Boasting a business degree from “one of the top business schools in Canada,” a deadpan charm, and the ability to keep the straightest of faces — Nathan Fielder is able to get away with convincing small businesses to make absurd changes to their operation on his Comedy Central show Nathan For You. See: the time he convinced a clothing store to allow customers to shoplift one item, or getting a Los Angeles burger joint to stand behind it’s claim that it has “the best burger in LA.”
Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop a new business owner from taking his advice each week. And with the already infamous “Dumb Starbucks” episode airing tonight, here are the Nathan Fielder pranks everyone should also know.
5. Poo Flavored Yogurt
In today’s world pretty much any flavor choice you can imagine has already been done, which is why when Fielder convinced a young yogurt shop owner to introduce “Poo flavored” frozen yogurt at his shop, all he had to do was go online and create a custom flavor (artificial feces) and in a week’s time it was up for sale.
4. Filming People Reacting to Advertising in a Restaurant Restroom
Fielder implemented a new system for getting customers to eat at a restaurant by offering public restrooms, and advertising to people while they use the bathroom — which seems normal, until you find out he is filming the people’s reactions to seeing the advertisements. Add to that when Fielder’s idea actually works, he asks to be included in the restaurant owner’s will.
3. Convincing a Caricature Artist to Draw Offensive Pictures of His Clients
Fielder helped Greg Dohlen, a struggling caricature artist to attract business by convincing him to draw offensive pictures of his clients (racist drawings of Asian people, or Dohlen having sex with a man’s girlfriend, while the man verbalizes that he is envious of a hummingbird’s penis) all while operating under the moniker “The King of Sting.” Hilarity ensues when people are more excited by the offensive pictures than you might imagine.
2. Taking Haunted Houses to All-New Scary Levels
How scared do you like to get at haunted houses? Well, according to Fielder, people should be scared to the point of believing they have contracted a deadly disease, then be rushed to a hospital in the back of an ambulance, while being provided with vague details of whats going on. Oh yeah, and when they arrive to the hospital, men in hazmat suits remove them from the ambulance, and bring them to the haunted house exit in the parking lot, where a lawyer is waiting to assist them in developing a lawsuit.
1. Almost Becoming a Sex Offender
If Fielder is unable to escape from a pair of Smith and Wesson handcuffs in a minute and a half, a robotic claw has been programmed to unzip his pants and expose him to a group of children gathered to watch. By declaring “Something might happen here, and if it does… so what?” at the beginning of the bit Fielder establishes willful intent and would become a registered sex offender for life — all while an LAPD officer is on hand waiting to arrest him he is exposed.
And if you’re for some reason not familiar with “Dumb Starbucks”…
When Fielder opened the cafe “Dumb Starbucks” back in February it was clear that he had fully hit his stride, and this would be his biggest business venture yet. The coffee shop, which was an exact replicate of a Starbucks, operated under parody law (yes, it’s a real thing), and was able to exist as long as he put the word “Dumb” before all of the products they sold. Unfortunately it was open all of 72 hours before it was shut down for violating health codes in Los Angeles. But here’s to hoping I can get some “Dumb Writing” done in a “Dumb Starbucks” some day.
