![]() ![]() Its subjects don’t become legendary by being laughing-stocks. In trying to help other people, “Nathan for You” is an exercise in TV altruism. Sure, shortly after that there’s an army of set decorators and line producers ready to bring these ideas to fruition, but there’s some truth in the everyman illusion. The first move we often see to get these plans in motion is hopping on Craigslist. We’ll never be able to say for sure if that convenience store owner really does what he says he does or if a writer-for-hire independently headlined a chapter of a fictional autobiography with the word “ Baboons.”īut whenever the first step of one of these business experiments is Fielder going immediately to Wikipedia, it immediately undercuts the self-imposed hierarchy that so many of these unscripted shows put into place. ![]() There’s no way to be able to guarantee that the most sincere-seeming moments, like that quick back-and-forth about baking, are genuine, spontaneous bits of unplanned brilliance. What’s important is how much that divide between fact and controlled narrative affects what any show is striving for. The constant thread through the show’s first few seasons, of a TV host’s simple desire for human affection, plays out in lingering hugs, awkward meet-up plans and a few extra readings of the line “I love you.” “Nathan for You” may have done a more straightforward parody of “The Bachelor,” but shepherding one person’s quest for companionship in the middle of these bizarre antics is just making subtext out of the text of a bevy of disposable dating show franchises.ĭiscussing whether a reality show can be truly “real” seems like a fruitless exercise. There’s no doubt that some of Fielder’s interactions with the business owners he helps are in-character. It’s funny because it’s the kind of conversation that TV doesn’t make time for anymore. It’s not funny because the audience has deemed these people worthy of derision or they’re destined for tabloid fame. It’s simple, weirdly touching, and a perfect comedy beat, all in one. ![]() After a typically (and unnecessarily) convoluted scheme to help out an L.A.-area massage parlor, the button on this crazy scheme is two guys talked about baking. From impossibly long lead times (like the hero pig video or The Movement) or ones with tighter windows, the show has doubled down on itself and its trickster spirit rather than trying to expand beyond its limits.Īs the show heads to the close of its fourth season, it’s worth celebrating the show’s smaller moments, like the very end of this season’s second episode. The world of the internet itself has changed drastically in the few years the show’s been on the air, but Fielder’s been able to have at least one episode per season hop across the comedy nerd subset and make something that could surface elsewhere. The show’s answer to “Where to go next?” has rarely been to do more or do it bigger. Massive undertakings like his wedding trip mishap Kimmel bit (reportedly) took hundreds of thousands of dollars to pull off, but it’s far from the biggest thing in scope that the show has ever done. “Nathan for You” has an important message about scale and oneupsmanship for an entertainment world desperate for new ways to snag attention. (This season, he also undercut the time-tested late night talk show anecdote formula, too.) “Nathan for You” Comedy Central Peeler has effectively hijacked the human interest means of production, and made one of TV’s great shows in the process. No matter how many times one of his stunts ends with a segment-closing montage of local news reports reproducing his schemes as mere happenstance, it does chip away at the veracity of all the nightly “you won’t believe this!” stories that come in their wake. He’ll sing an a cappella composition of his own making, he’ll take a blowtorch to a polymer gel-coated groin, he’ll put himself in the precarious position of risking a felony.Īside from various members of the current presidential administration, no one figure in American culture has been responsible for more challenges to the concept of reality more than Fielder. Some of the bigger, outsized stunts have been built around him, but in the much more common group-effort approach, Fielder has shown that he’s willing to do what he asks of his co-conspirators. ![]()
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