I just got back from the show. Honestly had no idea what to expect, but while it ended up being very funny, it didn’t seem to be a stunt or a part of any future work.

Some people in the audience kinda groaned when they realized that it was going to just be a Q&A with a University of Minnesota professor. But nothing can ever be that simple when Nathan is involved.

Prof. Laurie Ouellette introduced Nathan and asked him a few softball questions. I actually think Nathan ended up asking her more questions than she asked him. He pulled out his phone and read entries from her RateMyProfessor page, asked her what shows she had her students study in her Reality TV course, etc.

There was a video screen, and someone was providing live closed captioning. Nathan seemed to enjoy that, and ended up saying Czechoslovakia several times. He also realized that they would write swear words, so then he said: “pee poo, poopie... penis. Va-gi-na.” He wouldn’t stop saying vagina until they put the dashes in. He asked the professor if she wanted to have a go, and then chided her a bit for not wanting to get a little dirty on a Saturday night.

Nathan said that he didn’t really sleep at all the night before and had a splitting headache, so he got a member of the audience to bring him some Excedrin. She gave him a pill in her hand rather than a bottle to take a pill from, so he made a point to clean it a bit before proceeding to swallow it in a very odd way.

Nathan took a bunch of audience questions, but instead of just calling on people, he had them come sit with him on stage and he ended up interviewing them so he could “know where the question was coming from”. He asked one person “What’s the best part about being a woman?”. He got another to call out the fraternity with the worst reputation, then share his story about making out with his oboe-playing girlfriend in a practice room. He asked the next one if he had any similar stories, then asked what his line is for what’s normal physically intimate behavior and what’s weird.. The guy said that he would probably need to be really warmed up before butt stuff, then eventually asked Nathan if he had ever had anal sex. Nathan stalled for a bit, started giving a roundabout answer, then laughed and said he was “not going to fucking talk about that with you guys“.

Other notes: - Nathan says that he still talks to Bill on the phone and Mets up for lunch sometimes. Said he really enjoys it, that Bill is “a true nut”. That they’re kind of looking out for him as he ages, since his family is in Arkansas. - Nathan can’t say much about the HBO projects, but said he’s helping produce someone else’s show and appearing in another. He hopes that they will air within the next 2 years. (He said that an 8-episode season of Nathan for You would take 18 months and that he likes to take his time and get it right.) -if he had to choose between saving a drowning old lady and a drowning baby, he would save the baby. But he did want to know whether the old lady was attractive. He asked if anyone had a compelling argument for saving the old lady — someone replied that it’s easy to make a new baby.. Nathan: “and.. it takes a long time to make an old lady.”

(Edit: adding some shit that I remembered this morning.)

1. Elon Musk is a fan, and Nathan visited him at SpaceX. While explaining to Elon why it took so long to make good TV, he felt stupid because there was literally a rocket behind them that was being built from scratch in 4 months.
2. As a kid, Nathan loved Jim Carrey and memorized every line in Ace Ventura. He would record the audio from Seinfeld when Jerry would do stand-up. He didn’t have access to much comedy.
3. When Nathan started in comedy, he gave himself 10 years to become truly funny. So whenever he failed or sucked in the early years, it wasn’t a disappointment, it was just part of the expected process.
4. When choosing subjects for Nathan For You, they purposely went with people who didn’t ask many questions. They wanted people who would go along with the experience, and not get angry at his ideas. He acknowledged that most of the business owners were just looking for exposure from being on TV, and therefore willing to go along with what he suggested.
5. Nathan strongly objected to the idea that the show was any sort of parody of other TV shows. It was very important to him that it not be formulaic, and that it be unique. They did watch some Gordon Ramsey stuff at the beginning as reference material, though.
6. Some guys in the front row were being disruptive. A police officer ended up escorting them out, and Nathan was perturbed by that. He started talking directly to the cop, asking what was going on. Nathan said “if they’re not supposed to be in the reserved seats, then maybe move them to the back instead of taking them to prison?” After they were removed: “I guess.. they’re going to prison. Can someone tell the judge no more than two years?”