After releasing a half-hour and two hourlong stand-up comedy specials for Netflix, the latter of which received a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Album, Nate Bargatze has flown the coop and landed at Amazon Prime Video, where his new hour may well serve notice that there’s competition again for streaming comedy.
NATE BARGATZE: HELLO WORLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Bargatze is a native of Old Hickory, Tenn., and finds no reason to be ashamed of it, no matter what you may think of former President Andrew Jackson, for whom Bargatze’s hometown was named. Then again, there’s not much shame in this comedian’s game, as he’s made his name in comedy in part by reminding audiences that he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, so to speak. Moreover, as he jokes in this hour, he’s not even the kind of person to go into the shed, let alone know how to use the tools once he’s in there.
Recorded in the round at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix (where George Carlin and Louis C.K. both have shot famous comedy specials in the past), Bargatze’s new hour revolves around some of the dumb things he has thought and said over the years, his relationship with his wife, and reminiscing about how times have changed since he grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Much like Jim Gaffigan, another affable TV-clean comedian (for you kids who don’t watch TV and therefore have no idea what this means, “TV-clean” refers to language that would clear any network TV censor, ensuring it’s safe to broadcast to audiences of all ages everywhere), and Bargatze even makes fun of himself for uttering the word “sucks” in 2023, after growing up believing it to be a bad word in the 1980s, saying: “This is supposed to be a clean show. I’m bringing this filth into it.” Gaffigan also, coincidentally or not, was Amazon’s original choice to lead the platform into Amazon Original comedy specials in 2019.
Memorable Jokes: Bargatze excels in recounting situations from his first 43 years that you can imagine as fully-fleshed sitcom scenes, even without him physically acting out all of the characters and movements.
Just starting with a one-line story opener such as, “We had a waitress quit on us once,” draws you in to want to know who she was and what the Bargatzes might possibly have done to contribute to her plight.
We similarly can picture when he describes:
- His father finding a screen door, then installing it in their home, with the handle on the opposite side from the secondary wooden door.
- Lying about his age so he can still eat free at certain restaurants with his parents when they were poor.
- Filling out forms every time he visits the doctor’s office, and every time befuddled by questions about his own body and his family’s medical history.
- Having his wife mow their lawn, but wanting her to tell all of the neighbors first that it was her idea.
- Golfing with his wife, yet somehow playing four holes by himself with only his driver.
- Dealing with the ramifications of his wife selling cheap objects to complete strangers via Facebook Marketplace.
- Spending the day on his sister’s boat on the lake, where “everyone driving the boat is either drunk or 11.”
- Trying to buy ice at a gas station.
Our Take: I’m not sure I could tell you what his personal politics were/are before watching his new special, but only a couple of minutes in, he lands a devastatingly effective dig about America’s gun worship with a simple aside — contrasting a sporting goods store’s seemingly open-range policies toward their own inventory with the experience visiting a typical Verizon store, where “you can’t get the phone to your ear.” At another point, in his typical self-deprecating fashion, he informs us that if anything he says sounds like wisdom, just remember it’s all stuff “I overheard at Target or Lowe’s.”
His affable accessibility reminds me also of the turn Gaffigan made in Mr. Universe when he mocked our consumption of trash gossip by comparing it to McDonald’s.
Bargatze might make light all too often about his supposed lack of intelligence, but he’s certainly smart enough to update his language. A Boomer comedian probably wouldn’t use the phrase “conjoined twin” unless they did so to complain about “language police” or some such. But Bargatze just keeps on keeping on, and even figures out a way to empathize with his supposed peers, speculating that Google delivers separate results for dumb people, giving them “the circus internet” instead.
“I say a lot of dumb stuff,” he says. “I try to keep it in front of large groups. It seems to go better that way.”
So far, it’s going a lot better. No need to change a thing, my friend.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The only thing funnier than Bargatze’s stand-up is wondering how in the heck he hasn’t starred in his own family sitcom yet. He often carries an expression on his face that’s cool, calm but confused; that says, “Can you believe this?” Perfect for a leading man on a hit network multi-cam series. That I could believe.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
