50 Fun Facts About Nathan for You

On which network did Nathan for You premiere in February 2013?

It aired there for four seasons before Fielder moved to HBO for The Rehearsal.

Who co-created the series with Nathan Fielder?

The others all worked on the show too: Mintz and Mooney wrote on season one and Woliner directed segments like The Hunk.

What background does Nathan's on-screen character cite to justify advising struggling companies?

The real Fielder did graduate with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Victoria, which shaped the premise.

The show grew out of "Nathan On Your Side" segments on which Canadian series?

Fielder played a consumer advocate on the CBC news satire from 2008 to 2009.

How many episodes of Nathan for You were made in total?

Twenty-seven follow the business-advice format; five depart from it, including the finale.

How many seasons did the series run?

Comedy Central confirmed in October 2018 that Fielder had chosen to end it to focus on other projects.

Roughly how many hours of footage were shot for each 22-minute episode?

Fielder called the constant re-writing around real reactions "a very inefficient way of making TV."

Which viral video, later revealed as a hoax, did the show stage at a petting zoo?

A trained stand-in pig followed a plastic-walled course underwater; the clip made NBC Nightly News and Good Morning America.

Under what YouTube username did Fielder upload the petting-zoo video in 2012?

He made no effort to promote it; Gawker and Reddit did the work, and it passed seven million views before the hoax was revealed.

Dumb Starbucks opened in February 2014 in which Los Angeles neighborhood?

The strip mall at 1802 Hillhurst Avenue also held a Thai restaurant and a coin laundromat.

For "legal reasons", Dumb Starbucks claimed it was actually what?

The window notice said the coffee was technically the art and that parody law covered the borrowed trademarks.

Before the reveal, some visitors thought Dumb Starbucks was the work of which artist?

Others guessed Tim & Eric, whose production company had applied for a filming permit at the address.

What was the name of the real coffee shop Nathan set out to help in the Dumb Starbucks episode?

Owner Elias Zacklin was eventually cut out of the project; the cafe later closed for good.

Who closed the Dumb Starbucks store on February 10, 2014?

It was shut for operating without a permit hours after Fielder's press conference; Starbucks never sued.

Private investigator Brian Wolfe got his own reality series, Cry Wolfe, on which channel?

Nathan later tried to land a similar deal for a security guard from season one, without success.

Which bodybuilder was the public face of "The Movement" fitness routine?

A ghost-written book about the routine made the Amazon best-seller list and he appeared on daytime advertorial shows.

"The Movement" was designed to secretly supply free labor to what kind of business?

Years later Amazon reported a woman lost 100 pounds delivering packages, prompting comparisons Fielder himself joined in.

Summit Ice, the apparel brand Nathan launched on the show, raises money for what cause?

It was a response to jacket maker Taiga printing a tribute to a Holocaust denier; it raised over $150,000 by 2017.

The Summit Ice episode was pulled from Paramount+ in 2023 after concerns from which country's division?

Fielder answered the removal in The Rehearsal's second season by confronting a fake Paramount executive in a Nazi-style war room.

How many viewers watched the series premiere in 2013?

Numbers rose to 570,000 for episode two and 615,000 for a sneak peek aired after Workaholics.

In the season one finale, Nathan's blind date had to include product placement for which chain?

The same episode had Nathan trying to lose a private investigator using wildly dissimilar lookalikes.

What "buzzworthy" flavor did Nathan introduce at a frozen yogurt shop in the pilot?

The same episode had a pizzeria promise free pizza on late deliveries, with the free pizza one inch across.

Why did the mall block Nathan's plan for summertime photos with a St. Nick?

The segment shares an episode with the petting-zoo pig hoax and a sting on a teen graffiti artist.

Which comedian deliberately sabotages a job interview while Nathan repeats his words in the pilot?

Fielder had played his boom operator on Jon Benjamin Has a Van, whose cancellation helped get Nathan for You greenlit.

To claim a gas-station rebate, customers had to do what?

The same episode had Nathan push a caricature artist to draw insulting pictures of beachgoers.

Nathan made a haunted house scarier by convincing visitors they had caught what?

The episode pairs with The Hunk, a fake dating show meant to make Nathan less awkward with women.

In "The Claw of Shame", what would the robotic arm do if Nathan failed to escape his handcuffs?

A police officer stood by to arrest him for indecent exposure in front of a group of children.

Under what nickname did Nathan rebrand a real-estate agent in the season two premiere?

She guaranteed ghost-free properties, which forced an exorcism when a medium sensed an incubus in one listing.

What device did Nathan attach to an auto mechanic while customers asked for estimates?

It opened season two in July 2014 with 710,000 viewers, then the show's best number.

What fake event did Nathan create to give his souvenir-shop movie credibility?

He had invited people to play paying customers as extras, then realized he had to finish a real film or face fraud claims.

Nathan bought a huge pet-cemetery gravestone, ostensibly for a pet fly named what?

The gravestone was really an ad for a pet store; the same episode had 40 maids clean one house at once.

How many workers did Nathan's maid service send to clean a single house at once?

Nathan also tried to improve his own personality with a focus group in that episode.

To create a "Bird Droppings Special" for a car wash, what did Nathan put in a roadside tree?

The episode also let minors pre-order alcohol to photograph and collect once they turned 21.

Nathan rebranded a pest-control business under what name so it could work discreetly?

Exterminators posing as award judges could inspect hotels without scaring guests.

In season three's premiere, Nathan picked a legal fight with which retailer over a price match?

He advertised TVs at an absurdly low price at a small electronics store and made the deal almost impossible to claim.

In "Smokers Allowed", Nathan got around a bar's smoking ban by presenting the evening as what?

He then restaged the night with hired actors as a real theatrical performance to give it legitimacy.

Which is the only episode of the series rated TV-MA?

It involved shielding children from hearing their parents have sex in a shared hotel room.

Who hosted the 2017 special "A Celebration", which checked in on former guests?

Napoli was The Hunk from season one's fake dating show; the special aired a week before season four.

In the season four premiere, which comedian supposedly left a $10,000 tip at a small-town diner?

The rumour was Nathan's whole marketing plan for the diner.

How much of the show's budget did Nathan spend staging a story for "The Anecdote"?

He thought his earlier late-night appearances had been too boring, so he lived an outlandish story he could truthfully retell.

On which talk show did Nathan finally recount the anecdote he had engineered?

Kimmel had also interviewed Fielder in 2014 at the height of the Dumb Starbucks coverage.

To cut tariffs for a shipping company, Nathan reclassified smoke detectors as what?

That meant forming a real band to prove the devices could be played.

What was the name of the band Nathan formed in the shipping-logistics episode?

The group existed to give the tariff dodge a veneer of legitimacy.

For a computer repair shop, Nathan recruited technicians with what trait?

The logic was that they would be less likely to look at pornography on clients' machines.

Nathan's psychic billboards were addressed personally to which common local name?

The ploy made a mass-market billboard feel like a one-to-one message to thousands of residents.

The subject of "Finding Frances" had first appeared on the show as an impersonator of whom?

His niece later told Nathan she had no idea he had ever been a professional impersonator.

To reach a school's yearbook archive, Nathan and Bill posed as producers of a sequel to which film?

The fictional Mud 2: Never Clean worked because the original had been shot in Dumas, Arkansas.

In which state did Nathan and Bill finally locate Frances?

They parked down the street from her house, and Bill phoned her instead of knocking.

Which documentary director called "Finding Frances" "unfathomably great"?

He wrote a full New Yorker essay on the finale, saying he wasn't sure there was even a fourth wall left to break.

Fielder's high-school improv group in Vancouver included which future comedy star?

Fielder then studied business at the University of Victoria before a comedy course at Humber College.