Yelled at By A Clown: How Nate Bargatze Found His Funny
Episode 01
We’re looking for laughs and we found them in all the right places, and we’re sharing the hilarity with a brand new series called For the Love Of Funny. If you’ve hung out with us for any amount of time, you know that Jen is an avid devotee of all things funny. So we’ve rounded up some of her favorite funny people to not only bring us laughs, but to unpack the art and science of making people laugh. And for our very first episode, we couldn’t be more delighted to welcome “The Tennessee Kid” himself–Nate Bargatze! Nate’s known for his down-to-earth humor and deadpan comedy delivery, his highly viewed Netflix specials, and his favored status as a frequent guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: (10+ times!). Surprise guest interviewer Tyler Merritt joins Jen as they pull back the curtain on Nate’s comedy journey. Often referred to as the “nicest man in standup,” Nate talks about growing up in a performance forward home (his dad was a Christian magician), the origins of some of his funniest jokes (Yelled at By a Clown, anyone?) and the side of fame that isn’t so pretty–like his sister’s incredulity that anyone would want to take a selfie with him.
Jen: Hi everybody. Jen Hatmaker here. I am your host of For the Love podcast and I have two special men with me today and you’re one of them.
Tyler: I am! I am special. Thanks for saying that.
Jen: You are special. Tyler is with me today. We are on a little trip and this incredible super fun interview was scheduled and I’m like, “This is your genre in more than one way—pop in with me.” So thank you for sitting in with me on this interview,
Tyler: Of course.
Jen: You’re going to love this whole hour. I was thinking let’s get 30 minutes and then we just take a whole hour.
Tyler: Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
Jen: I know.
You guys, this is a fun series. It’s called For the Love of Funny and you know me, I love comedy, I worship it. These are my muses and these are my mentors. I kind of grew up in a funny family. So we’ve always loved funny movies and funny shows and funny people and we all think we’re funny. I and all my siblings think we’re funny. My dad is legitimately funny.
Tyler: Legitimately funny.
Jen: Yeah.
This is just an area that I love. We did a series on laughter just a few years back. We had some incredible comics. We had Kevin Nealon on who is like SNL royalty. We had Anjelah Johnson who is one of my favorite female comics. She just had a baby by the way. It’s been a minute since we’ve had a series on funny and funny people and guess who we are kicking this series off with? You’re going to be so excited. I know I was because on the show today is Nate Bargatze.
Tyler: My dude!
Jen: I don’t want to call Nate a rising star as he’s 20 years into the comedy world, so he’s kind of had this steady rise. He is, I don’t even want to say peaking right now, but his star is high in the sky. He’s been doing comedy for so long, the hardscrabble way. He is in comedy clubs and tours that are routed weird and just the whole circuit that he’s built and built. He’s built credibility. He has built up his content, material, he has built up his audience and his fan base, and now he’s everywhere. I can’t go anywhere without seeing something about Nate. His first Netflix special came out in 2019 and it exploded in popularity and he filmed another special that came out in 2021 and then a brand new special that just came out on Amazon Prime, which we have watched. I’ve seen it four times.
Tyler: Yeah, it’s great.
Jen: It’s so funny. He’s so funny. The Atlantic called Nate, the nicest man in standup. He’s known for his clean comedy. That was sort of his brand from the jump and he’s stuck with it all this time and he developed pretty early. Strangely, and funny enough, his dad was a magician, a Christian magician.
He kind of grew up in showmanship, and performance and you kind of see some of this imprint on his work now. We’re going to talk about everything. We’re going to talk about his upbringing, we’re going to talk about his parents and his family, how he got his start in comedy, who he learned from and emulated, and what it’s like now. I don’t want to oversell it, but if you’re talking about comics in the spotlight right now, we’re talking about Nate, wouldn’t you say?
Tyler: Yeah, for sure. We’re also talking about how he feels so blessed to be my best friend. I think that matters to him. He would want me to say this in the intro, I think.
Jen: He is great you guys. Outside of comedy, he’s a huge golfer. He loves sports. God, we didn’t even talk about sports.
Tyler: We didn’t. We didn’t have time, we didn’t have time for everything.
Jen: No, we kept him on the hook for a whole hour. He hosts a podcast called NateLand–one every week– and he’s been everywhere. He has been on the Tonight Show with Fallon over ten times. He’s performed for the troops overseas, festivals, and he’s currently on the Be Funny tour and I’m telling you, look it up. If he is anywhere near you, you’ve got to go and you can thank me later. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s humble. So welcome Nate Bargatze to the show.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
For the Love Episode ft. Kevin Nealon
Nate Bargatze: The Tennessee Kid
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