Tennessee native and stand-up comic Nate Bargatze received a call in October, just after the writers strike had ended, to host “Saturday Night Live.” He was gobsmacked and honored at the same time.
Better yet, he received plaudits for his Oct. 28 appearance, which garnered strong ratings and boosted his stock in Hollywood circles. It also propelled sales for his two State Farm Arena shows scheduled for Friday, Dec. 8 and Sunday, Dec. 10. (Both Friday and Sunday shows have recently added rear view seats on Ticketmaster for $39.75. Sunday has a few better seats at $79.75.)
This all happened despite the fact Bargatze has minimal sketch comedy experience. (Then again, “SNL” usually brings in actors, athletes and other figures with no sketch comedy background.)
“I never thought they’d ever make me a host,” said Bargatze in a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But I had people in my corner from ‘SNL’ like Pete Davidson and Jimmy Fallon.” He said “SNL” chief Lorne Michaels saw his Amazon special “Hello World” from earlier this year and that solidified the deal.
“It was the most fun I ever had,” he added.
One of the sketches from that night hit the zeitgeist: Bargatze playing George Washington nobly prepping his steeds for a new country that had the liberty to not only pick its own leaders but its own set of weights and measures. The five-minute sketch was packed with jokes about meters, feet and Fahrenheit.
“Why not use meters and kilometers?” Mikey Day’s character asks.
“We will, soldier,” Bargatze’s Washington says solemnly. “But only in certain unpopular sports like track and swimming. For popular sports like football, we will use yards.”
Day: “Football sir?”
Washington: “It’s a sport where you throw a ball with your hands.”
The skit, he said, didn’t work as well when they did a table read-through minus an audience earlier in the week. “It didn’t read super funny,” he said. But “SNL” tapes a dress rehearsal before the live show in front of a live audience to decide what will stay or go at 11:30 p.m. and the Washington sketch was given a shot.
“I got my timing with the live audience and not only did it make it to the live show, but they moved it up to the second spot,” Bargatze said. “And the writers did such a good job writing in my voice everyone thinks I wrote that sketch. I did not.”
Indiewire, a few days later, was so excited, it did an immediate oral history of that sketch, which has been seen 5.3 million times on YouTube.
Bargatze, a clean stand-up comic for more than 20 years, is a classic case of hard work paying off. He recalled trying out for NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” at the Atlanta Punchline comedy club back in 2005 and not making the cut, in part because he wasn’t quite ready.
“Over the years, I’ve just been consistently doing shows and getting better, fortunately,” he said. “I’ve never gotten a TV show. I never had anything to pull me away from stand-up which has benefited me up to now.”
Bargatze opened as an up-and-coming comic for Fallon at Cobb Energy Centre in 2012 and headlined at the short-lived Improv Comedy Club in Buckhead in 2015. In 2018, he opened for Bill Burr at the Fox Theater.
But Netflix specials in 2019 and 2021 and Amazon special “Hello World” earlier this year elevated him into the big leagues.
“I did have lofty ideas in my head,” Bargatze said. “It’s not like I was just happy doing what I was doing. I believed I could get to this level. The advice I heard is that it takes longer than you want but it’s quicker than you think.”
His style is self-deprecating, observational and relatable. He isn’t political and he doesn’t try to be divisive.
“On stage, I’m a little exaggerated version of myself,” he said. “This is all dumb stuff I’m really thinking about. You can laugh with me or at me. I don’t care. I want it to be a space to be dumb.”
While Netflix is now the king of stand-up comedy, Bargatze said he switched over to Amazon, which isn’t nearly as well known for the genre, because he is able to own the special.
The gambit worked. His special drew 2.9 million viewers in its first 28 days, the most ever for an Amazon stand-up special, according to Nielsen streaming data.
Credit: AMAX
Credit: AMAX
He is now attempting to build his own production house called The Nateland Company, a family-friendly home for comedy specials, sketches, scripted shows, podcasts and music from both Bargatze and other artists.
“I think it’s important to build something that’s outside myself,” he said. “It’s a brand. I want to build stuff that everyone can watch and own all of it.”
Bargatze said growing up, one of his comedic heroes was Jerry Seinfeld. In recent years, he has been able to converse with Seinfeld himself as a comedic peer.
“He just loves talking comedy,” Bargatze said. “Only so many people can get in the weeds of it.”
EVENT PREVIEW
Nate Bargatze
7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 8, and 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10. Single seats starting at $29.75, with two tickets starting at $39.75. State Farm Arena, 1 State Farm Drive, Atlanta. ticketmaster.com
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