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Callaroga Shark Media.
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Saturdays this summer for deep dives on single topics. Helloo,
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I'm Johnny Mack and let's start in Chicago. It's two
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thousand and two. We are in a rat infested basement.
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Aprighetzi's there with his friend Michael Clay. They were meeter
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readers at a water company back home, and they decided
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they were going to become comedians. They moved to Chicago
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and rented a basement they nicknamed the Dugout, and they
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signed up for classes at Second City, you know, the
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improv factory that gave you Bill Murray Tina Fey half
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of every SNL cast for fifty years. Nate did it
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for a minute and figured out pretty quickly improv was
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not his thing. He switched over to a stand up
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program run by a guy named Jim Routh. Nate did
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his first set in April of two thousand and three
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and started picking up scraps around Chicago and back home
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in Nashville.
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H my name's Nate. It might be hard to understand me.
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And sometimes I come in New York City. I'm just
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going from Nashville. I'll wear this shirt for a couple
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of reasons. So if I get questions like that, they
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just they're oh okay. If people come in late, they
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know they don't have to interrupt us by asking. They'll
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just read my shirt and they can't figure that out.
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And they're probably from Nashville too. You're probably have the
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same shirt. I also wear it in case I get
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lost people not wearing the sinem It's kind of like
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a dog leash. I got my name to know where
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written in the back.
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This part of the story matters because it skips the
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aprighetsy creation, myth that he's this wholesome Nashville guy. His
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dad's a magician, he does clean comedy. It skips the
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part where he actually came up in Chicago. He wasn't
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a regional guy who got discovered. He went did the
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unglamorous thing the comedians do, which has moved somewhere else
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with a real comedy scene, and get humiliated in front
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of small rooms until something clicks. In two thousand and four,
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Nate moved to New York City. He got a job
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as a barker for the Boston Comedy Club, which is
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a club in New York City, which meant standing in
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Greenwich Village handing out flyers in exchange for stage time
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at night. You ever see these guys, they'll be like, hey,
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do you like stand up comedy? It is a rough gig.
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Nate was also driving for FedEx and walking dogs during
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the day to make the rent. But back in those days,
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the Boston Comedy Club was a real room. Dave Chappelle
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came through there, Bill Burr, Patrise, O'Neill, Louis c K.
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Nate has talked about watching those guys from the back,
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paying close attention to comedians who were not doing clean comedy,
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and he has said it took close to a year
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before he got his first actual paying gig in New
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York City. He described those early years as doing as
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many as seven sets a night, bouncing between rooms, which
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by his account, is too many. Nate will tell you
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five is the realistic ceiling before you stop being able
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to tell what you're even saying anymore, Nate forgets. He
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stayed in New York City for almost nine years, nine
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years of the comedy seller the Stand Carolines. That's where
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where he got the education, the place where he built
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the timing and the writing instincts that everybody now associates
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with effortless dad comedy, except none of it was effortless,
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and none of it happened in Nashville. He built this
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in rooms that were dirty and rowdier than almost anything
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he had ever performed himself. And the interesting part is
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that people in the quote unquote mainstream comedy culture openly
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liked him, despite Nate being nothing like them. The detail
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that the dirty comics of that era genuinely loved Nate
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tells you that the cleanliness was never a defensive posture.
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It's just who he was tested against an audience that
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had every incentive to expose him if he wasn't real.
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Part of the discovery story I don't hear about involves
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Mark Maren. Maren saw Nate at a festival called LaughFest
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back in twenty twelve and tweeted about him and brought
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him on to WTF that same year. Mark Maren not
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exactly known for a wholesome sensibility, not exactly the Nashville demo,
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but Maren always had a sharp eye for who's actually
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good underneath the surface presentation, and he clocked Nate almost immediately.
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That WTAF appearance did something specific for Nate's career, put
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them in front of an audience of comedy people, the
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exact opposite of the casual audience had been known for,
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and that audience responded because the writing was that strong.
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I think I got a fascination with people that live
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in the South. I want them to h to set
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me straight on it and and and make me appreciate
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it as a place where a lot of different kind
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of people live, and not just the kind of people
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that are stereotypically Southern.
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Yeah, we're like the rest of the country, you are,
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except New York and LA the only ones that are different.
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Oh really, I think so.
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So we're the assholes.
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I mean sort of like y'all Like New York always
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baffles me because they're like they are like so small
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on America. Yeah, and they're just like this is how
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it is, and this is how y'all are. And I'm like,
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in your own state, their people are not like that,
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Like they're your own Like they're You're only thirty miles
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away from hill people, yeah, like I mean very close. Yeah.
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And my people that I can go talk to and
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get out.
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Let's go to upstate in the town.
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Of seven and they get it.
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They get me. They I can go to Walmart and
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walk around and breathe and feel good about myself.
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Around that time, Jim Gaffigan was advocating for Nate, calling
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him one of the best up and comers in the business.
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Jimmy Fallon found him around the same time and put
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him on Late Night in twenty thirteen, then brought Nate
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onto something called the Clean Cut Comedy Tour, which Nate
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used that year to win both the New York and
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Boston Comedy Festivals.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Nate by
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got it.
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Thank you, Thank you everybody that was exciting, you know,
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it felt it felt good, all right. I'm from Tennessee originally. Yeah,
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so that's something. And I lived in New York though
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for years. I'm on board in New York. I like it.
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It's I like the driving. It's like great, It's very intense.
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It's everybody just honks it, everybody NonStop. And that's how
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it should be everywhere, you know, like growing up in
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the South, no one honks their horn ever. People just
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sit at lights and they're just like, if you want
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to go, I totally understand.
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Conan had him on the Old TBS Show back in
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two thousand and eight and brought him back multiple times
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over the years.
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Very excited to be out here. Love getting to travel
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a bit. I've been through a lot of different countries lately,
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and it's always weird because like every time I go
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to another country, I don't never know where it's at. Uh,
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because I'm from Tennessee. I didn't learn about countries in school.
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I learned about Tennessee. I learned about the states that
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touched us in case they attacked, and then I was
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told the rest was Europe and that's where the gays
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were made.
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So by the time most casual audiences eventually discovered Nate
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through a Netflix special The Actual Comedy Folks Maren Gaffigan
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Vallan Conan other comedy Snobs You Me had already spent
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close to a decade quietly insisting he was one of
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the best pure writers working. Twenty fourteen, yelled At by
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a Clown eight number two on the Billboard Comedy Charts.
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Full Time Magic followed in twenty fifteen, the title of
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that one a nod to his dad's actual career as
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a working magician. In twenty nineteen, The Tennessee Kid, That's
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the One a lot of the comedy nerds points to
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is the moment the writing fully arrived was now confident
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specific less about proving it could be clean and more
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about just being funny on his own terms. No Gimmick
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twenty twenty One's the Greatest Average American on Netflix got
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made a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album. Then he
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switched teams twenty twenty three, Hello World went to Amazon Prime.
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That became the most streamed original comedy special in Amazon's
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history in its first twenty eight days. And then there
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was Saturday Night Live. Nay Brighetzi hosted Saturday Night Live
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for the first time on October twenty eighth, twenty twenty three,
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was the Halloween episode Season forty nine, Your Musical Guest,
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The Foo Fighters. His monologue ran long, the response strong
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enough that both Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly both wrote
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him up as a standout. He would come back and
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host again less than a year later October fifth, twenty
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twenty four, and season fifty Your Musical Guest Coldplay That
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tells us a lot. That's Lord Michael's making a specific
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bet that Nate brigets he could deliver ratings and a
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clean broadcast back to back. Of course, the famous moment
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is from the first appearance Washington's Dream. He plays George
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Washington walking his soldiers through an absurdly over complicated system
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of measurements, weights and measures.
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Sir, Yes, as I dream of that one day our
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proud nation will measure weights and pounds, and that two
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thousand pounds shall be called a ton, and what would
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one thousand pounds be called, sir nothing.
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That became one of the most clipped sketches of the season,
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and Vulture actually ran a piece asking if Nate had
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cracked the SNL code, whether his specific deadpan, patient's style
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had found a way to work inside of a format
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that chews up most posts. Lord Michaels does not invite
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anyone back to host within a year. By accident that,
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in my opinion, was peak Nate. Dennis starts to get
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a little rocky, not too bad, but a little old.
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There was the Emmy hosting gig. In twenty twenty six,
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CBS announced Nate as the host of the seventy seventh Emmis.
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The monologue leaned into a bit built around Nate's reputation,
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the premise that he was terrified of offending anyone in
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a room full of famous, powerful people, using his clean
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image as the engine of the joke rather than working
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around it.
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Look at us, we're doing it, all right. Welcome to
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the seventy seventh Emmy Awards. You know, it's not a
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big one like seventy five or eighty, but it's the
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one that gave me. It's an honor to be here tonight.
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I mean, I'm so excited to be here. Just all
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you guys have worked so hard to get here. I mean.
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And it's confusing too, because it's just like we even
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McIntyre feel like I'm about the Grammys, Kate Lanchette feel
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like I'm aout the Oscars. Crazy Tina Fey. I thought
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like they should have had her host, you know why.
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A lot of people were wondering, like why am I hosted?
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I I don't know what that was, but all right,
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it counts as a laugh.
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It's on paper. Maybe it worked in the room. People
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felt it ran out of gas before it found its
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second gear. The reviews afterward were not kind. Award show
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hosting is chewed up funnier people and even more successful
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than David Letterman comes to mind under better circumstances, but
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it exposed something about the gap between his strength and
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the longer format. SNL gives him four minutes with a
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premise he can control, and Emmy's monologue is fifteen plus
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minutes addressing a room that you know isn't there for you.
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And then Nate made a movie, an actual movie. The
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Breadwinner hit theaters May twenty ninth, twenty twenty six. The
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pitch his wife, Mandy Moore's character Lance a shark tank
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deal and now she he's the one with the career
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and Nate's stay at home dad bumbling around with the
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three daughters. Yeah, that's it. That's the movie. If you
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know Nate's old deal, you know exactly what every scene
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looks like. The reviews were not kind. Roger Ebertsite called
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it Burgatsley, which is pretty good. And then there was
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the UFC event on the south lawn of the White House.
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It was UFC Freedom two fifty, which was also part
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of the President's eightieth birthday celebration. Nate was there. He's
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a massive UFC fan, and while there he took a
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photo with Cheryl Hines and her husband RFK Junior. Cheryl
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posted a photo of the three of them together in
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the background. Jd Vance comments blew up on Nate's Instagram.
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People had seen him four times were swearing that they
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were done. W camal Bell wrote a whole substack about it.
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Some outlets started calling Nate Maga comedian Nate berghatsy and
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called him part of Team Fascism. His representative put out
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a statement saying Nate is not political, nor is anything
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he produces, and called him a huge UFC fan who
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just wanted to watch fights. All that brings us to Nateland.
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In twenty twenty three, Nate launched Nateland Entertainment, not a
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touring brand, on a merch line and actual production company.
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The state ad mission is family friendly content across stand up,
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special sketches, scripted shows, podcast music, the whole apparatus. And
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then he started to actually use it to actually build
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other comedians' careers. He's done great with that. Look at
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the Nateland roster. Dusty Slay, Aaron Webber who got a
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debut special produced by Nate Nateland, Nick Thune got one,
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Derek Stroop he was on Netflix, Julian McCullough, Joe Zimmerman,
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Lachlan Patterson, There was the Nateland podcast, Nateland at Sea,
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and actual cruise built around the brand. So while down
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in Austin, Tony Hinchcliff and Joe Rogan and Gang are