50 Fun Facts About Nathan for You

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

Comedy Central aired all four seasons, and it was Fielder, not the network, who ended the show in 2018 to move on to other projects.

Who co-created Nathan for You with Nathan Fielder?

Michael Koman, a longtime Conan O'Brien writer, gave Fielder his first US TV job on Demetri Martin's sketch show; when Fielder was offered a pilot of his own, he asked Koman to build it with him.

In Nathan for You's opening, Nathan boasts of leaving one of Canada's top business schools with what?

Really good grades, he says, just as the transcript flashed on screen shows mostly Bs and a C.

Nathan for You grew out of Fielder's "Nathan On Your Side" segments on which Canadian series?

This Hour Has 22 Minutes cast Fielder as a consumer advocate, and the baffled reactions he drew from real business owners became the idea he later expanded into his own series.

In Nathan for You's fourth season, Nathan and a taxi boss named Andy plot to sabotage which company?

Uber: Nathan rallied disgruntled cabbies for a stealth campaign to sabotage the app from the inside, which left riders forced to sit through "Mambo No. 5".

Fielder followed Nathan for You with which HBO series?

The Rehearsal lets ordinary people practise a difficult conversation before it happens, with Fielder hiring actors and building sets to recreate the real situation.

On Nathan for You, what did a clothing store let its most attractive customers do?

Shoplift one item: the plan was free word of mouth, but it only paid off after Nathan pressed one shoplifter, under threat of arrest, to bring a friend in to buy something.

Which viral 2012 video did Nathan for You secretly stage at a petting zoo?

A pig rescuing a baby goat: a trained stand-in pig followed a hidden underwater track built by the crew, and national news shows aired the clip as real.

Which star's impersonator signed autographs at a Hollywood souvenir shop on Nathan for You?

Johnny Depp: Nathan staged a fake film shoot to lure tourists in as "extras", and the lookalike signed everything one unhappy customer had bought so that none of it could be refunded.

Dumb Starbucks opened in February 2014 in which L.A. neighborhood?

Los Feliz: outside the strip-mall shop, Fielder gave a deadpan press conference in a green barista apron and announced a second branch for Brooklyn.

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

An art gallery: a notice in the shop argued that adding the word "dumb" made the store a parody protected by fair use, so the coffee on sale was technically the art.

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

Banksy was among the guesses until reporters linked the shop to the production company behind Nathan for You, and Fielder then confessed in a video.

Dumb Starbucks stocked a "Dumb" duets CD spoofing which singer?

Norah Jones: "Dumb Norah Jones Duets" sat on the CD rack, and the baristas came from a Craigslist ad seeking former Starbucks staff, so nobody needed training.

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

The health department closed the shop for operating without a health permit on the day Fielder revealed himself; Starbucks had done no more than say it was "evaluating next steps".

Brian Wolfe, a recurring Nathan for You guest who landed his own reality series, works as what?

Private investigator: after his season-one run-in with Nathan, producers looking for an LA detective signed Wolfe up, and Cry Wolfe ran for three seasons.

The made-up memoir behind Nathan for You's fitness craze claimed its bodybuilder author grew up friends with whom?

Steve Jobs: the hired writer also invented years of charity work with "jungle children", the bodybuilder repeated it all on morning TV, and after the episode aired the real book shot up Amazon's charts.

On Nathan for You, a fake fitness craze secretly supplied free labor to what kind of business?

A moving company: recruits were told that lifting boxes and furniture was a workout that made the gym unnecessary, so they did the firm's work for free, believing they were exercising.

Summit Ice, the jacket brand Nathan Fielder launched on Nathan for You, raises money for what cause?

Holocaust education: Fielder started the brand after learning that Taiga, the maker of the jacket he wore on screen, had printed a tribute to a Holocaust denier in its catalogue.

Nathan Fielder says which country's Paramount+ branch first removed Nathan for You's Summit Ice episode in 2023?

Germany's branch acted first, by his account, and the removal then spread to other regions; he answered by confronting an actor cast as a Paramount executive on a later show.

Chasing a headline, Nathan for You had a struggling cab company offer free rides to whom?

Pregnant women: Nathan hoped one would give birth in the cab, and the owner got so keen that Nathan had to step in when he begged a passenger to do it.

On Nathan for You, a blind date Nathan arranged had to include product placement for which chain?

Quiznos sponsored the date, so the mismatched pair had to meet in one of its shops while the nervous suitor was coached to praise the artisan bread and chef-inspired sauces.

Which flavor did Nathan for You's first episode add at a frozen yogurt shop to get people talking?

Poo: the flavour existed only to create a stir, and while the huge crowds Nathan promised never came, some curious customers did turn up to try it.

Why did a mall cancel Nathan for You's plan to sell summertime photos with a St. Nick?

The Santa had a criminal record, so the mall cancelled once it found out; Nathan and his gun-collecting Santa went ahead anyway and ran into mall security.

Which comedian fed Nathan deliberately terrible answers during a job interview in Nathan for You's first episode?

H. Jon Benjamin dictated the answers through a hidden earpiece, and one line was so awful that the famously deadpan Fielder refused to repeat it.

To claim a gas-station rebate on Nathan for You, customers had to do what?

Hike a mountain and solve riddles: customers actually took him up on it, and the trek turned into an overnight camping trip with Nathan.

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

A deadly disease: Nathan wanted the attraction to seem scary enough to get its owner sued, but the terrified couple he fooled showed no interest in suing.

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

Pull down his pants: with children watching and a police officer standing by, failing the escape would have meant an indecent exposure arrest and life as a registered sex offender.

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

The Ghost Realtor promised that every home she sold was free of spirits, which meant calling in an exorcist after a psychic sensed a demon in one of her listings.

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

A lie detector, so customers could trust his quotes; the mechanic came through fine, while Nathan spent the segment disputing what the polygraph said about him.

On Nathan for You, Nathan founded what to give his slapdash souvenir-shop movie some credibility?

A film festival: a retired judge warned that no jury would call his footage a real movie, so the Eastern Los Angeles International Film Festival was invented to hand it an award.

Where did Nathan for You put up a towering ad for a pet store?

A pet cemetery: to justify a huge gravestone carrying the store's ad, Nathan needed a dead pet of his own, so he held a graveside ceremony for a housefly named Buzz.

On Nathan for You, who sent 40 workers into one house?

A maid service: the 40 cleaners were meant to finish a whole house in six minutes, and though they ran a little over, the homeowner was happy with the result.

Nathan for You put chickens in a roadside tree to help which business?

A car wash: the birds were there to soil the cars passing underneath, so the wash could sell a "Bird Droppings Special", and Nathan even schemed to delay traffic beneath the branch.

On Nathan for You, a pest-control business was rebranded under what name so it could work discreetly?

Hotel Excellence Awards was a cover so that hotel guests wouldn't suspect an infestation; the hotel's manager signed the exterminator's contract only after Nathan tricked him into it.

In its season three premiere, Nathan for You picked a legal fight with which retailer over a price match?

Best Buy refused to match a tiny rival's $1 TVs, a deal Nathan had made nearly impossible to claim at the rival's own shop by putting the sets behind a tiny door and a live alligator.

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

A play: theatrical performances were exempt from the smoking ban, so the drinkers became unpaid actors watched by an audience of two, and Nathan later restaged the whole night with a hired cast.

What did Nathan for You have a travel agent try to sell to her elderly customers?

Funeral plans: the agent gave it a go, then told Nathan she could only sell what she felt passionate about, and for once he backed off and praised her instead.

In "The Hero", Nathan for You's season three finale, what stunt did Nathan perform disguised as another man?

A tightrope walk: after months of training, Nathan crossed between two buildings in prosthetic make-up and padding so that an arcade worker named Corey would get the credit.

On Nathan for You, which comedian was said to have left a $10,000 tip at a small diner?

Michael Richards was portrayed by an impersonator, and Nathan paid a stranger to change his name by law so that the card receipt would genuinely read Michael Richards.

In "The Anecdote", what does Nathan wear from a stranger's luggage?

An oversized suit: he had studied hours of talk-show clips to work out the perfect story, then staged each step for real so that he could tell it truthfully.

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 a shipping firm's tariffs, Nathan for You reclassified smoke detectors as what?

Musical instruments carried lower tariffs than smoke detectors, so Nathan sold them as "blues" instruments and formed a real band whose single featured one.

How did Nathan for You sneak chili into a hockey arena to sell to fans?

Hidden under Nathan's clothes: a custom-made rig let him dispense chili to fans in the stands as if from thin air, a jab at arenas' grip on food sales.

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

Asexual staff, Nathan reasoned, would have no interest in snooping through customers' private photos, so the shop could promise that its repairs were snoop-free.

Nathan for You kept an antique shop near bars open all night to exploit which store policy?

You break it, you buy it: Nathan steered a drunk man in a sumo costume through the narrow aisles, and the breakages earned the shop a sale of a few hundred dollars.

The subject of Nathan for You's finale, "Finding Frances", first appeared on the show as an impersonator of whom?

Bill Gates, though not really: in the finale his niece says she knew of no impersonating before the show, and Heath calls his claim to do it for a living a misunderstanding.

In "Finding Frances", Nathan posed as a producer of a sequel to which film to reach a school's yearbooks?

Mud had been filmed around Dumas, Arkansas, so a crew claiming to be making the invented sequel "Mud 2: Never Clean" seemed plausible enough to be let into the high school's archive.

In "Finding Frances", how does Bill finally reach Frances?

By phone: parked near her Michigan home, Bill calls instead of knocking; Frances, by then a happily married grandmother, doesn't know his voice at first, and after a warm chat he decides not to visit.

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

Errol Morris, who built a career on films about how truth gets constructed, followed the tweet with a New Yorker essay calling the finale his new favourite exploration of love.

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

Seth Rogen, the older star of the troupe, remembers Fielder saying nothing for a whole sketch and then landing the one deadpan line that got the biggest laugh.