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.

I can't remember at all, does much of Nathan for You, a few episodes aside, take place anywhere outside of Los Angeles?

I still remember then "The Gong Show" made such a splash. It was maybe the first show expressly to exploit the desire of people to be on television and their willingness to humiliate themselves to do so.

I remember watching Cops regularly when it first started and came to the realization all the perps dragged away drunk with their pants around their ankles had agreed to be shown on national TV. I think they do get paid some small amount, and maybe they were in positions that they figured a few hundred dollars was worth it, but I also came to believe that some just wanted their 15 minutes.

absolutely cannot wait

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjPFt8cpic

didn't know Eric Notarnicola, the main off-camera guy from On Cinema, was also involved heavily in Nathan For You

this show looks like it'll be pretty good and a natural extension of what NFY brings. but who knows. feel like there's gonna be a lot of crazy stuff in this show that they're deliberately not showing yet

fwiw I just noticed yesterday that NFY is available on HBO Max now for anyone who wants to revisit before the new show starts up

Think it's almost entirely filmed in LA

One night at dinner, he agreed to show me the feat of deception that short-circuited his brain all those years ago. “It’s not that impressive,” he warned, slipping a worn business card from his wallet. “See the card?” With a flick of his wrist, the card disappeared. I asked him to do it again. Fielder smiled. “No, I’m not going to do it again.”

lol

He's still got it

I was scream laughing at the trivia inception, especially "I curse the day when the Chinese invented gunpowder"

Spoiler tagging because I think I'd be more mad about this show getting spoiled than any twisty scifi whatever type show

this was amazing & this gave me anxiety

what a joy.

there is nothing like this show

yeah I was in heaven watching this

ok i will be the guy who asks

where do you all sit on the exploitation-ometer re this show? i felt somewhat uncomfortable with the way the friend Trish was portrayed in her introduction - and thought the trivia cheating was 50/50 - the rehearsal of an angry reaction was a fascinating addition that still didn’t justify or absolve the manipulation

i watched this with my partner who doesn’t know Nathan’s schtick - and she thought it absolutely exploited the subjects. Cole had a degree of agency in the whole thing but i’m not sure I would be stoked if I were Trish. we both work in tv and have many discussions about exploitative vs collaborative documentary film models. i know it was entertainment! i know these issues have probably been discussed to death elsewhere including probably upthread! still keen to hear some different views.

i feel like with "exploitation" i really want to be able to understand the harm being done: a harm beyond being embarrassed after the fact about something you understood and agreed to

i don't think these people are mocked; i think they seem human and complicated. i agree that it "uses" other people to achieve its ends, but there's a matter of degree here, and with this first episode it doesn't feel abusive. an improv show that invites a volunteer on stage (and then does something silly with them) isn't necessarily "exploitation" - although it can still be mean or embarrass about the volunteer.

if trish was mistreated over the course of this production - if she felt deceived, etc - then she'd be right to be angry and fielder would be obliged to respond to this. but with a lot of art i think that's the extent of the moral obligation: to try not to do harm; to face those who feel harm was done, if that's the case, and respond in good faith to their complaints. but you don't have a moral obligation to "avoid any circumstance where someone might feel bad."

i say this as a novelist who has used real people in his work

if there is a novel about a jerk, and it becomes known that the character was inspired by a real person, the author may have a responsibility to deal with that real person face to face. but they don't have an obligation not to write that book.

bad nathan friend

Xp thanks for this response Sean G, that’s really interesting - esp “avoid any circumstance where people might feel bad”, which I must admit I try to do myself! there’s something about the power imbalance between someone with access to massive budget and broadcast distribution apparatus - and people who don’t! that makes me wary. i think people often enter into relationships with media without really understanding the implications of what it means to surrender their story to an edit process.

your example of writing novels is interesting, would you agree tho that maybe there is a difference when someone is presented in a certain way in a heavily constructed “reality” show?

the intro montage of Trish’s over-talking was the one bit where i felt the editorial of the show was being actively unkind - especially given she had not agreed to participate. would be absolutely fascinated to read about Trish’s post-production interactions with the show and feelings about the experience. Presumably she had to sign off? Was paid? maybe providing that kind of insight as extra material would be an ethically cool addition, i dunno.

I’m not a tv insider but I always take it as a given that any time I see someone’s face & hear their voice in a show like this (i.e. not the news) they have agreed in writing and been paid at least a nominal sum

i was more wondering if they showed her the cut before she signed! btw of course i do think she actually comes across really well when it counts - but definitely interested in these considerations around agency and representation.

https://thriftyboy.org

yes, the "stories" look hilarious but don't miss the iStock watermarks on all the preview photos

this was staggeringly impressive, i couldn't believe they spend the money on the bar set.

this should prob have its own thread, ill start it

This sounds potentially amazing

https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/the-curse-first-look-nathan-fielder-emma-stone-flip-houses-benny-safdie-1234897207/

i wonder if we'll get another season of the Rehearsal given all the HBO problems

Hmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tui5vl13Gqg

i guess we're not getting a second season of the Rehearsal

but this looks great.

i guess we're not getting a second season of the Rehearsal

It technically was renewed for a second season (after this new show was already greenlit) so it should be coming eventually, but who knows with (HBO) MAX these days

Would love if this new show was just an elaborate ruse by nate to meet Emma Stone

It's hard to see Nathan in a purely dramatic role — which this may not be, it's still kind of vague in the trailer — without wondering what "Nathan" is making of the whole thing.

the scene where he takes the $100 back from the girl is pure Nathan though

that last line was delivered in pure Nathan voice, too

The Curse is a genre-bending drama series that explores how an alleged curse disturbs the relationship of a newly married couple as they try to conceive a child while co-starring on their new HGTV show.

...and the creators are Nathan and Benny Safdie

this is going to go to some really dark places to be funny, isn't it?

I really liked The Curse and it certainly kept me off-balance, tonally. Fielder's conversation with the father-in-law is funny, but there's this horror film drone on the score that was unsettling--I kept waiting for something terrible to happen, some sudden abuse. Ditto the camera work--all those shots through windows, and that fantastic one in the kitchen with Stone in the mirror.

I read an review calling Emma Stone America's best "mouth actor", and she certainly has an amazing way of keeping a smile plastered on as the rest of her face starts losing control.

After it was over, my partner said, "Wow, they really can show anything on TV these days, huh?" I feel sorry for the reddit commenters who mentioned watching this with their parents.

only the first episode has dropped, right?

That's right, I think it's airing weekly, ten episodes.

We've only seen the first episode so far but ... yeah, this is predictably pretty fucked up. This show is like a cross between "Uncut Gems" (with long silences subbing for the yelling) and "The Rehearsal." Re: the score, this is Daniel Lopatin/ Oneohtrix Point Never, right? He did "Uncut Gems" as well.

Was not expecting the importance of micropenii to the plot

Before watching the second episode I wondered if that might be part of the title’s meaning.

best actor in a supporting role goes to… Steven

Nathan "out of character" and Emma committing to the bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MldMVC82-Po

Stone is so good in that first episode. And for all his supposed limitations as an actor, Fielder is doing some hard work on his own even trying to keep up with her.

Hate to admit that so far I'm having a really hard time getting into this, but I trust Nathan enough that maybe he’s got some more tricks up his sleeve over the course of the show. Just find the satire of clueless influencer types plus sleazy reality TV guy to be really cliché & tired, feel like I’ve seen these beats so many times over the years. Really hope there ends up being more to it than that.

I sort of feel the same way, and I also don't really like the way it kind of leans harder on the Safdie brand of discomfort than the Fielder Method (even though Fielder directed a lot of it, iirc). But I trust in Fielder, since none of his projects have ended where they began. On the other hand, I think this is 10 episodes long, which is a lot for this story.

I like the show but this made me even more curious about where it's going.

saw the first three eps of the curse at NYFF and thought it was extremely whatever but when i watched the whole thing at home i realized it’s probably the best new show of the year (disclaimer: i barely watch TV). my review for @PasteMagazine https://t.co/GgKBmna1jg

— brianna (@justbrizigs) November 6, 2023

fwiw I was kind of underwhelmed by the first episode of The Rehearsal and figured the positive reaction was mostly from people who just really missed NFY. but yea not only did the show get way better/weirder it also turned out to really need a first episode like that lest the thing just make no sense whatsoever

wait is the whole thing out or no?

no, only the first 2 of 10

apparently reviewers have the whole thing

right and very much like The Rehearsal a lot of them are saying "oh, just you wait"