- 10 minutes ago
Nobody commits to a bit quite like this guy... Join us as we count down Nathan Fielder's wildest stunts, hoaxes, and social experiments across his career! Our countdown includes the "Dumb Starbucks" hoax, moving in with Elizabeth Holmes, piloting a Boeing 737, and more! Which Nathan Fielder moment made you question everything? Let us know in the comments below!
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at Nathan Fielder's wildest stunts, hoaxes, and experiments across his career.
00:07Expect spoilers for Nathan For You, the rehearsal, and you can see everything.
00:11Does any part of you worry about me being here 24-7?
00:15I don't think so.
00:18Staging the pig rescues goat video. Nathan For You.
00:22By the way, this may sound like a sea rescue, but a goat, a baby goat, gets stuck in water.
00:27This is some pig, you have to see it. A goat at a petting zoo got stuck in a lake.
00:32This really happened.
00:34That was cool.
00:35I have no fear, there's a pig there. I mean, you couldn't do this at Warner Brothers.
00:40Remember that adorable video of a pig rescuing a baby goat from a pond? Nathan Fielder helped make it happen.
00:46To promote a petting zoo, he set out to turn one of its animals into an internet celebrity.
00:50Getting a pig to perform a heroic rescue, however, required considerably more work than pointing a camera at a pond.
00:57During the first couple attempts, the pig kept slipping out of the divers' hands.
01:01So we decided to build an underwater track out of PVC to guide the pig like a bowling ball going
01:06down a bumper lane.
01:08This worked a lot better, and I was hopeful it would fool the internet audience into believing this video was
01:13real.
01:13The production used a trained stand-in, an underwater track, and hidden divers to guide the action.
01:19Uploaded in 2012, the clip spread before Nathan For You had even premiered,
01:24eventually appearing on major news programs.
01:26Behind what looked like a spontaneous act of animal bravery was a television crew painstakingly manufacturing
01:33the kind of wholesome moment the internet couldn't resist.
01:36But if people would have known that it was Oak Tree Village...
01:40I mean, you can't be so selfish.
01:43Selfish?
01:43Well, I mean, if people love the video, it's like, it can't just be all about the business.
01:49But that's what it was supposed to be about when you first came up.
01:52It's supposed to be about the business.
01:54Terry just didn't seem to understand.
01:56Turning a smoking bar into experimental theater. Nathan For You.
02:00In my opinion, smokers shouldn't be treated like second-class citizens.
02:04Absolutely.
02:04If anything, they should be treated better than the rest of us because they're going to die so young.
02:11Or at least as well as the rest of them.
02:13Right. So you think people should be allowed to smoke in here?
02:16Yeah.
02:17Well, I might have a way to make that happen.
02:19All this bar wanted was to let its customers smoke indoors.
02:23Nathan's solution was to classify their evening as theater, using an exemption for theatrical performances.
02:28Put two audience members behind a curtain, let the regulars drink and smoke, and apparently you've got to play.
02:34All right. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming.
02:37So, it took a lot of work to get this play off the ground.
02:41I don't want to say too much because I don't want to spoil anything.
02:44But all I'll say is, I hope you enjoy this as much as we enjoyed making it.
02:50So, without further ado, smokers allowed.
02:53Then, the audience actually enjoys it.
02:56Encouraged, Nathan hires actors to reproduce the patrons' conversations and movements,
03:01turning an ordinary night at the bar into a carefully rehearsed production.
03:05Somehow, the effort to avoid a smoking restriction has become experimental theater.
03:10Even the owner's disappointment gets a substitute.
03:12Nathan has the actress playing her deliver the approval he wanted to hear.
03:16So, what did you think of the play?
03:19I thought it was brilliant.
03:21Really?
03:22Yeah, I really did.
03:24And you're going to keep doing it here?
03:26Without a doubt.
03:27So, you really liked it?
03:29I loved it.
03:32Say that again.
03:34Inventing a fitness craze to get free movers.
03:36Nathan for you.
03:38People don't usually pay to work for somebody else.
03:42I think you'll get a lot more people if they just think it's a workout and we don't tell them
03:47that they're actually doing free labor.
03:50I mean, that's just my opinion as someone who knows a lot about marketing.
03:53Moving furniture is exhausting.
03:55People also pay good money to exhaust themselves at the gym.
03:59To supply a moving company with free labor, Nathan invents a fitness program built around carrying boxes and household furniture.
04:05Of course, a revolutionary workout needs an inspirational spokesperson.
04:09We're going to introduce you to someone.
04:10Come in here and look at this before picture.
04:11This is Jack Garbarino before.
04:14This was Jack about 100 pounds ago.
04:16Now, let's have you the grand reveal.
04:18This is Jack now.
04:19How great do you look now, Jack?
04:21I look great.
04:22I feel great.
04:23I feel a renewed person.
04:26I'm lean and mean and I'm a fighting machine.
04:29Enter bodybuilder Jack Garbarino, whose impressive physique supposedly comes from moving things rather than going to the gym.
04:36Nathan commissions a book about Jack's life, complete with an invented childhood friendship with Steve Jobs, and sends him out
04:42to promote the program on television.
04:44The book even reaches Amazon's bestseller lists.
04:47The best part?
04:48Adherents to the movement still have to carry the couch.
04:51What you'll be getting today is a full body workout.
04:54So in this house, I've prepared a bunch of furniture and boxes for you to move into this truck.
05:01Got it?
05:01Are we timed on this?
05:02Is there a certain time limitation?
05:05The goal is to move as fast as you can because we want a cardio workout too.
05:09Manufacturing the perfect anecdote for Jimmy Kimmel.
05:12Nathan for you.
05:12Any potential story I tried to tell just felt boring.
05:16When you take them out of the boiling water, you need to put them into ice water immediately or else
05:22the yolks don't, you know, they'll keep cooking, you know, and they'll get too hard.
05:30Nathan wants to be a better talk show guest.
05:32So he devises a story involving a wedding, an airport luggage mix-up, an oversized suit, and a police officer
05:39mistaking a woman's ashes for drugs.
05:41Then, he arranges for the events to actually happen.
05:45The supposed ashes present another problem.
05:47The man whose mother is providing the ashes is still alive.
05:51Technically, ashes can be any part of her as long as it's burned.
05:56So I figure if there's stuff from her body that she doesn't use, like, you know, nails or an old
06:05tooth or some hair, maybe,
06:07if we use that, we should be fine.
06:12Nathan works around that by burning some of her hair and nail clippings.
06:15An opportunity came up for me.
06:18And pretty much, uh, he's gonna be in a talk show and he wants to tell a story.
06:24So in order for him to be real, we need a little bit of your hair and some nail clippings.
06:29And I'm gonna burn them up and turn them into ashes.
06:32Hair for my hair?
06:34He eventually tells the story on Jimmy Kimmel Live as though it were an amusing personal mishap.
06:38The episode puts the operation's cost at $350,000.
06:43All that work, just to have something interesting to say on television.
06:47You must have been...
06:48I mean...
06:52Seriously.
06:53I've never been so relieved to, uh, find out I was holding a human remains.
07:00Simulating years of parenthood.
07:02The rehearsal.
07:03Most people say that nothing can prepare you for becoming a parent.
07:07But most people don't have the resources to hire dozens of child actors
07:12to create a round-the-clock simulation of parenthood.
07:16To raise a child from 0 to 18 over the course of two months
07:20before deciding if you want to have one yourself.
07:23Helping someone prepare for parenthood sounds reasonable.
07:26Renting a farmhouse and cycling through child actors
07:29so their son can age several years in a matter of weeks
07:32is a slightly more unusual approach.
07:34Nathan initially builds this rehearsal for Angela,
07:37a woman considering motherhood,
07:39with babies swapped out to meet working hour limits
07:41and a robot covering the night shift.
07:43Since baby actors can't work past 7.30,
07:47the final switch of the night was to a robot baby
07:49that would mimic the sleep patterns of a human baby.
07:53To do this, I hired a local man who claimed to be a night owl
07:58whose job was to watch a live feed of a real baby
08:02and manually make the robot baby cry in sync.
08:05Soon, he joins the experiment as the father.
08:08Their son Adam grows into a teenager,
08:11develops a scripted substance use problem
08:13and then becomes 6 again so Nathan can revisit the years he missed.
08:17Eventually, one young actor becomes attached to his pretend dad
08:20beyond their scenes together.
08:22Nathan responds with further reenactments,
08:24ultimately playing the child's mother himself.
08:26Like we said, a slightly unusual approach.
08:29It's okay if you get confused.
08:31It's okay if you get sad.
08:34Because no matter what you experience,
08:36we have each other.
08:39And I'm always going to be here for you.
08:41Okay?
08:42Because I'm your dad.
08:45I, wait, I thought you were my mom.
08:49If Nathan's experiments leave you needing to talk things through with other people,
08:53join us on WatchMojo's 24-7 pop culture live stream.
08:57Come make the case for your favorite fielder stunt.
08:59Or explain exactly where you would have walked away.
09:02How you doing?
09:04Okay.
09:05Should we walk a little bit?
09:08Escaping the claw of shame.
09:10Nathan for you.
09:11Now, every week on my show, I challenge people to take big risks.
09:14But some have been critical that I never take risks myself.
09:17Well, tonight, that's all going to change.
09:19Over the past month, I've been learning how to pick the lock
09:22on these police-grade handcuffs.
09:24Why, you ask?
09:25Because tonight, I'm going to take a bigger risk
09:27than anyone has ever taken on television before.
09:30For the claw of shame, Nathan has to free himself
09:33and stop a robotic arm before it pulls down his pants and underwear.
09:37His audience includes children,
09:39with a police officer standing by as part of the setup
09:42to arrest him for exposing himself if he fails.
09:45Nathan approaches the whole thing with the grave professionalism
09:48of someone attempting a prestigious athletic achievement.
09:50So I now have on the custom-made pants
09:53that the robot will be removing.
09:56You know, we're going to give these kids
09:58a bit of a bathroom break before I begin,
10:00but when we return, it will be the escape.
10:03He successfully stops the machine,
10:05preserving his modesty
10:06and completing one of the show's most outrageous stunts.
10:09Somewhere along the planning process,
10:11an adult had to explain this concept to the parents.
10:14Hopefully, it wasn't Nathan himself.
10:16So before we begin, I just wanted to give you some assurance.
10:20We're going to be blurring all your faces
10:22so you don't have to worry about, you know,
10:24co-workers being like,
10:26why did you let your kid do that for $100, you know,
10:29or questions like that from, you know,
10:32the community or anything.
10:33You don't have to worry about that.
10:34Opening dumb Starbucks.
10:36Nathan for you.
10:37So I rented a vacant retail space in Las Feliz, California
10:41that would serve as the location for the first dumb Starbucks.
10:44This reminds me of the metal in my house.
10:46You have metal in your house?
10:47Yeah.
10:48Oh.
10:49Construction began immediately,
10:50and it would take at least a week to build the shop.
10:53For a few days in 2014,
10:55a Los Angeles strip mall became the center of a very stupid mystery.
10:59A coffee shop had opened with familiar green branding
11:02and an unusually blunt name,
11:04Dumb Starbucks.
11:05Nathan's proposed justification was parody,
11:07an argument that also sent him off
11:09to establish himself as a parody artist.
11:11I'm not afraid to grab my balls.
11:18Everybody, come grab my balls.
11:21Meanwhile, people lined up for free coffee,
11:24news crews arrived,
11:25and speculation spread about who was responsible.
11:28Some thought it was Banksy.
11:29Eventually, Nathan appeared at a press conference
11:31and revealed his involvement.
11:33He had opened an actual coffee shop,
11:35attracted international attention,
11:36and made everyone say Dumb Starbucks with a straight face.
11:40My entire marketing plan depended on using their corporate logo
11:43to get attention,
11:45and the only way to legally do it is by using Dumb.
11:48Every major network in America wanted to know my story.
11:51Nathan Fielder.
11:52I was invincible,
11:54and I have to admit,
11:55the view from the top was pretty nice.
11:58Becoming Corey Calderwood.
12:00Nathan for you.
12:01Good evening.
12:02Right now, I'm on a rooftop
12:04in the heart of historic downtown Los Angeles,
12:07overseeing the final preparations
12:08for what could be one of the most astonishing events
12:12to ever be broadcast on television.
12:14Nathan decides to turn arcade worker Corey Calderwood
12:17into a hero.
12:18Naturally, the plan requires Corey
12:20to disappear into a trailer in the desert
12:22while Nathan takes over his identity.
12:24Donning prosthetic makeup and a bodysuit,
12:26he promotes a charity tightrope walk
12:28between two Los Angeles buildings.
12:30My goal is to raise awareness for breast cancer
12:33and the charity Mediviver, specifically.
12:37Well, then you are a hero.
12:39Yes.
12:39I hope you make it.
12:40I don't see it that way.
12:41I don't really see myself as a hero,
12:43but thank you for saying that.
12:45That is nice.
12:46Then comes the truly staggering part.
12:48Nathan spends seven months training
12:50so he can perform the walk himself.
12:52Roughly 80 feet above the ground.
12:54He also arranges a romantic connection
12:57for Corey to step into afterward.
12:59Once the stunt succeeds,
13:01the real Corey takes his place
13:02and accepts the applause.
13:04No wonder this episode was called the hero.
13:06Hey.
13:07Hey.
13:09How are you?
13:11I'm doing good.
13:12A little confused at what's going on right now,
13:14but, uh...
13:15It's me, Nathan.
13:17Yeah.
13:18You knew?
13:19Yeah.
13:20I could kind of recognize your voice under there,
13:23but yeah.
13:23Moving in with Elizabeth Holmes,
13:25you can see everything.
13:27You really feel you did nothing wrong?
13:29I did not.
13:30So where did things get lost?
13:33Like, how are you where you are right now?
13:37I wish I knew, you know?
13:40I don't know.
13:41I don't feel like I understand that.
13:44With 34 days remaining
13:46before Elizabeth Holmes reports to prison,
13:48Nathan Fielder moves into her world.
13:50Alongside filmmaker Lance Oppenheim,
13:53he documents Holmes and her partner Billy Evans
13:55at their rented California beach house,
13:57trying to understand the people
13:58behind the extraordinary access they've granted him.
14:01Even explaining a famous Abbott and Costello routine
14:03becomes an ordeal.
14:04On the St. Louis team,
14:06we have who's on first,
14:07what's on second,
14:08I don't know who's on third.
14:09Nathan then recruits Amanda Seyfried,
14:11who already played Holmes in The Dropout,
14:13to recreate encounters
14:15the cameras couldn't capture.
14:16He eventually reenacts a prison visit,
14:18with Seyfried reprising her role
14:20as the woman whose life
14:21he spent years investigating.
14:23The original premise is already hard to believe.
14:26Somehow, living with Elizabeth Holmes
14:28turns out to be only the beginning.
14:30I mean, weren't you worried
14:31she was sort of scamming you?
14:34100%, but what did she have to gain from me?
14:36Well, isn't your family rich?
14:39Yeah, I think that there's like
14:40a lot of different levels of wealth.
14:42The Miracle Over the Mojave,
14:44the rehearsal.
14:45Hey.
14:46What's up?
14:47Hello.
14:48How you doing, Nathan?
14:50Good.
14:50Thanks for coming in.
14:51Of course.
14:52So, yeah, the scene is going to be on a plane,
14:55and your role would be passenger number seven.
15:00So when the flight reaches cruise altitude,
15:03there's going to be like a drink service,
15:05and your line is going to be diet Pepsi, please.
15:08By this point,
15:09an elaborate simulator would barely register as unusual.
15:12Nathan goes considerably further.
15:15After investigating how cockpit hierarchy
15:17can discourage co-pilots from speaking up,
15:19he reveals that he spent years qualifying
15:21to operate a Boeing 737.
15:23There's something freeing about flying all alone.
15:27You don't have to rely on anyone else.
15:32And if you ever make a catastrophic error,
15:36at least the only person you're hurting is you.
15:40Then, he pilots one with roughly 150 actors aboard
15:44as passengers,
15:45alongside an experienced first officer.
15:48The flight takes off from San Bernardino,
15:50heads toward the Nevada border,
15:51and returns safely.
15:53Afterward, he takes the achievement onto talk shows
15:55and CNN,
15:57promoting his self-proclaimed miracle over the Mojave
15:59with the confidence of an aviation trailblazer.
16:01Sure, plenty of comedians commit to a bit,
16:04but this one required learning to land a passenger jet.
16:08They only let the smartest and best people
16:11fly a plane of this size.
16:14And it feels good to know that.
16:18No one is allowed in the cockpit
16:20if there's something wrong with them.
16:23Which Nathan Fielder stunt made you stop
16:25and wonder how he convinced anyone to approve it?
16:27Is there anything we missed?
16:29Be sure to let us know in the comments.
Comments