenir Ship" episode that aired this week was the hardest I've laughed at a half-hour show in a very long time, I dunno who else is watching this but it's brilliant. Figure it deserves its own thread to post YouTubes in. If nothing else please watch this clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8QruYW6v6E&list=PLD7nPL1U-R5p2A2PNhFaimVdzjIg6CNpI

I loved the gas station rebate episode.

oh my god was the "Chinese Dragon Rentals" part amazing

i watched the entire first season a couple nights ago and it was the best night of my life

ok so caught the starbucks episode purely by chance (was half watching drunk history, didn't turn channel) and it was one of the funniest things i've ever seen on comedy central. i can understand how that ep might be an outlier though. are the other episodes of similar quality? him and that lawyer.

they're basically all good; starbucks ep is middle of the pack imo
johnny depp episode is pretty top level

otm this show is incredibly consistent

I thought the skydiving one was too cringey but other than that every single episode has been hilarious. I agree with forks, that the Depp episode was my favorite so far. But all of them have made me laugh, sometimes it's just the little things that make this show work so well - like "School sucks, man. You can just go on the stinkin' internet!" as Nathan's idea of what teenagers talk about these days

"Claw of Shame" is also amazing and I believe the only other one that's just one long segment. The dude specifically asking not to be credited as a "consultant" (who wound up being credited four seperate times in the end) was probably my favorite part but the whole thing was brilliant.

i love the episodes where he starts with a simple, dumb scheme and consequently builds up an immense and overly complicated series of rube goldbergian plans that move him further and further away from his original purpose
which is most of them

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2aoj9b/i_am_nathan_fielder_comedian_director_and_host_of/

Haven't seen any of s2 yet but s1 was amazing. The gas station rebate episode best epitomizes the show's ability to start one place and end up somewhere totally different.

xxp I think most of them do have that potential but he can't control what the business owners will or won't do. The "Ghost Free Homes" lady definitely went all the way with it but there are bits like with the Private Investigator where you can tell things didn't quite go the way he had planned (due to the actor's fiance getting really skeeved out by Nathan). Though that one did have an amazing punchline in the end

His Dan Mintz-like delivery makes me think Tina Belcher is narrating the show, which makes it better.

i so desperately want that banana/tongue out/"I HATE JEWS" photo; someone please post that here when it inevitably shows up on the internet

that was one of the most painful things I've ever seen

death is so saaad
death is so saad

I thought the skydiving one was too cringey but other than that every single episode has been hilarious.

I loved the skydiving episode. "I forgot that I owed my friend forty dollars."

Hard to believe that This Hour Has 22 Minutes wound up fostering anything of worth, but here we are. This show rules.

this was a good episode (and two of the ideas actually seemed legit!) but nothing made me laugh harder than the dog shrieking when Nathan tried to pick it up

well besides the Bill Gates impersonator

"you know... when we made microsoft..."

this guy is just the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL6fco19xXQ

i think the toy store one is my new favorite, just omg the santa reappearance. really amazed at this show's ability to do the same thing over and over again and keep it fresh, improving it even

would really like to see that "i hate jews" picture...

it's in the episode i saw on the comedy central app

i think the one with "the hunk" is my favorite ep, love this guy

http://oi61.tinypic.com/2rgnxxf.jpg

as much as I lost it at the picture, the end of that segment was the first time I genuinely felt the show went too far

that's worse than when he was three seconds away from showing his dick to a crowd of kids?

but that didn't actually happen

thank you, that picture is amazing.
yeah, the bit where the lawyer was getting genuinely indignant was deeply uncomfortable but hey! She posed for the shot!

i kinda assumed 4channers would be all over this show

I can't see this show's title without singing "Nothing on You" by B.o.B.

i always hear flava flav myself

http://assets.adamriff.com/images/woodfellas.jpg

this is the funniest show i've seen in a long time

he has weird hair

my god santa telling those kids they look like babies and the one kid opening up about another kid being mean at school
my god

wait, what episode are you talking about here?

yeah last night was the Taxi/Line Cutting episode. pretty good though the cab company owner's desperation was a little unsettling. I'm glad they didn't go through with it!

oh i am talking about ep8, on the comedy cnetral site. shh never mind it's only a tiny spoiler ;)

did not even realize that the site was ahead of the broadcast schedule! is that normal for cc?

watching this on hulu. they just put the liquor store/exterminator/car wash episode. first two ones were pretty dumb, but the car wash was funny. i think i overdosed on this show "binge watching" the first season.

the lawyer in that dumb starbucks episode trying to steal the signed contract was one of the funniest things i've seen on tv. even if a lot of it was staged or w/e, he does a great job playing with the line between reality tv artifice and the actual, ridiculous things he is doing to/for these businesses

yeah i was curious about to what extent this show is real and found this, which pretty much jibes with my impression:

Many people suspect that reality television is scripted, and with “Nathan for You,” this is, in a sense, the case. Fielder and his writers compose detailed outlines for each episode, trying their best to predict “what a reasonable person might say in a situation,” Fielder said, and to steer events in propitious directions — nudging customers from the gas station, for example, to the mountaintop. This doesn’t mean that the show’s marks are acting, however, or in on the joke: Fielder’s producers approach prospective businesses without letting on that “Nathan for You” is a comedy show, and Fielder never breaks character at a shoot.

In filming the show, Fielder says, chance ultimately rules: “We don’t even reference the script after a certain point. An entire day of shooting will ride on stuff happening the way we hope. It’s crazy to do a production like that, but the uncertainty makes the show feel more authentic and spontaneous.” Koman agreed: “It’s setups and luck.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/magazine/nathan-fielder.html?_r=1

if the lawyer wasn't in on it that is like the funniest thing ever

that corkboard thing was one of the funniest moments on the show, my god

"Inside all of our anatomies there's two parts. There's a part that's a liar, and a part that's a cool guy."

dumb Starbucks did not disappoint

i keep thinking there should have been more interesting material there (like how did the employees react to the media blow-up), but if there were, they would have shown it.

This show is the most tortured I've been between thinking it's the funniest thing I've seen in years and thinking he really is possibly an awful person who is blatantly exploiting (at best) unhappy people for a gag (thinking of the repeated cuts at the expense of the lonely guy who allows Nathan to test the 40-maids-in-6-minutes scheme; the woman who says she was assaulted by an 'entity' in Switzerland during the ghost real estate thing; even the lone shot of a woman crying to herself across the pet cemetery when he unveils the advertisement/headstone).

I even felt for all the people who would have been so excited to see the 'Johnny Depp' movie being filmed - though that sequence also had me doubled over in pain from laughing (when he repurposes the footage of the guy running through the souvenir shop as 'people were desperate to get supplies' or whatever I fucking lost it).

He's got to be some kind of sociopath to stand there through these horrible and often quite sad interactions just trusting it'll all wash out in the edit.

There's definitely some tension there. I think it helps that the show often paints "Nathan" the character as being untrustworthy and openly manipulative, particularly in his constructed social behavior and his contradictory narration. If anything he mirrors some of the sadder characters you mention, and only seems to behave "naturally" when confronted by the truly out-there encounters that there's just no character protocol for, like the "entity" assault victim or the pee-drinker from S1.

the show often paints "Nathan" the character as being untrustworthy and openly manipulative, particularly in his constructed social behavior and his contradictory narration.

But I guess my first problem is with the actual interactions as they occurred. These people aren't meeting someone they know to be those things - and they seem to sometimes be possibly fragile people who are getting dicked around.

And then the edit can be cruel for the sake of a joke that *isn't* part of the show's larger target of cheap/dumb/lazy marketing. I was aching watching Nathan asking that guy about his relationship status and seeing the guy trail off, going "Gosh, L.A. is just so.... hard...."

We just started watching this, and def. getting Sacha Baron Cohen vibes from it. It's pretty funny, though. My wife was in tears during the gas rebate episode, which just gets so ... strange.

I agree there's inherent sociopathy involved but probably to a lesser degree than actual makeover shows.

We just started watching this, and def. getting Sacha Baron Cohen vibes from it. It's pretty funny, though. My wife was in tears during the gas rebate episode, which just gets so ... strange.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, September 1, 2014 12:44 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SBC vibes is exactly what bothers me about it. The being a dick to being funny ratio is just a little too high for me, and he seems a little too proud of his *deadpan* humor.

His hair also appears to be waxy like an otter's fur

I think SBC goes farther to make people look stupid. Like, part of the joke of his stuff is that no one recognizes him as a cartoon and takes him seriously (the fools!). Nathan's pitches on the other hand at least operate within a skewed system of reality TV makeover logic, made funnier by his total deadpan. I mean, sometimes his ruses work! (See: Dumb Starbucks, pig rescues goat, King of Sting, etc.). And when they don't work, he hilariously tries to find some way to take credit anyway. Or sabotage the results, like turning the gas rebate scheme into this weird human interest story, not publicising the pig rescue, taking mock offense at the King of Sting.

there’s a weird inconsistency in character when nathan gets upset at the quiznos rep for going too far, which makes me wonder if that amazingly wasn’t staged.

His hair also appears to be waxy like an otter's fur

He is Canadian. I think that's normal for them.

They call it a "pelt."
http://www.glacierwear.com/media/catalog/category/Fur_Hats_Fur_Ear_Muffs_Fur_Acc.jpg

The Daddy's Watching/party planner episode might have been my favorite except it also had the weight loss bit which was the first one that really crossed into unnecessary cruelty for me. But I was so happy when he brought back the Bill Gates impersonator.

The weight loss part was amazing but yeah that ending was rather tough to watch. The Bill Gates dude could be in every episode as far as I'm concerend.

Also, if this isn't a preview of season 3 I don't know what is:
http://www.vocativ.com/money/business/gestations-bar-for-pregnant-women-viral-marketing-stunt/

Considering he already did the free taxi rides for pregnant ladies I don't think that's a NFY bit. Speaking of which, I loved the part when he made the obstetrician pretend to be a mechanic to vet the midwife's credentials.

"When we started Microsoft..."

I've been listening to this every day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcrLSSlNZGs

Managed 27 seconds.

33 here

.53 and a lot of that was because I was in another tab and couldn't figure out what to close

Zippity-doo-dah for the Internet Age.

geez, youre missin the good part

and wisely avoiding all the rest

Nathan's lipsynching is fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDs3sw098tU

ha, feels like he might step up his game to compete with Review

I'd say Nathan >>> Review but both shows are great

I loved that he said he wanted to keep each season of his show low on episodes to keep quality high.

what's review? google not coming up with the answers

tell a lie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2141913/

8.3 stars on IMDB
That's 999,991.7 less than COCAINE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHBaVVIrONI

omg the soundproof sex box

"Alligators, little doors... I'm seeing psychosis."

god this one had everything didn't it

Oh man that was great. When he brought the guy to be psychologically evaluated, we were rolling. "Oh yeah, we sell TVs for a dollar, but you need to wear a tuxedo, and you have to go through a little door first, past the alligator ..."

At this point I can't imagine actually watching this show as it airs on TV. There are always several points at which I need to pause and step away, either to recover from what just happened or to steel my nerves for what's coming next. In this episode those moments were (1) when he asks the guy in the Man Zone "what's your favorite posish" and (2) when you see the part of the store display with the human bones.

i watched both of those live and the answer is "i look away from the screen, wincing in pure embarrassment"
this season has been A++ so far

the gun shop guy's message ringtone!

scale of 1 to 10, how fake was the rabbi?

not sure, but the gun shop owner was real as fuck

i don't believe in this bubblegum cotton candy world of yours where -
UH OH UH OH
is... is that your ringtone?

also I died at Nathan's insistence that the stable owner would definitely just be remembered for this stunt, and definitely not for any other reason

nathan explaining how missionary is his favorite position, "man on top, woman on bottom"
"nothing wrong with that!"

rabbi is real, he's a mohel in la. this show remains so fucking amazing.

died at him showing old usfl games

This show makes me uncomfortable ... It works as comedy in places but overall is just kind of creepy.

Man, the fake oven ... my wife had to cover her eyes like she was watching surgery footage.

my wife thinks the "man room" thing is absolutely brilliant, so I love how Nathan makes it seem as awkward and unworkable as possible

by the way this website totally exists, be sure to scroll to the bottom

http://www.summiticeapparel.com/

my wife thinks the "man room" thing is absolutely brilliant, so I love how Nathan makes it seem as awkward and unworkable as possible

― frogbs

yeah some his ideas are at least borderline good ideas but then the execution "ruins" it

between 1933 and 1945, two thirds of all the Jews in Europe were killed by the Nazis
many victims were transported to concentration camps by train and murdered with poison gas on arrival
others perished from deplorable conditions in the camps (disease, exhaustion, and starvation)
others were simply shot and buried in mass graves
gypsies, homosexuals, and other minorities were also persecuted
learn more facts at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

a friend of mine pointed out that the logo looks like his hairline

The return of private investigator Brian Wolfe this week was an unexpected joy.

Another a+ episode
Jungle children

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSh800SVAAA-iuO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ioenZ3a.jpg

Would buy.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1517159393

You gotta be kidding

http://www.themovementworkout.com/videos/

pretty much lose it every time they mention Steve Jobs

I just wanna mention, I do charity work with jungle children

RIP Dende, it was sad how he got kidnapped by baboons

From Core to Floor... and More!

http://i.imgur.com/8CN82rq.png

I need to buy a copy ASAP. I feel like it's gotta be just a matter of time before that's yanked off of Amazon.

Fully erect, they looked like spaghetti strands with pieces of burger meat to simulate the grooves of muscle of his forearms and biceps.

my copy's in the mail!

yeah, that line just leaps off the page don't it

nine bucks shipped from amazon seems a good price to pay.

Most amazing show

This is a man who does not respect people, as they are.
I do not like him, his show, or Comedy Central for airing it.

The episode with the "alternative girl" was disturbing.
That chick seemed cool and nice, and she even gave him a second chance.
She must have been lonely, to meet him in the first place.

He made fun of a lonely girl on television.

I do not condone this. I hope he gets cancelled.

40%

Alternatively: people will agree to anything as long as there is the promise of being on TV.

Yeah, my sympathy for Nathan's marks is mitigated somewhat by the fact that no one is required to appear on TV, and also by the fact that every single person appearing on the show signed a release.

Even if that's true I find his humor too mean-spirited to enjoy a lot of the time, like even if the participants themselves aren't hurt it still feels icky to watch him get off on being a dick.

no one comes off worse than nathan.

Very true.

I really dislike a lot of pranky stuff (Improv Everywhere can suck a fuck) and mean-spirited humor, but this show doesn't really push those buttons for me.

I think someone like Sacha Baron Cohen is a lot meaner, seeing he trades off of ambush tactics and putting people on the spot, then plying on their politeness to make them look bad (sometimes with a point, often not). But Fielder right off the bat offers ridiculous solutions to problems, and the humor comes from his straight-man reactions (subbing for our own incredulousness) to people actually going along with his on their face ridiculous to the point of surreal ideas (as opposed to trying to play along with or translate SBC's invented slang). But as written/acted/improvised, there's something more to Fielder that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe a weird sort of ... empathy? Identification with the mark? I'm thinking of his early season rebate episode, where the camping trip in the mountains turns into something sort of touching, or how he twists the genius Best Buy/electronics store episode into a sort of meet cute blind date. And if you're to believe him, there are not only several ideas a season that don't pan out but also plenty of twists there's no way he saw coming, like the realtor speaking in tongues (iirc) when they try to exorcise the ghosts out of her house.

That AVClub interview was pretty incredible, and includes asides like "I think I’m taking a lot of vulnerabilities and insecurities that I had when I was younger, and I’m exaggerating them for the sake of comedy." Or his reaction to the realtor: "Well, that moment in particular, I didn’t even know how to comprehend it. That was an instinct of mine in that moment to take a photo, I guess. Some people view the show that way, and that’s totally valid, but personally, I don’t find the people involved in the show, for the most part, to be foolish. They come across to me as very sweet and endearing most of the time. Especially that real estate lady." Some people he picks seem like dicks (the private investigator, for example) or just out for exposure. Others are more innocent, but I don't think he's trying to make them look bad for being innocent or naive. If anything, like I noted above, he seems pretty attuned to how things are going, and often shifts the gist of his scenarios for the sake of ... pathos?

well put

Honestly, the only time I'm a little wary is when he's fucking with kids ("You don't want to be a baby, do you?"), but that's at least as much on the parents as it is on him.

Though like most reality shows, it's often hard to know how much is actually scripted or prepared vs. how much the audience is lead to believe it is.

Honestly, the only time I'm a little wary is when he's fucking with kids ("You don't want to be a baby, do you?"), but that's at least as much on the parents as it is on him.

It's also tremendously infantile, which is partly what makes it funny. (See also: horsey rides.)

Summit Ice has raised $45k for the Vancouver Holocaust Awareness Centre: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/02/summit-ice-jacket-nathan-for-you-holocaust?12444&hootPostID=7219adcc3b15844be47bf254ec4a0e15

That is just incredible.

it's nerdy but i'm tempted to get a jacket

It's for a good cause!

the only time I'm a little wary is when he's fucking with kids ("You don't want to be a baby, do you?")

Yeah that was the only time on the show that I felt like he really crossed a line, that one was unpleasant.

The Summit Ice thing is pretty funny

It just occurred to me that, even though the Doink It! dude completely disagreed with everything Nathan wanted to do and also thought Nathan's message to the kids was awful and seemed to think that the entire thing was harmful to his product...he still signed off on appearing on the show. It would probably, by all rights, have been one of the aforementioned failed segments that never aired if his desire to be on TV hadn't superseded his judgment in every other regard.

more or less everyone he "works for" disagrees with nathan (except for the total nutjobs), but there's something about being on tv that demolishes people's sense of responsibility and common sense.

also tbf, the doink it ad is clearly not aimed at kids in any case
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eb5sNjhItw

Got my "Movement" book in the mail today! Will leave it in the bathroom to perplex visitors.

xpost "If you don't have this toy, people will think you wear diapers and cry all the time."

got my book too; looking forward to reading on the subway and recommending it

ok, click that summit ice $45k link, scroll down to the image of Nathan holding the doink-it, and tell me why he looks like a simpsons character

next episode supposed to be about abusing "you break it, you buy it", gonna be some real awkwardness upcoming

i'm super glad a couple people agreed with my view on him.
the thing about this is, well, sometimes what he does is absolutely harmless and hilarious.
but, there was that episode a couple of weeks ago: the skit with the balloons and horse-rider was totally harmless and hilarious, everyone was in on the joke, or got the joke a little later (and it was still harmless), etc. but, in the same episode, when he exploited that cool, nice girl's loneliness in the other skit, well, that was just really f-ed up.

eh. sure. he's harmless and funny sometimes, but it just isn't worth it to me to continue to expose myself to his other completely mean-spirited behavior/humor. simply put: some of the shit he does is just bad for my soul. i'm never watching him, again.

this week's had some good moments but also some of his least convincing schemes

The age progression scam artist was definitely one of the creepiest/funniest moments thus far

Agreed that the business ideas were particularly terrible this time around but that's kind of the point isn't it? The whole second half was just a lead up to a drunk bro in a sumo outfit trying to make his way down a narrow aisle in an antique shop in order to score some free pizza.

and that was amusing, but I prefer the eps where his ideas have a hint of inspiration to them, even when they're obviously insane

yeah, i love this show and i loved this episode but it was among the most disturbing he's ever done

all worth it for him breaking the plate at the end

the guy telling the kid he was gonna die in space in like two years
the drunk brothers from ohio earnestly discussing tag teaming with nathan
"that's a boy"
the guy writing emails on his phone and ignoring nathan
the pizza at the end of the booby trap

haha yeah "that's a boy" made me lose it, dunno how Nathan kept a straight face through that

the jacket rigged with whiskey-removing and apple-juice replacing pumps

god, how did i forget that

I just hope no PUA engineers watch this show

I just caught a screener for this week's episode and it might be my new favorite.

http://www.avclub.com/article/nathan-yous-star-confronts-v-club-mom-who-scorned--226825

what a great interview!

I thought the sports/antique show ep was totally about the ancillary weirdness and less the business fix. So in the case of the former, it's all that creepy photoshop guy (and the astronaut). In the latter, it's that can't make it up drunk dude he finds. When he takes the guy home, man, who knows what he was expecting/hoping to find there. Getting pulled into a triple tag team scenario?

yeah watching that photoshop guy continually repeat "I'm 90% sure" over and over was worth the whole segment, though it went from hilarious to creepy really fast

Smokers Allowed was pretty close to this show at its best for sure
As good as the mountain climbing to get your rebate episode

"Smokers Allowed" somehow conjured both Frederick Wiseman and David Lynch for me

this show is starting to feel like Review, in a good way

how long did they actually rehearse that to get it down so pat? you could see pages of the script being printed off, one including a long paragraph about Louie C.K...

funniest part was the muscular dude staring at the audience of two, like "what the hell is going on here?", then having an actor recreate that moment by staring at the actual audience right off the bat

absolutely brilliant episode

This was fantastic. Exactly what I needed tonight.

Smokers Allowed was pretty incredible, and really shows Nathan for You at its best. Like, the "I love you" exchange - what's real? What's not real? If someone is feeling something, is it real? Did he really cry? Isn't that an honest emotion? Felt like a wonderful moment, so was it? And then the brilliance of flipping it into a punchline, not just for her erstwhile acting partner's intense reaction shots but also for the payoff at the end with the fake bartender. Just amazing all around.

someone found his old blog from ten years ago, hard to tell exactly how serious any of this is but it's entertaining

http://www.nathanjoseph.blogspot.com/

lol @ this picture
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/297/4329/1024/shuswap%20043.jpg

tonight, there is a "traffic light party" at the bar -- wear red if you are taken, yellow if you are taken but willing to compromise, and green if you want to hook up.

i have decided to wear red because my theory is that women want what they can't have.

truly, he is the wizard of loneliness

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/297/4329/400/vicpics%202021.jpg

i feel sure he desperately wishes this had remained buried.

can't you make new blog posts look old w/ blogspot? part of me wants to believe this is all made up recently for an upcoming episode. like why would it pop up now?!

the pictures are definitely of young nathan and the storylines on that blog FEEL authentically early twentysomething

re: the "people want to be on TV" thing, any of the small business owners probably consider it free advertising.

I love you.

Say it again.

can't you make new blog posts look old w/ blogspot? part of me wants to believe this is all made up recently for an upcoming episode. like why would it pop up now?!

you can (he moved all the "guest blogmaster" posts to 1990) but I think this is for real. his Youtube channel is full of old videos from around that time which are just as dry.

jesus christ smokers allowed was fantastic. that 'nathan' is this horribly lonely man desperate for human contact and love but prevented by his delusions and vanity from achieving it is always this nice touch in other episodes but my god it paid off there. i also thought the girl and the actress playing 'ellen' were kinda shockingly good though i guess that's la, and it was perfect if predictable that ellen wouldn't really be able to pull off 'ellen' as well as the actress. loved the guy staring at the audience both times. the tag showing both productions side by side was great. i get some ppl's complaints that the show is mean spirited i guess (i mean a huge percentage of his business proposals are basically 'what if we exploit a loophole to commit fraud') but so often you have such amazingly natural and yes awkward (but not in a miserable way necessarily) moments of genuine humanity.

http://i.imgur.com/kAzxVMD.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Im37oRMRE

Nathan's old band!

http://wildryce.tripod.com/

"Wednesday Nite" is cracking me up ..."Wednesday...on a Wednesday night...it's on a Wednesday night"

"I gave them your names, so it would be more realistic", my god

also lol@ the kid morphing into Nathan

So what do people think--was the sex box segment real? If anything on Nathan For You were going to be outright faked, that would have to it. I know some stage parents will agree to put their kids in just about anything, but that would be too far... right?

Highlight of this week: "coming off the thrill of go-kart racing, I wanted to harvest Brendan's blood as quickly as possible."

p sure it was edited so there never was a kid in that box while the sex was happening

That's what I assume, too. Unfortunately, that means that the bit where Nathan gives the porn stars the parents' names (which was a brilliant example of the show's ability to ratchet up the tension in an already-awkward scene beyond what the audience expects) wasn't genuine, since with no kid in the box there would be no reason for the parents to be in the room.

the build-up to his racist mock-asian accent was excruciating and also peak nathan

So what do people think--was the sex box segment real?

this has been in the back of my mind too hahaha

if it was real, imagine explaining this to the Comedy Central legal dept before attempting

yeah, the "asian accent" to the stunt driver was uncomfortable enough that i had to leave the room.

to say nothing of the confession of stealing that poor guy's urine. more or less up to the end, i thought nathan had finally broken my ability to not feel sorry for these poor schlubs he tapes. But you know what, the guy really had a good time at Knotts Berry Farm! I think he was cool with it! I wanna believe they hang out occasionally still.

i don't see why the kid COULDN'T be in the box if the parents consented! what are the legal ramifications?

Both the parents and Nathan can be arrested for endangering a child?

"Oh no, your honor, the box three feet away where we hired people to moan and jizz was SOUNDPROOF, we did a test"

well i'm sure whatever they had the parents sign gave them the right to put the kid in that position so where's the endangerment? Unless he gets stuck in the box. That's what I was worried about!
but yeah, it was probably staged.

I'm not a lawyer, but paying someone to jizz feet from a child's head is probably illegal even if the parents say it's ok unless you are in Finland

xp replace with murder box and think about what you are saying

i hate to tell you but murder is illegal even if you get everyone's consent first

So is whatever is happening to minors in a sex box is my point

so if forcing a child into seeing adults having sex is illegal and you are putting a child in a box that will do this illegal thing if it fails, you have to be endangering a child I'd think? then again maybe a car/airplane/etc. qualifies as a "murder box" in this scenario, so maybe the legality is more ambiguous than it first seems.

since the motive is just profit or entertainment, though, I'd think it'd still be endangerment.

Sort of the flip side of the robot built to depants him in front of kids, isn't it?

do you guys not remember the Claw of Shame episode?

I am fascinated by Nathan's hand gestures this season.

This old Nathan gig segment really got me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rw-43W4Plg

renewed for a 4th season.

great news, can't wait for tonight's episode

oh wow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lC3zb7fNW4

I made this my wallpaper

http://i.imgur.com/7miuvyN.png

p sure it was edited so there never was a kid in that box while the sex was happening

― gr8080, Friday, December 4, 2015 3:37 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk why this would be

obviously he's lying about needing to 'test' the box's soundproofing

http://www.gq.com/story/nathan-for-you-season-3-qa

Speaking of those other segments, where are we headed with the personal arc of Nathan, this socially awkward guy who can't seem to find his place in this world?

That's always prominent. I try to draw as much as I can from real experiences and feelings I've had and bring them into the show. This season, structurally, we have more full stories that span an entire episode. I'm thinking about identity a little bit more this year. The season culminates in a finale that I think is the most ambitious thing I've ever done. It took me eight months of physical training just to pull it off. I can't go into specifics, but it's very elaborate and really crazy (laughs). A lot of things that happen this season will culminate in the finale.

i am a little worried about this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu0D5mhjDyc

Yeah it's almost frightening...I heard him say that on the Best Show. It's kind of hard to imagine what could out-concept episodes like the robot pants-puller.

"most people your age sort of grow out of that mentality..."

So the wirewalking episode.
Wow. Just wow.

wuz amazing

also thanks for that wallpaper, frogs

holy shit...yeah, wow

yeah I have no idea what to even think about all that, kinda felt bad for Jasmine, who seemed like a legitimately sweet person

at this point I honestly question Nathan's sanity

lol

https://www.facebook.com/iamcancerstrong/posts/116349185369537

http://i.imgur.com/ohLAQhx.png

i slept on it and i still can't wrap my head around it

Nathan's impression of Corey was pretty impressive, I thought.

(No pun intended)

wow this show

Ep was great, though not quite the season peak of "Smoking Allowed" or the Best Buy one. Still, brilliant stuff. Has anyone posted this?

http://splitsider.com/2015/12/how-nathan-for-you-brought-charlie-kaufmans-sensibility-back-to-television/

it’s tempting to imagine what might happen if Netflix or FX opened their coffers and gave Kaufman carte blanche to return to television with his own show

FX already tried this last year w/ a Kaufman pilot starring John Hawkes, Michael Cera, Sally Hawkins, and Catherine Keener - they passed on taking it to series.

this show is fucking incredible on so many levels.

someone just walked into this restaurant wearing a summit ice jacket

i moved recently and, as I tend to do, I got rooked into helping the movers to "keep things going" and i found myself unloading the truck for an hour or so before finally tapping out and the lead mover was like "cmon man, you can do it, stick with it" and i realized i was part of The Movement

Home for xmas, one brother has predictably watched the entire series (thankfully, as the Garbarino book is one of the presents I bought him) and the other has never heard of it. And my gf only got as far as a couple of episodes from season 2. Looks like a holiday marathon is in the cards.

I showed family the Hero episode over Christmas and they thought Nathan Fielder was a sociopath. Definitely made me feel a little weird, especially after talking up how funny it was.

Like, I tried to explain that the comedy was all about the "layers", you know, and how it was a statement about modern times, but that didn't seem to fly.

lol, yes.
people who don't get this show REALLY don't get this show and look at you like something's wrong with you that you do.

I definitely think the show is super funny and layered and a nuanced satire of fame and fortune *AND* Nathan Fielder is almost definitely a sociopath; those things aren't mutually exclusive

Yeah but he's clearly in character. His character is a sociopath. This distinction is clear to everyone else, right?

yes

but he does the things to real people, not actors

Right. He also conceives and writes the bits. Either way, there are lots of performers who even "in character" could not do the things that he is doing to real people.

as with all shows involving real people, whoever is on there has entered into a contract trading their privacy for the ability to be on teevee and that's a devil's bargain at best. i feel better about the way the people Nathan lampoons are treated than, say, the cast of Survivor. At least no one on N4U is injured! And he has regular return performers!

nathan r u ok

Yeah I'm not sure Nathan is hurting anyone with his character beyond testing their endurance to withstand excessive awkwardness.

The Daddy's Watching/party planner episode might have been my favorite except it also had the weight loss bit which was the first one that really crossed into unnecessary cruelty for me. But I was so happy when he brought back the Bill Gates impersonator.

― Immediate Follower (NA), Wednesday, October 15, 2014 5:24 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol @ the girl on the bowling date of "if two planes brought down the two towers i could see that as being feasible but what brought down bldg number 7"

"Actually caring about others — practically, actively, consistently — is one of the hardest things in the world to do. There are a million ways to fail at it, each more cringe-inducing to watch (or recall) than the next. This is the fact on which Nathan for You’s improbable, uncomfortable magic depends; the thing that makes this show harder and better and worse to watch than anything else on TV."

https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/missed-connections-how-to-tell-if-nathan-for-you-is-for-you

the security guard tv pilot is really amazing too, lol @ first i drink a large glass of water that i left at my bedside overnight & then his hot pocket eating tips

wow, missed this its amazing

http://www.avclub.com/article/nathan-yous-star-confronts-v-club-mom-who-scorned--226825

was posted itt several months ago (I can't see it now, hidden behind "show all posts"). it's pretty illuminating.

Exhibit A for those who don't get that Nathan isn't "Nathan".

http://66.media.tumblr.com/a87e7eb933ce97571dd4fbcb935ce526/tumblr_o76uiqV7991qa9yvvo1_1280.jpg
http://66.media.tumblr.com/038193f2394e3c706bdae6256dae1ffd/tumblr_o76uiqV7991qa9yvvo2_1280.jpg
http://66.media.tumblr.com/a74b8a3028cb647343ab6c5e89c26a46/tumblr_o76uiqV7991qa9yvvo3_1280.jpg
http://67.media.tumblr.com/a7cf411fde88698f03f5c4c239a40464/tumblr_o76uiqV7991qa9yvvo4_1280.jpg

That last picture perfectly captures the central dynamic of NFY

Nathan has a new web series. It's reminding me a lot of Jenny Slate & Dean Fleischer-Camp's similarly mannered 'Catherine' series: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/09/08/nathan-fielder-jenny-slate-webseries-david

it's pretty solid! And yes, it's basically Catherine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAOOO12KW60

heckuva punchline

haha, yeah the bit at the end is great

but i do kind of wonder why everyone in catherine and this series seems to have some kind of autism spectrum disorder

Dean Fleischer-Camp directed both of these

Oh, I loved Catherine

i don't fully understand the aesthetic value of this style. it's... farce? deconstructionist? but is there a deeper point it's trying to make? i felt this series is a little better than catherine because the weird shit going on works in service of the punchlines, where catherine just kind of left me wondering wtf (which maybe was part of the idea)

its comedy people that dont have office day jobs making fun of people with office day jobs haha v edgy and existential

oic yeah haha ppl like me so dumb working in offices when we coulda just launched comedy careers smh

http://www.summiticeapparel.com/news/

lol @ the last line of that press release

ha, that pop up is v near where i live, sadly no taiga jackets to trade in

Vancouver’s historic outdoor apparel district

this made me laugh

Please, let season four launch soon. Please.

Back 09/21. Also:

A week before premiere (Sept 21) we're airing a 1 hr special where I check in w/ folks from past eps called "Nathan for You: A Celebration"

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) July 25, 2017

err I guess that means it's properly back 09/28. durr reading comprehension

I'm doing a few Nathan for You S4 sneak peek shows

Sept 4 - Vancouver
Sept 5 - Seattle
Sept 6 - Portland

Tix here: https://t.co/c27GiEZb0b

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) July 21, 2017

yay! i have nothing to add but yayz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obmqcnj2vUE

Oh boy.

oh my god

Bill Gates impersonator being actually insane is the least surprising reveal ever

The message on the ticket website is great:

Host Nathan Fielder appears live and in person to give you a sneak peek of the upcoming season of Nathan for You. The screening will be followed by a Q&A discussion that will include several off-the-cuff jokes by Fielder, who’s a mediocre improviser.

wow

Yay

god remember how much different the world was when Season 3 was on

no

Gonna be hard to top the season 2 finale but I'm watching 4sho

i find this show funny and really creepy and i honestly hope substantial parts are faked

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/nathan-fielder-how-the-cult-comedian-rules-the-outer-limits-of-awkward-w501360

damn 2-hr finale

i shd re-watch the hero ep

oh yeah, upthread i said second season finale would be hard to top, but i meant The Hero. didn't realize it had already been three seasons, not two.

lmao @ that smoke detector idea, that's pretty brilliant

btw some spoilers in that article

lmao they found Brian Wolfe's Hustler spread

http://www.cc.com/episodes/7xvpj9/nathan-for-you-nathan-for-you--a-celebration-season-4-ep-400?xrs=talent_092217_nfy_34

str8 dying

nathan's interview on kimmel was hilarious as well

yea it was but I kinda feel that story was not real

yeah frogbs it's definitely trolling on Nathan's part

season premiere was good. Funniest thing was the overall vibe of trying to pitch Nathan as being such a helpful and decent person and down playing his more manipulative moments. his edit

"sure, yeah. I don't have anything going on today, fuck it". good episode

god this show is funny

a copy of that newspaper would be a real collector's item

"your cover story is a review of nick and noras infinite playlist?"

"diners, dive-ins, and drives?"

Happy to announce The Diarrhea Times is now available on newsracks nationwide pic.twitter.com/EL68Qkq8Hm

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) September 29, 2017

boston gets screwed again

I loved the detail in the RS article where Nathan seemed "genuinely panicked" when the author ordered a turkey sandwich. "Would you be upset if I got a breakfast thing? Should I get what you get?"

Level of quality is so high
The path from promoting a restaurant to Nathan handcuffed to an ex felon in a hotel is so twisty

Also I gotta go to gramercy asap

the negotiation for 1001$ had me in tears

lol at Nathan taking the money from the holocaust charity on loan

I think the old man who used a soldiering iron on his dick could become a new fan favorite

Sometimes you just gotta grimace and soldier iron.

amazing that the episode also featured Nathan taking a hot iron to his *own* junk. man's got some dedication

The individual reservoirs would be linked by a network of tubes that would all lead to a battery powered peristaltic pump for dispensing the chili. Using our intake funnel, we loaded in over thirty pounds of Robert's product that had been blended into a thin paste to ensure an even flow without compromising the flavor.

the pig saves baby goat bit is, it turns out, an excellent object lesson in confirmation bias and bad sourcing. that poor gma woman who gets mocked for being suspicious...

Ok the Mambo No 5 scene is probably the hardest I’ve ever laughed at this show

i spit out my cereal milk when i saw the cd-r in the trash fire

http://reason.com/blog/2017/10/13/nathan-for-you-tackles-uber-finds-the-fr

lmfao

so far this season seems pretty forced compared to others

I guess, but aren't nearly all episodes of this show like that? This last episode was clearly not going to go in the direction it was "intended to", but I still think it was one of the best they've ever done

It's easily as good as ever so far imo.

"you can probably do a cup here? a cup or so"

Feel like this season has done good in lightening up after the utter headfuck "the hero"

I remember trying to describe that one to someone and giving up a third of the way through

so far this season seems pretty forced compared to others

― kurt schwitterz, Friday, October 13, 2017 2:30 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah

i wonder what would have happened if Andy would have enthusiastically supported sending the terrorist threat video to Uber lol

I would've liked to see that too

turtle face & vegetables

soft teeth in sauce

also TURN OFF THE MUSIC! TURN OFF THE MUSIC! TURN OFF THE MUSIC!

I can't deal with the fake marriage, so amazing, Nathan is full-tilt insane at this point

i love it so much

nathan is good at towing the line between scripted and actual real stakes - last ep was a mentalist shaggy dog story

Next Episode:

The Anecdote - Nathan hones his skills at telling stories.

just spitballing here but could this have to do with that bizarre appearance on Kimmel where he spends the entire interview telling a story about getting pulled over while in another guy's clothes? I've never seen him do an interview like that and, as mentioned in this thread, the story seemed completely made up.

I wonder how many hours of mediocre footage has to be shot before, say, you get a passenger who seems legitimately triggered by 'Mambo No. 5' or another who delivers a very earnest karaoke performance of 'Yankee Doodle Dandy'.

here's the kimmel appearance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJbXsnFKGaU

kinda think you're onto something there frogs

I wonder if there will be an episode that explains Nathan's appearance on Conan a few months back pretending to play guitar in Mac Demarco's backing band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Fl0xsxsCA

that seems a lot more on-brand than him just rambling about lost luggage

Nathan's the best troll around today. Increasingly I don't buy the consequences of the show, I think it's just smartly edited - but it's always been a comedy show anyway I guess

Ha!! I knew it!!!

“which is typical for two strangers”

"we also got permission to snake her drain for any body parts that mightev fallen in during a shower"

kirsten dunst mustve done the same anecdote analysis research

anyway, next episode involves forming a band in order to sell discount smoke detectors, might explain his appearance with Mac Demarco? was there any loud beeping during the performance??

good call w/ the jimmy kimmel bit. i wonder if they really spent $350,000 making this anecdote a reality

Nathan at the wedding was so hilarious

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMocsGPWkAARXUj.jpg

Man I love Nathan Fielder

LOL this episode

nathan's the best

Lol @ the irony of how he lies to all these people in order to have a "true" story to tell on Kimmel.

Also loved this as satire of the late-night talk show format, which is a pretty lame, tired thing deserving of savage mockery imo.

Just caught up on the new season. This show fucking destroys me.

On season 4 but still weirdly niche. It’s probably the funniest thing on TV.

@davey i thought the same thing. that montage of anecdotes was amazing

the scene where he invites himself to the wedding was excruciating

yeah as much as I love this show there are entire scenes I just have to skip

The hilarious thing about that is the couple seemingly unaware of the art of saying "We'll get back to you on that".

also lol @ how he goes from hiding behind a tree to ripping up the dancefloor

its even more awkward when you consider that there were probably other couples that just flat out said no, this was as close to a "yes" as he got

series is killing it. last episode was insane

So I've not seen him on Kimmel yet, should I go watch the new ep first or would seeing Kimmel first make more sense? Or is it entwined?

*intertwined

The best way is to have seen the Kimmel appearance without the knowledge that there was going to be an episode about it. The next best thing is to watch the Kimmel appearance first, then the episode.

^ this is correct

Next best thing it will be (as a watcher of the show I unfortunately haven't avoided the knowledge)

yea I was glad to have not seen the appearance first

was there any info on if Kimmel was in on it? I was leaning toward he was since after the story he says "you're out of your goddamn mind" in a laughing way that seemed like he knew.

Ok that was great. Surely Kimmel and Dunst too were in on it though, right?

Extremely good uncomfy viewing the couple.

I don't think Nathan believes in people being in on it

yea i would doubt they were

kimmels comment and knowing laugh maybe were just a guess that something was up idk

nathan commenting that 'i considered just leaving' when dunst's story was hitting all his points was really funny also

Idk but it doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the show either way

I legitimately think the Kirsten Dunst thing was a coincidence

The show thrives on that sort of happenstance

that appearance on kimmel makes so much more sense now lol

okay this show has made and does make me laugh but it's pretty ethically dubious right? i've been getting more and more uncomfortable with it, like it's a lot of immigrants/people of color or just genuinely unhinged seeming people who are the ones ending up lampooned and yes a lot of them do agree to do do whatever he is saying but there is certainly a power differential. i usually see this excused away by people saying 'he makes himself the butt of the joke' but i don't quite see it that way

I legitimately think the Kirsten Dunst thing was a coincidence

So do I.

re: the ethics, I dunno, it always seems to me like it could be a hell of a lot worse. Like the Chinese restaurant marriage proposal thing could sound iffy on paper but they almost went out of their way to underline the absurdity of the concept above all else, even if the gag itself does necessarily lean on the "otherness" of the setting.

i guess my problem is less that he was doing a silly impression of a chinese restaurant and more that he... you know... got someone to marry him against their consent? (even if it was fake which i suspect)

not surprising that tim and eric produced this, it sure fits into that T+E school of humor centering on basically laughing at mentally ill people

eh, nathan always comes off more clueless and worse off than anyone else on the show

but he's putting on an act

This show's humor is rooted in evil, and so is Tim and Eric. But how evil, really? To me it's like two dogs play fighting "evil". Nobody's getting hurt here, as far as I know, and everyone comes out of it better off, or at least in the same place they were.

Compare it to Million Dollar Extreme which is fucking Neo Nazi shit.

So much of the humor is Nathan's absolutely idiotic, overwrought ideas. The people going along with it is like the background to that... it's less evil than Jay Leno's Streetwalkers segment.

so we've got:

a- it's not as bad as neo-nazi humor (although his fake ted talk was really good)
b- even he 'comes across' as clueless or poorly off even though that isn't reflective of the situation at hand

*if he does, ugh

c- can we not

Yeah, I like that one, the c option

i like the show you all, just you can't deny there's something a pretty immoral about it

if by immoral you mean twisted or strange sure
if you mean "evil" i can't even exactly
like in this dark fucked up world how is this the thing you wanna take offense at

what's some good MORAL comedy these days that doesn't go overboard with the lampooning of the mentally ill like our friends Tim and Eric do, or the targeting of ethnic immigrant shop-owners like anti-immigrant Nathan Fielder does

i take offense at plenty, thanks

would you be OK with the show if the producers had decided to remove any scenes involving immigrants or people or color?

just using that as an example of a power differential and punching down

the entire show is a ruthless mockery of contemporary capitalism which is kinda the ultimate punch up imho

One of Nathan's best bits this season involved goofing on a well-off white couple and talk shows. Tim and Eric's best bits goof on middle class white values.

So ... ??? as far as your premise goes. Which is worse to you than Million Dollar Extreme unironically attacking Jewish and black people?

The gist I get from the T&E scene is, "what a weird, fucked up world humanity is." And that includes everything including the wealthy, the powerful, the middle class, and more.

i think MDE is worse, that doesn't mean parts of this aren't bad lol

I think there's something humanistic about it

"This is us, humanity, without the veneer or romance", because Nathan nor T&E focus their humor solely on immigrants or the mentally ill

okay sure! i think i get that part of it. to be fair i do occasionally watch a youtube channel of a spectacularly insane man because yes, it's 'us'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RHuAkkjcHM

Tim and Eric, Nathan Fielder, they're weird-ass whack jobs, too. Just higher functioning.

somehow i suspect that NFY is more ethical than the shows it’s parodying. you ever read Bar Rescue Updates?

the entire show is a ruthless mockery of contemporary capitalism which is kinda the ultimate punch up imho

eh, I dunno about this. it doesn't go deep enough into finance to strike meaningfully at contemporary capitalism, but it's a mockery of marketing for sure, and I think that's also central to the Tim and Eric aesthetic (the LA/entertainment industry side of it, anyway). but anyway the stylistic similarities between this show and Tim & Eric pretty much end there. I don't think the intent with this show is to "punch up" at contemporary capitalism as much as it is to generate lols by sneakily revealing the ridiculous and depersonalizing lengths people will do to in the name of increased revenue.

so yeah, I guess the Nathan character is somewhat exploitative and therefore unethical, but I wouldn't call it significantly exploitative and I certainly don't get the feeling he's specifically targeting anyone under his realm of privilege. it's not as bad as Borat, where the character's schtick is supposed to be used as an attack on racism, but then it goes and perpetuates racial stereotypes as a means to exposing a deeper & more genuine racism that isn't as often documented. Nathan's merely using/perpetuating the stereotype of Canadians being social awkward psychopaths, which is sort of true actually, and therefore not as bad.

it doesn't have to be a total critique of capitalism to be a meaningful one imo. the funniest parts of the show from the sociopolitical satire angle (it also entirely works independently of that dimension, just on the level of cringe comedy) are like, Nathan's plumbing the depths of the desperation within the gig economy (the things he can get craigslist randos to do!) and other stuff congruent to 'people in LA will do anything for money/if a guy with a camera crew asks them to do it' (restaurant swapping out revolting menu items)

it doesn't, it can still be, but I don't think he's going after the gig economy itself, or really any economy in particular. the craigslist ads he uses to bait participants aren't really the punchline, they're just a convenient source for producing an endless supply of desperate/dim folk ripe for the picking for use in the show's asinine rube goldberg marketing schemes. the schemes themselves are what elevates this show beyond man on the street bits, or whatever other condescending comedy extraction techniques other shows use to get us to laugh at regular people. the patented Nathan™ schemes are elaborate and elegant and this show has excellent writers. But designing the show that so that it puts these unwitting participants (initially unwitting, anyway, I mean they do sign a release right) inside of the schemes for us to laugh at is both somewhat unethical yet also hilarious.

ok professor

thank you, I agree that I do win the argument

i agree he's not satirizing the gig economy (see: the ending of andy vs uber) and one of the things i like best about the 'critique of capitalism' within the show is that it's not an obvious leftist one

i kinda just assumed the people appearing on his show were compensated in some way

he paid off that cop for sure

Well, he said he did.

This season more than the last few seems to be more about the process than the result, which is pretty funny. Like, setting up his schemes is the whole reason to watch, with the execution almost irrelevant.

Yes. where he places limits and requirements, and where he draws ethical boundaries, is consistently arbitrary and hilarious.

the running sub-theme of nathan being his own biggest project is the best part

Nathan seems to twist reality. Listen to this early NPR report where the host calls him Nathan Fielding throughout, which could be a joke from the show.

I recall an interview where Nathan mentioned having to scrap an entire segment because the business owner figured out what was going on halfway through. I can imagine something like that being a big hit to the show's budget. Might explain why he's drawn to people who are unlikely to know who he is.

I can imagine something like that being a big hit to the show's budget.

Also, designing a ridiculous chili suit or spending $350,000 to validate a TV show anecdote.

Or, you know, going scuba diving to pick up a burner phone dropped off a pier in an abandoned scheme to extort Uber.

well yeah, imagine doing something like that and then having to scrap it because someone figured out this was a comedy show or recognized who Nathan was

Good point. But I assume that kind of stuff is built into the budget.

the RS profile maura linked last month said "the show simply takes a long time to produce; upwards of 90 hours of footage go into one 22-minute episode"

ahahahaha he tells the story again on Seth Myers, and justifies it by saying, "look, if you're the Beatles, and you wrote 'Hey Jude'..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L7GsGc5adk

he misses the fashion police line though

i wonder if he'd had this appearance in his back pocket in case something went wrong on kimmel. although that'd be a pretty short turnaround in getting the episode out in time

lol at him staring at the audience to illicit applause for meyer's kid

this show definitely punches down and exploits immigrant business owners and y'all being obtuse if you deny that or get defensive about that

I don't feel invested enough to get defensive about it, I just don't recall many times I've seen humor in the business owners is in their (generally v understandable) befuddlement at Nathan's weirdness. Off the top of my head the exceptions (eg the ghost realtor and the PI dude) are largely white

*besides in their befuddlement

and those two people tried to get their own reality show spinoffs (Wolfe actually succeeded) so it's kinda hard to feel bad for them. he certainly doesn't seem to have much of an issue getting people to reappear on the show.

jfc you guys. i love this show too but man your bubbles must be a nice place to live. "he gets them back on the show! it means he's HELPING them." smh

idk - I see what you're talking about but it doesn't really feel to me like the joke is often on the business owners. the guilty part for me is that a lot of them probably felt Nathan was legitimately going to help them and wind up having to go along with his bizarre ideas as a result. but I've never really heard of any of them claiming they felt deceived or had regretted going on the show, even if they weren't aware it was for a Comedy Central thing ahead of time. I dunno if that means anything to you, but it does make it a little easier to watch for me.

I don't think it's any more exploitative than any other reality show. Power of the camera/celebrity/fame/TV, etc. I do agree it focuses largely on low-level working people of all bents, but given his gimmick is improving small businesses, I mean, I don't see a way around that. I do think Nathan is typically the uncomfortable butt of the joke, not just because he often makes everything about himself, even when he is clearly barking up the wrong tree with a dumb idea.

I have noticed a lot of Armenians, fwiw, but that's LA for you.

i feel like "los angeles" is a pretty solid running theme, without which the show would be way different

i'd like Nathan to follow up with restaurants featured on Kitchen Nightmares.

he seems to be branching out in the new season out of LA!

Well, driving distance, at least.

LMAOOO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN_ElpaabJU

on spotify too!

"he gets them back on the show! it means he's HELPING them." smh

I don't think the show helps anyone, it's not clear it's harmed anyone though

The most uncomfortable I can recall being was during the manipulation of the "girlfriend" from last season's "Hero" episode

Best new music?

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) October 27, 2017

someone with juice make this happen

Next season Nathan crowdsources enough money to buy out Conde Nast just so he can give a song BNM.

A Nathan thing would be to help an indie artist get BNM by putting out EPs that all get at least 3.2 scores (minimal effort), and then releasing them as a compilation album, assuring at least a 9.6 rating.

ahaha

I'm not sure what Nathan was going for with this episode, but as far as punchlines in search of a joke go, his cool record producer outfits were the best.

actually getting that song to go viral somehow was clearly the goal but there's no way with that fucking beeping noise

god, kirsten dunst telling a wedding anecdote with a drug mixup story just before nathan is just the best thing ever

(also, even in that little snippet they show - she didn't realize the weed in the blunt was real until AFTER they smoked the whole thing? no wonder it was the highest she'd ever been, that was probably her first time)

"orphaned skies" still has <1000 plays on spotify, i don't know how it's possible

In time the Earth will have to stomach what we spew
And face the trees we killed before they grew
From your disconnected heart you
Play the part, and take it to heart
It's true you believe in every word you say
Spied one relevance release
The hard truth sink in latch
You would sit the spot, incentivize the plot into
The monetary value you can frame
Into something heavenly unveil
To God still link at once to justify your work or rectify your curse

So when we look up at the sun
Her eyes go wide, we hear the hum
Of our faith, our hopeful eyes
We're bringing home those orphaned skies
It's time to revolutionize
It's time to revolutionize
We're bringing home those orphaned skies
We're bringing home those orphaned skies

Times are shifting, you can feel it in the sway
You can feel it in the words our hearts convey
The rhythm of these anxious hands
The melody expands in order to enchant and
Prove there's beauty to be had within the dance
Of sunlight in the ocean's lulling trance
It's time to open up our hearts
I'm groping in the dark
And bring the world out from its tomb

So when we look up at the sun
Her eyes go wide, we hear the hum
Of our faith, our hopeful eyes
We're bringing home those orphaned skies
It's time to revolutionize
It's time to revolutionize
We're bringing home those orphaned skies
We're bringing home those orphaned skies
It's time to revolutionize
It's time to revolutionize
We're bringing home those orphaned skies
We're bringing home those orphaned skies

it’s up to 5669 (nice)

I guess artists just feel more than the rest of us do

Times are shifting, you can feel it in the sway
You can feel it in the words our hearts convey
The rhythm of these anxious hands
The melody expands in order to enchant and
Prove there's beauty to be had within the dance
Of sunlight in the ocean's lulling trance
It's time to open up our hearts
I'm groping in the dark
And bring the world out from its tomb

love that part

i totally missed out on this show. i've only seen maybe 4 full episodes? whenever i watch one i literally do it through my fingers like https://i.imgur.com/UtOnN9y.jpg

Nathan's background in improv is clear in his interviews, funny and spontaneous guy

"are we done with the banter now?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TUGZ1VQDss

Smoke detector episode was a bust

Felt pretty bad for the band members too

if you don't like the cringier moments of the show then definitely don't watch this last episode

that said the implication that Nathan's plan actually kinda did work in the end was pretty amusing

My wife is not a fan of the current season. She felt the past seasons had more emotion/heart to them. Which might be true! Smokers Allowed, the Hero episode, those things are emotionally epic and in many ways thought provoking. The new season is mostly just ... weird.

sorry your wife feels that way

there is a 2 hour season finale about finding the Bill Gates impersonator's wife, so maybe they're saving that stuff

what if Nathan for You did an episode about the ghost busters? pic.twitter.com/FuClMGSbha

— Spooky Pain Blogger (@trash_sleeper) November 3, 2017

Maria garcia seems like a real sweetheart

Also: i hate to say it, but i dont think i need a two hour episode.

I'm glad she found her dream guy

The cut to Maria Garcia's face with the messed-up lipstick right as Salomon is asking her out is one the most brutal jokes in the history of the show. I have to say, Nathan's treatment of Salomon makes me uncomfortable in general, in much the same way that his continued targeting of business owners with a shaky grasp of English creeps me out a bit.

has finale aired yet?

next week

uh... wow

spoiler ?

http://youtu.be/_Ohkhhs0AiM

removed... what was it?

This wasn't on last night, right?

It was

here's the video

There aas a hidden message in the closed captioms of #NathanForYou and I'm sad now. Geez this show is smart, sad, and funny pic.twitter.com/LSe4KG4mxI

— Saw (Binoculars) (@Enduerrment) November 10, 2017

given that he devotes an entire 18 months of his life to produce four hours of TV I guess that's understandable

fuck, don't know why it didn't tape...

Should be up on cc.com though.

We hear him say exactly what's in the subtitles? Am I missing something here?

yes

he definitely doesn't say that last part

oic. yeah, seems understandable tbh.

he's got the cutest sad look, i'm sorry, but it's true.

He mixes convincing realness + the Nathan For You character so well, especially in this last episode. Like when he had the escort watch an episode in front of him. He was being the Nathan For You character acting as if out of character: not acknowledging the show is a comedy but also not denying it, going along with the accusation that he is lying to people but not suggesting it's for humor. It's a weird overlap.

That subtitle addition could simply be a joke, his actual feelings and a joke at once, his character's feelings and a joke... who knows.

So much pathos. Watching the finale felt like watching a tragicomedy by Samuel Beckett.

Wow, this episode. My wife said it was super weird (it was) but redeemed all the episodes this season she didn't like. At the same time, this was the first time she literally had to cover her eyes once in discomfort.

The way this one shifted from tragic to hopeful to scary to weird to sad to sentimental ... I noticed there were, what, 6 or 7 credited writers on it? I wonder how they put something like this episode together.

It's sadly fitting that when Nathan's NFY character finally finds a semblance of human connection, it's through a relationship that's really an ongoing business transaction.

nathan must have been burning through comedy central's money at some rate w/maci

anyone know why the last ep isn't on amazon?

What did he say the anecdote episode cost, $300,000? That would pay for over 40 24-hour days of Maci, at around her rate. Now that would be a funny episode, if instead of the girlfriend experience he wanted the wife experience (I could have sworn he was going to propose in this one) and he paid her her going rate to basically move in with him and do mundane domestic stuff for a month or two.

It's sadly fitting that when Nathan's NFY character finally finds a semblance of human connection, it's through a relationship that's really an ongoing business transaction.

this was my thought as well

Same with the Smoker's Allowed actress, right?

Yup.

MUD 2
NEVER CLEAN

definite smokers allowed parallels in their interactions

am i only one that felt like that last episode was a waste of time, sort of a shaggy dog story without a punchline. oh well

I have mixed feelings about it. It's a departure from the show's main shtick, for one thing. It seems like Nathan wanted to show what people don't often see: the lonely old man who's lived a life of regret, the escort on her dates, and Nathan himself being called out as a liar, all of which was uncomfortable to watch. But I like Samuel Beckett and I like this, even if it's less entertaining than, say, Nathan inventing an absurd way for obese people to ride horses. (That episode almost killed me laughing.) The finale is another brand of absurdist performance, and it's heavier and probably a little more philosophical, and I appreciated the anticlimax. But TBH I did hope for more lolz, hah.

Idk this show has always been about the ~journey~ and not the destination. Regardless, thought this episode was hilarious, disturbing, uncomfortable, sad, touching and finished with a kind of catharsis. That phone conversation Bill has with Frances (outside of her house!) was kind of just the right way to resolve it. So much going on there. Brilliant episode imo.

loved how this ep kind of felt like a low-key spoof of S-Town at times.

Yeah, it felt very podcast-y.

“Can you switch to Fox News?”

I can’t believe this I love you this made my year https://t.co/cHS2SGIQR9

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) November 13, 2017

been watching clips of nathan's show on youtube

not sure how i feel about him, but did find the poop one endearing in a my-6-year-old-makes-those-jokes way

That’s kinda beautiful

xp

definite xp

i feel kinda lame for even pursuing this point given the precision of fielder's comedy but maci is clearly a scripted character yes?

also
https://streamable.com/s154b

I do wonder how many of the people on the show are in cahoots. The "ai doo" bit earlier in the season worked almost a little too smoothly, but who knows

somewhat related:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/

Hoooly shit that is depressing stuff

bill gates reminded me of the guy from the jinx a bit

i feel kinda lame for even pursuing this point given the precision of fielder's comedy but maci is clearly a scripted character yes?

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Monday, November 13, 2017 12:11 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do wonder how many of the people on the show are in cahoots. The "ai doo" bit earlier in the season worked almost a little too smoothly, but who knows

― davey, Monday, November 13, 2017 12:18 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wondered about these things, too. It's one of the mysteries of the show, how much of it is kayfabe. I had doubts about Maci especially, since she allowed her face to be shown, something I doubt a real escort would do.

pretty convinced majority of this show is staged/finely edited. still it's great obviously

Yep.

Maci is a real escort. Reddit is having a very hard time deleting her personal info, as she keeps being harrassed by people tracking her down and posting her asl. Supposedly her escort service is easy to find (I didn't look for it obv).

Which doesn't mean it was obv scripted, but she is in fact an escort.

That should read it's obv scripted, but she is etc

Like I noted, I think.6 credited writers on the finale. for what that's worth.

Well yeah, the writers come up with general scenarios for each episode and ideas for things like Mud 2

they're not writing scripts for actors to learn (unless they actually are actors in the context of the show)

Many people suspect that reality television is scripted, and with “Nathan for You,” this is, in a sense, the case. Fielder and his writers compose detailed outlines for each episode, trying their best to predict “what a reasonable person might say in a situation,” Fielder said, and to steer events in propitious directions — nudging customers from the gas station, for example, to the mountaintop. This doesn’t mean that the show’s marks are acting, however, or in on the joke: Fielder’s producers approach prospective businesses without letting on that “Nathan for You” is a comedy show, and Fielder never breaks character at a shoot.

In filming the show, Fielder says, chance ultimately rules: “We don’t even reference the script after a certain point. An entire day of shooting will ride on stuff happening the way we hope. It’s crazy to do a production like that, but the uncertainty makes the show feel more authentic and spontaneous.” Koman agreed: “It’s setups and luck.” The way Fielder manages this unpredictability is to shoot an excess of footage: He may need only one kid sitting on Santa’s lap with a Doinkit, but he’ll film three to ensure that he’s covered. “This show shoots more footage than anything I’ve worked on,” Notarnicola said, sitting at his editing bay. Fielder said, “Only a few things keep making you laugh the 10th, 12th, 15th time you watch them, though, so it gets easier to cut as you go.”

6 credited writers seems like a lot doesn't it? Are there usually 6 writers on every Nathan For You episode? I've never noticed. most scripted shows don't credit that many writers per episode, let alone a pseudo documentary-style show. Anyway, clearly the show is written in the editing room. I'm not sure I would trust much about it, from chronology on down. In this last episode he claims he was in Little Rock for weeks. as depicted in this episode, there's not much that would take more than 3 days, imo. it's all like an elaborate meta magic trick.

most of the episodes have 3-4 writers

this was obviously a bit more ambitious than usual though

No doubt. I do think that this could have been edited down to a usual run time, if they wanted to, but the expansion - and all the weirdness that entailed - was what made it special. Conversely, I'm sure they could have made any other episode into a weird epic like this one. The Maci stuff, she's just tangential to it (if thematically linked, per the "plot"). Like (gross though it might have been) he could have said, to reference a previous episode, "but first we wanted to see if a regular person would buy chili dispensed from a fat suit, so we hired this actor/escort/whatever to play the part of a 'real' person," and so on. The Maci stuff is the hardest to suss in this one. She's OK with her face on camera, and for that matter, she's OK with the camera crew being present - except when she's not? Regardless, I'm continually impressed by his ability not to break character in uncomfortable situations. When he's doing the dance for her? When they're smooching? So uncomfortable. It's totally impossible for me to tell where Nathan the actor/host ends and Nathan the person begins. Vs. someone like Sasha Baron-Cohen, who pops up out of character all the time.

yeah I was thinking about that a lot during this episode. is this the only time we see him laugh during the show?

as my friend dan pointed out, one of the most interesting beats in the series so far was when nathan says to maci: "it's business. you know, business."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cZoc6WTnYs

MUD 2
NEVER CLEAN

― johnny crunch, Saturday, November 11, 2017 9:15 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i've been laughing at this for like ten minutes

That Cotillard clip reminds me of the faux flirty Between Two Ferns with Charlize Theron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83I_rQUbw8c

Acting is a really amazing balance of power. I have a friend who once interviewed this minor actress, and he said she was so flirtatious, almost hypnotically so, that he was convinced she was going to ask him out for a drink or something. It was only as he was working on his feature that he recognized, Usual Suspects style, just how perfectly she had played him.

There were definitely a lot of really funny moments in that episode but it all felt overshadowed by its emotional content. I feel the not-so-subtle subtext was the similarity between Nathan and Bill - he criticizes Bill for being dishonest and for having some unsavory aspects to his personality, but at the same time NFY is practically built around deceiving people to some extent, and he winds up spending a chunk of Comedy Central money so he can pal around with an escort (who is willing to tell Nathan, "but you're lying to these people...").

I thought it was amazing how they went on this insanely elaborate quest to track this woman down only to have it result in a short phone call, right outside her house no less. I loved that scene because both characters were so visibly nervous - Bill because he's been pining for this woman for nearly his whole life, Nathan because he knows this is the grand finale to the season (and maybe the whole series) and has no clue if anything's going to come of it, or if we're even going to see her on camera. The bit where Bill keeps trying to get her to guess who's on the other line was heartbreaking. She has no clue what they've been through just to get her phone number, or why he's calling in the first place. I can't imagine what watching that episode must have been like for her family.

is there any word on another season? I kinda have a hard time imagining where they could go with the concept from here

Curiously, we noted her Facebook profile picture was included in the show, but her husband's was blurred. Wonder when she gave permission, or what she thought about giving permission.

man, that was great

btw I know that Nathan's recent-ish divorce doesn't get mentioned on the show, but I was half-expecting it to come up at some point during this episode. obviously I'm extrapolating here but I would guess that moving to LA and putting insane amounts of time into this TV show was not great for that relationship.

I thought he got divorced before the first season? Did he get remarried?

i feel like you guys trying to prove the show is "fake" or scripted are kind of missing the point

like the show is already about fake scenarios around real people, why would it need to have an extra layer of deception when the entire purpose of the show is revealing its deceptions to the audience

it was in 2013, right when the first season started airing

Who's trying to prove something is real or fake? It's on TV, it's been edited, it's not "real," and it doesn't matter. But given the entire point of acting is to make something "fake" seem "real," it's really impressive how well it straddles the line. I mean, "Thor" has you suspend disbelief, to some extent, but it does not seem "real." This on the other hand, the divide between real and fake is the whole point. Why else would you watch it?

im talking about the theorizing that maci is an actress instead of an escort? its very bizarre, what sense would that make? the whole episode she's like puncturing the falseness of it, why would they hire an actress to do what a normal person in that situation would do?

the skepticism directed towards the show is just strange to me, like it's obviously the point of the show that they're forcing scenarios and "nathan" in the show isn't a real guy. thats what the 'writers' are for. but the art of the show is about the interplay of the real & the fake, and the way these things bleed in capitalism ... the whole episode is about whether or not his love for her is real, if her love for him was real, if nathan's attachment to maci is real (while being obviously not) (but is it? frogsbs just described him as using comedy central's money to hang out with an escort, as if maybe the real nathan might have a real attraction to this escort underneath which are all these fake layers, the money he spent for her, the show which is the 'real' purpose, etc.)

anyway the point im making is this show isn't really something that you 'disprove' for being fake, it uses fakeness to find the real, thats its whole thing

i think the funniest moment of the whole episode is nathan standing in teh doorway to the bathroom while bill harangues him about frances lol

nothing wrong with her line of work but Maci has a future as a screen actress if she wants it imho

im talking about the theorizing that maci is an actress instead of an escort? its very bizarre, what sense would that make? the whole episode she's like puncturing the falseness of it, why would they hire an actress to do what a normal person in that situation would do?

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, November 13, 2017 3:30 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because escorting is only a quasi-legal profession, and many escorts won't even show their faces in their own advertising. There's no guarantee that they'd be able to find a real escort in the Little Rock, AR area ready to be identified as such on national TV. I guess they lucked out with Maci, but the alternative is not at all implausible.

Haven't seen this yet, but some of this talk sounds familiar.

https://i.imgur.com/Q4c39Rc.jpg

Maci can be both real and fake. She's basically an actress already. Apparently from her:

"I am aware that curiosity tends to be a very natural part of human nature, however, let's all remember curiosity killed the cat. I feel like this is a very necessary post in light of recent events. Before you get too excited...No. I will not be elaborating on anything regarding the show.
I am, for all intensive purposes, a small business. I run this whole operation all by my lonesome (which is how I like it). However, there is a literal shit ton of admin work that goes into this industry. Screening in itself is not a 2 min task. Everything takes time and I pride myself in my response time. I like to think of it as "good business practices". With that being said....my emails have more than tripled, my twitter is on steroids, and my phone rings all times of the day. It's more than a little out of control.
The backstory for my actual clients that read these and follow my day to day life. A TV show that I appeared on aired this past Thursday....and you know...people bring up escorts and everyone loses their fucking minds.
Let's be grown ups people... This is literally the one of the oldest professions and we still lose our shit whenever it's brought up. I don't need the judgement. I honestly don't care what you think about me or what I do. This is my life and this is how I am choosing to live it...my life. my business. For those of you that are supportive. As much as I appreciate all the kind words, the emails and phone calls really just bog me down.
I am going to say this again...one last time for those of you that may not have been listening before...
I am not at liberty to discuss anything related to the show AT ALL.
So....now that all that is settled...
If you would like to book a date please use my booking form located on my website. Fill it out in its entirety. If you have any questions (about booking) I will be more than happy to answer them. Please read my website prior to asking (more than likely, your answer is on my site somewhere). Any mention of the show will put you on my do not see list.
Also....
1. I don't want your dick pics
2. When in doubt, be a gentleman
3. You are not allowed to link to my website without my consent and I will not give it so please stop trying to do it.
4. Also, I just want to elaborate on a comment I saw somewhere....There is no such thing as "hooker attire". I don't know why you expect us to dress like pretty woman. That is a movie and it's not a real representation of what escorts dress like...just fyi we are allowed to wear jeans.
To all my legit clients...I apologize for any delays in response time. Please just bare with me."

So sounds like she signed a NDA, which is a bit more than signing a generic release form. Doesn't change anything, just implies there is more going on than what we know.

I am not at liberty to discuss anything related to the show AT ALL.

she is real escort though. She's just not from anywhere near Little Rock

she signed an NDA means what to you? that her reactions weren't authentic? That they were scripted? that she didnt behave like a normal person would in that scenario?

No, just that there's anything secretive for her to reveal at all beyond what we see on the show. I mean, all those things you said could be right. Who knows?

the real interesting thing about Maci is that she's one of the few people who have appeared on the show who explicitly knows what kind of show it is

Right. It just adds another layer to it all.

Nathan is a liar and is playing a role, so is his "relationship" with Maci "real?" Maci is an escort, who lies for a living to make people feel good. She knows Nathan is a liar, because ... he told the truth. And yet she participates anyway. It's all kind of fascinating.

idk if you remember the "pig rescues goat" episode but Nathan's NDAs are no joke

Haven't seen this yet, but some of this talk sounds familiar.

https://i.imgur.com/Q4c39Rc.jpg

that one was fake, though - she's been an actress since the early 90's

Because escorting is only a quasi-legal profession, and many escorts won't even show their faces in their own advertising. There's no guarantee that they'd be able to find a real escort in the Little Rock, AR area ready to be identified as such on national TV. I guess they lucked out with Maci, but the alternative is not at all implausible.

― JRN, Monday, November 13, 2017 4:00 PM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it s not at all implausible that an escort might consider 'being on television' a huge boost to her business

Did you read her letter?

The concluding episode of Nathan For You (season 4) is unfathomably great. (Now, I'm going to business school.)

— errolmorris (@errolmorris) November 13, 2017

it s not at all implausible that an escort might consider 'being on television' a huge boost to her business

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, November 13, 2017 4:49 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's true, and consistent what I've said. The calculation could plausibly go either way.

oh man, just finished the finale. i thought it was fantastic.

Did you read her letter?

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, November 13, 2017 4:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, how does that contradict anything?

recently discovered jon benjamin has a van (feat our very own nathan fielder) and wow, so so brilliant. can see where nathan got his layer upon layer upon layer ideas from. i know nothing about us tv commissioning but how the hell didn't this get more than one series?

just guessing: it probably didn't pull enough viewers / advertisers.

Did you read her letter?

yeah, how does that contradict anything?

Because it seems all the show-related stuff has either complicated her life for the worse or is something she can't exploit for personal gain. She's not talking about the show, she doesn't want people linking to her site (which is what drives her business), emails and phone calls are "bogging her down," "Any mention of the show will put you on my do not see list," and so on. I mean, I don't know what she was expecting, but all those things seem to be signs of a business boost, but that's apparently not what she wants. Or wanted.

nathan had an entire book written and distributed on amazon for a goof. "but they're posting her website on reddit" is an interesting burden of proof. it hardly matters either way; as with kaufman, there's no benefit in seeing behind the curtain here.

I've never argued that. But I have argued that the confusion of truth and fiction is what makes this show compelling, at least to me. A lot more than a more conventional clown like Sasha Baron Cohen.

Anyway, I didn't specify reddit or whatever. I just quoted the escort herself, who seems to be somewhat bristling at the attention, which does not seem like the actions of someone who did something for the extra attention/business.

The anecdote episode perfectly underscores the balance. It's a guy playing a neo-fictional character who fakes an elaborate anecdote to make his story "true," providing a burden of proof that no one expects from a celebrity interview in the first place.

Because it seems all the show-related stuff has either complicated her life for the worse or is something she can't exploit for personal gain. She's not talking about the show, she doesn't want people linking to her site (which is what drives her business), emails and phone calls are "bogging her down," "Any mention of the show will put you on my do not see list," and so on. I mean, I don't know what she was expecting, but all those things seem to be signs of a business boost, but that's apparently not what she wants. Or wanted.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 14, 2017 4:07 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and this relates to why she agreed to do the show in the first place, before any of that happened, because...?

a better example of the kind of pulling at the scenery you guys are doing that annoys me would be if you just outright said you didn't think the workout dude ever went on daytime TV. it just feels like missing the forest for the trees as a form of critique

Well, if everything was an outright fiction it would be a conventional TV show or movie, like the terrible "Ali G Indahouse."

So I guess I'm to understand Twin Peaks: S3E8 has some new competition in the "TV episodes cinephiles are going to slip into their year-end top 10 movie lists" derby?

Yep, though it works best if you've seen the rest of the series

I still think about this a lot, the idea that so much time and effort was spent trying to give an old man some closure and it just resulted in a awkward phone call w/ someone who didn't really even remember who he was

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2017/11/14/16650726/nathan-for-you-season-4-finale-finding-frances

Thanks Josh for throwing me down a NFY rabbit hole because of that article. The first of season 4, the Michael Richards one, really is the best. So many steps and twists and turns.

I honestly don't think he could do a season 5, but I'd be happy proven wrong. Seriously though, after the last finale, where can he go, what can he do next with this?

Eradicate malaria in order to "prove" Bill Gates impersonator is really Bill Gates.

I honestly don't think he could do a season 5, but I'd be happy proven wrong. Seriously though, after the last finale, where can he go, what can he do next with this?

Wow. Errol Morris wrote about Finding Frances for The New Yorker https://t.co/hv3u5WgDw2

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) December 5, 2017

Was just coming here to post this. Just watched the finale last week. So so good.

I want a show entirely about the age progression artist who just dropped in the whole "we're all going to live in space thing".

did you see the other NFY episode he was in?

I think I've seen most of them but I don't remember him! Which was it?

the one where they tried to sign a bunch of child athletes as sponsors for a sporting goods store. he brings that guy in to "age progress" the kids by just pasting their faces over stock models

pic.twitter.com/DF8U7Kn92T

— no context nathan (@NathanForYouOoC) December 1, 2017

"Who did this?"

"Cornelius Ladd"

^ my favorite part of this episode

this paragraph makes me dizzy

Before the finale, Bill Heath appeared in an earlier episode, called “Souvenir Shop,” in which Fielder organizes an elaborate hoax to bring business to a Los Angeles souvenir shop by hiring celebrity impersonators to appear in the store. His first hire, a Johnny Depp impersonator, doesn’t really look like Johnny Depp, so Fielder hires a second impersonator who looks even less like Johnny Depp, thinking that the presence of the not-so-good Johnny Depp impersonator would make the first one look better. Fielder calls in Bill Heath, a self-advertised Bill Gates impersonator, because the Johnny Depp impersonators’ schedules are too busy for regular employment. But, by the end of “Finding Frances,” we learn that Bill Heath was never really a Bill Gates impersonator at all. He merely impersonated a Bill Gates impersonator in order to get the job on “Nathan for You.”

3. the wire
2. the sopranos
1. this two-minute clip of nathan for you pic.twitter.com/OeOY3U9UOv

— bobby 👖 (@bobby) November 19, 2017

Just finished Finding Frances and it was everything it was billed to be. Bravo

Oh my god, the chilli suit with the poo tube coming out next to the chilli dispensor.

pic.twitter.com/Z5jmRLhCtK

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) February 1, 2018

explains the flamethrowers

Elon needed an idea guy of course

nathan noooo

Don't worry it's a wax Elon, surely

i can't think of nathan fielder anything but nathan fielder. i always wonder if how he handles himself in these situations

Probably something likes this. "Mr. Musk, people are always working on technology that helps us to go faster, but have you ever considered how productive we would be if we all just moved ... slower? My proposal to you is a train - a floating magic hover train - that takes *twice* as long to get from one place to another. Just imagine all the work you would get done, and how excited people would be watching it go by, slowly."

Can the Emmys be Hacked? I asked an important question and got a frightening answer. https://t.co/wcJ0MLTwM6

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) June 8, 2018

shocking to say the least...and really shocking to say the most

maura that's really great

the quick edit during the kid talking about orange at the beginning cracks me up

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/mxavib/nathan-for-you-interview-with-a-seven-year-old

I finally started watching this show after putting it off

This is not a bingeable show, and I mean that in the best possible way. Because holy shit, so awkward

I watched one episode a couple years ago and I haven't worked up the nerve for a second yet. Is it streaming on something?

Nathan is less a straight man than an incredibly awkward man. Any moment he starts to lose control of the situation or is about to break character, he responds in the most awkward way possible. It's not usually anything that's wrong enough to draw immediate anger, it's just.. what the fuck, this guy just doesn't know how to interact with people!

like even feeling for a sec that his character is relatable is the most cringe-worthy thing

silby, it's on hulu now

I'm still pretty early in the series but the whole reality show part of "The Hunk" where you're not sure if the women think they're on a real Bachelor-style show, or if they just know it's being taped for.. something.. was so weird. The woman who was asked "what's your deepest, darkest secret?" and the huge pause where she's making facial expressions that start at questioning, going through several emotions until she just looks like she's in a dark place.. was she doing that because she wants to be an actress and was trying to create a lot of footage so they'd cut in some of it? Was she really thinking about it and thought of something really unsettling?

just so great when she goes with "I hate wearing socks"

This is not a bingeable show, and I mean that in the best possible way. Because holy shit, so awkward

― mh, Thursday, August 9, 2018 8:50 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cringeable show

I just had to revisit the clip of the Uber passenger freaking out over the driver's refusal to stop blaring 'Mambo No. 5'.

I might need to rewatch the entire series right now.

a little bit of nathan in your life

I just watched Vampyr (1932) for the first time last night, and I don't know if the timeline works out but I'm pretty sure the main actor was Nathan Fielder. If not, I would like to commission a remake ASAP.

http://www.vulture.com/amp/2018/10/comedy-central-confirms-nathan-fielder-nathan-for-you-end.html

rip

good choice i think. end it on a high note

Somehow I fell out of watching this two episodes into season 4 but I just watched all of it except the Melinda episode and goddamn, what a show.

was thinking yesterday that a bar rescue type show with a MacGruber-esque host would be really good. then I remembered that Nathan For You is that show.

tivo alert: comedy central are rerunning the last two part ep this sunday and monday am

not Melinda, Frances

the dude's Bill Gates impression is solid

Some dude is doing Nathan For You stuff for real, except Nathan For You was already real, and this is also an intentional comedy, so I guess it's just cruelty-free Nathan For You.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owUWiWkFoCQ

also comedy-free

yeah i dunno if it's possible to do nathan for you schtick without being cruel.

Watching a terrible knockoff is useful in appreciating all the subtle things Nathan's show does so well. Apart from the absurdism, the awkward tension and editing that makes it so hilarious is there even in brief clips.

definitely. i was watching the Smokers Allowed episode last night, and really appreciated one of the edits from the audition/casting scenes where the actor was kept walking toward the door even as nathan was telling him he got the part

Amazon Flex allowed this woman to lose 100 lbs in 18 months by creating a workout while delivery packages.https://t.co/uBk49fYzFi

— Amazon News (@amazonnews) December 3, 2018

Nathan Fielder's show is going to be studied in business schools seriously within 10 years

for the conspiracy theorists out there: adult swim recently rescreened the final two part episode for (what I believe is) the first time since it originally aired. It was on at 3am on Saturday and Sunday. The entire endgame sequence, starting from the moment Nathan and Bill drive to Francis' house up until the scene where Bill gives Nathan the serving dish, was missing. That means the phone call in the car to Francis was cut. Wondering if this wasn't necessitated by a lawsuit and if the unexpurgated version is likely to be shown on television ever again.

I thought things were dirty last time, but this time it's...filthy

Wow, thank you https://t.co/3KvfwUgUSO

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) January 17, 2019

Ha!

Oh my gosh. So embarrassing lol https://t.co/pBwIXKwuHB

— nathan fielder (@nathanfielder) January 22, 2019

kinda awesome that the "Claw of Shame" opening clip is just going viral now

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/nathan-fielder-sets-hbo-overall-deal-docu-series-and-comedy-pilot-exclusive-1203299428/

Nathan Fielder has signed a one year overall deal at HBO, Variety has learned exclusively.

Under the deal, Fielder will serve as executive producer on”How To…With John Wilson,” which has been ordered to series at HBO, and an untitled comedy pilot in which Fielder will star as well as write and direct.

hell yeah

hope nathan for you is still on tho!

the John Wilson shorts can be seen here for now

http://johnsmovies.com/

that first one is great

hope nathan for you is still on tho!

I doubt it, or at least not for some time. I can see a one-off special in a few years maybe

nathan is that you?
https://6abc.com/man-wearing-tv-on-head-caught-on-camera-leaving-old-tvs-on-porches/5462579/

I think he said NFY was basically over in an interview

I remember something about how S3 & S4 struggled a bit with finding people who didn't recognize what kind of show it was - he's not exactly a household name but the show's popularity sorta worked against it. plus it was apparently a very difficult show to film, because you couldn't go out of order and you just had so much footage

I'll miss it but I'm excited for whatever's next, hopefully it won't be as uncomfortable to watch

why deny him his strongest comedic asset?

more awkwardness, please