Nathan For You: What About The Show Is Actually Real (& 9 Other Questions, Answered)

Nathan For You is an innovative reality comedy TV series, in which Canadian comic Nathan Fielder plays a socially awkward character who tries to help struggling companies with his unusual and often unhelpful business advice, as well as trying to give strangers advice on their personal problems.

The show ran for four seasons on The Comedy Channel between 2013 and 2018 and won Best Comedy/Variety Sketch Series at the Writers Guild of America Awards in 2019. Despite its success, some people find it difficult to believe that the show is real and that the so-called business owners must be in on the joke.

10 What About The Show Is Actually Real?

The simple fact is that everything about the show is real – even Fielder says that he is playing an exaggerated version of himself, as he has struggled with his social anxiety problems for years. The business owners know that they are being filmed but they have no idea that it is for a comedy show, and they think that all of Nathan’s ideas are real plans he has developed to help their company succeed. Their reactions to the bizarre things that Nathan says are very real and are what makes the show so funny.

9 Is There A Script For Each Episode?

Because the show relies so much on the genuine responses of members of the public, Nathan For You episodes cannot be scripted in the conventional sense. Obviously, the team behind the show has to do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure they are prepared for any eventuality. Fielder has a general script for the start of the show when he is explaining his plan to business owners, but after that, he simply has to react to whatever they say and do.

8 How Much Of The Show Is Improvised?

A lot! The team behind Nathan For You have no idea what the members of the public who feature on the show are going to do, and while they can have a rough plan as to how they think an episode will shape out, Fielder has to be able to improvise when they say something unexpected – and that happens more than you might expect considering these people know they are on camera.

Even more important, Fielder has to be able to maintain his character and keep a straight face, even if crazy things are happening around him.

7 Do The Business Owners Know They Are In A Comedy Show?

What makes Nathan For You so funny isn’t just Fielder’s wild and wacky ideas, but the unusual ways that the business owners respond to his schemes; some are baffled and confused while others are more than happy to go along with his suggestion. This only works because the business owners think that Nathan is a real expert and that the cameras are there for a consumer-style show. If they knew they were in a comedy series, then they would soon start to question what they were being asked to do.

6 How Are The Businesses On The Show Chosen?

Often the team will come up with an idea first, and then have to find a business that it will work for. Finding the right owner to feature on the show isn’t just a case of marrying the right company with the right scheme; the people who work at the business should be quite outgoing to make for good TV, and they are also screened to see if they watch a lot of comedy shows in case there is a risk that they recognize Fielder. As the show became more successful, it also became harder to find businesses who weren’t aware of what the series had done.

5 How Do Members Of The Public React When They Know The Truth?

Most business owners take the truth in good humor, and while Nathan’s ideas are always unusual, they are not always terrible. And there is no such thing as bad publicity when you’re a small business.

The media have been fooled by some of Nathan’s ideas, which have gone viral before the relevant episode was screened, such as the “Dumb Starbucks” coffee shop. News channels had speculated that the clip was a publicity stunt by the real Starbucks until Fielder revealed the truth.

4 Where Did The Idea For The Show Come From?

The original concept behind Nathan For You came from a character that Fielder created for a Canadian TV show called This Hour Has 22 Minutes, which was first screened in 1993. Featuring political sketches and satire, Fielder first appeared on the show in 2007, playing a socially awkward consumer affairs reporter who interviewed real people for his segments on the show. Fielder simply expanded the original idea when he created his show for The Comedy Channel and turned it into an unexpected TV hit.

3 Have Any Business Owners Realized They Are Being Set Up?

It seems that while no business owners have ever realized that they are on a comedy show, many of them have challenged the suggestions made by Nathan’s business guru character. Fielder has said that while some were upfront about their skepticism, others were too polite to say out loud that they thought the ideas were terrible, even if it was obvious that they hated his scheme. Luckily, the team has done their homework when it comes to picking the right guests, and it always works out in the end.

2 Does The Show Use Actors?

There have been some claims that Nathan For You has used actors in some scenes, to increase the comedy value or to ensure that the show sticks to the storyline. However, the only actor in Nathan For You is Fielder himself, although producers did use one lookalike as a Nathan decoy in the episode featuring a private investigator. And of course, actors were involved when Nathan had bright the idea to help out a funeral home by offering a rent-a-crowd for funeral services.

1 What Is The Craziest Moment The Crew Has Seen On The Show?

The weirdest scenes on the show should be the wacky suggestions that Nathan comes up with – from poo-flavored frozen yogurt to a racist caricature artist, but the craziest moment actually came courtesy of one of the business owners. When Nathan came up with a scheme to help a local gas station drum up business, the owner admitted that he regularly drank his grandson’s pee for the health benefits. Amazingly, Nathan and the team managed to keep a straight face, but it made for one of the all-time classic Nathan For You moments.