He just starred in a primetime variety hour on CBS, Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas, He hosted Saturday Night Live for the second time in a year. And now, he’s playing to arena-sized audiences who love his family-friendly stand-up. How much bigger can Nate Bargatze get?
The Gist: After a half-hour and two hour specials with Netflix, Bargatze defected temporarily to Amazon Prime Video, but he’s back now with the streaming giant.
And he returns as the top-earning touring stand-up in the world, with more than 1.2 million tickets sold on The Be Funny Tour, ranking him 12th in overall live ticket sales according to Pollstar.
Performing in the round in the basketball arena where the Phoenix Suns play, Bargatze’s third Netflix hour finds him taking us back to his previous day job as a water meter reader, revealing the depths of his love for processed fast food, and describing to us just how much he relies upon his wife to take care of him and make sure he stays on the right track.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: The lack of swear words, the absence of stances pegging him as overtly political in any way, give him an appeal that rivals if not already surpasses that of older, more established comedians you might compare him to, such as Jim Gaffigan (with whom Bargatze co-headlined a Hollywood Bowl gig at the Netflix is a Joke festival in May, also alongside Jerry Seinfeld and Sebastian Maniscalco). Is it worth pointing out here that at that show, Bargatze received the biggest laughs and applause of the quartet?
Memorable Jokes: Bargatze has been doing comedy professionally for two decades, so going back to his last day job takes him all the way back to Wilson County, Tenn., where he read water meters for rural homeowners outside of Nashville. He jokingly recalls how in 2001, after 9/11, he and his coworkers were instructed to guard the water…from prospective terrorists?! “What did they want us to do?” he wonders now.
But his wife, with him even then, and married to him for 17 years, is the ultimate protector in the family, seemingly knowing more about him and his needs than he does. “I do get it, because I don’t think of the consequences of everything,” spending so much of his time on the road as a touring comedian and not having to deal with the responsibilities at home. That’s not about to stop him, however, from describing his wife as “an old man from the depression” based on her obsession with saving money on electricity, ketchup, toothpaste, even trying to avoid leftover pizza from a pizza party.
If he feels like he’s playing second fiddle at home, sitting next to a surgeon during Career Day at his daughter’s school isn’t doing much to boost his confidence.
Nevertheless, Bargatze exudes the concept of ignorance is bliss, only momentarily interrupted when other people point out his lack of book smarts or street smarts. That tends to get exemplified when he indulges in his love of fast food, whether it’s having a stranger notice how much ketchup he’s using, or when he overreacts and shrinks in the moment when his driver’s side window won’t function properly at the McDonald’s drive-thru. After he acts out and describes his thought process, he reveals: “It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt in my whole life.”
He’s always seemingly had a great relationship with his parents, but finds humor in the odd moments over the years; recently when his mother showed up at the wrong address and engaged in a half-hour conversation with some other random grandmother; or as a child at the county fair, watching his magician father attempt to compete with the donkey that’s “jumping” off the high-dive into a small pool. “That’s something you don’t think you want to see until it’s up there,” he notes, adding later once he has described the reality of the situation: “It’s not as much fun as you thought it would be.”
Bargatze’s fans fortunately do not face a similar dilemma in watching his stand-up, which is the farthest thing from a high-wire or high-dive daredevil act.
Our Take: You may have loved seeing Bargatze’s rookie effort hosting Saturday Night Live last year, where his portrayal of George Washington informed his American Revolutionary soldiers of the new weights and measures that the newly United States would enjoy. But Lorne Michaels saw even more potential in the stand-up comedian. Not only by booking him to host a second time, earlier this season, but also by backing his primetime Christmas variety showcase on, as they used to say back in the day, “another network.” And Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas, EP’d by Lorne, and written by SNL’s Streeter Seidell, Mikey Day and Moss Perricone, and featuring Day and new cast member Ashley Padilla in sketches — one of which finds them playing Joseph and Mary to Bargatze’s angel in a note-for-note play on the Washington sketch, only about Christmas — shows how much faith they have him in. And they were willing to back it up with performances from Noah Kahan, Carrie Underwood, Darius Rucker, and sketches featuring among others, Jelly Roll and the Tennessee Titans football team.
When you’re watching Bargatze hold court, whether it’s at the Grand Ole Opry for the Christmas special, or in the Phoenix arena for his most recent stand-up tour and special, it’s actually pretty easy to envision Bargatze becoming a TV staple for the next decade or even two. He’s just that likable, sincere, and sincerely funny.
Our Call: STREAM IT. A big part of Bargatze’s act is playing dumb, but you have to be quite shrewd and clever to craft as winning a comedy career as he has over the past decade. You’d be the dummy if you bet against him.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.