'Your Friend, Nate Bargatze': A Hilarious Journey Through Everyday Life and Relationships

by Aprille Hanson-Spivey

Photo: Netflix

I’ll be honest — comedian Nate Bargatze could read the phonebook, and his dry delivery would make me laugh. So, it’s an understatement to say I had extremely high hopes for Bargatze’s fifth standup special, “Your Friend, Nate Bargatze,” which premiered on Netflix on Christmas Eve. It’s his third standup special with the streaming service since 2019’s “The Tennessee Kid.” 
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I have been a fan of Bargatze for years. I believe I saw him on some late-night show, which led to us watching his ‘Tennessee Kid’ special, where I almost lost my life laughing so hard at his dead horse joke and Starbucks ordering snafu. I was hooked. 

And, as of late, the rest of the world seems hooked to Bargatze’s every man, clean humor. His first hosting stint on “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 28, 2023, seemed to catapult him into a new stratosphere of fame, particularly his now classic George Washington sketch. He hosted again this past October (reprising Washington), hosted his own Christmas variety show, “Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas” on CBS and premiered his ‘Your Friend’ special on Christmas Eve. This success has been a long time coming for Bargatze, stretching back to his first comedy album, “Yelled At By a Clown,” in 2012. My husband and I are seeing his “Big Dumb Eyes” tour next year, the second time we’ll see him live. 

He was truly the best-kept secret in comedy. He’s too funny to keep those big dumb eyes — also the title of his debut comedy book out in May — away from the masses forever. 

This fame also slightly killed the surprises of his ‘Your Friend’ special through no fault of his own. His jokes were on point, as they always are. He talked about his relationship with his wife and his work before comedy, insulted his intelligence and discussed the absurdity of growing up in the 1900s. It was all gold, but between his ‘SNL’ monologues, his previous standup jokes, late-night show appearances and the countless reels teased on social media from this special, I had already heard many of the jokes. It didn’t make the special any less funny, but I miss the days of going into a Bargatze special and hearing the jokes for the first time. I think that will continue to be a problem for comedians, but it’s a problem I don’t believe they can control. 

All of that said, the special is worth watching. Bargatze is a veteran comedian, and despite his jokes about how dumb he is, he is a complete genius at his craft. He kicked it off by bringing new life to former jokes, like how his job as a water meter reader in Wilson County, Mt. Juliet, Tenn., tasked with guarding the town’s water supply with just a lantern following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. 

He explained, “I mean, I think, like, to this day, I’ve always said, what did they want us to do? Call the Mt. Juliet Police? ‘Osama is here.’ ‘He got past our lanterns.’ ‘He’s in the water tank. He knew how to open that. ‘We were surprised by that, but he knew what he was doing.’” 

I always appreciate his humor about his relationship with his wife because it reminds me so much of my relationship with my husband. One of Bargatze’s stand-out moments was talking about how he does his own laundry and how he was waiting to bring that up during a fight to win the argument: “So just out of nowhere, I just go, ‘I do my own laundry!’ And I said it like, ‘They don’t make them like this no more.’ I was shocked that it started a second fight I never saw coming.” 

His new material truly stood out, like his wife’s frugality. Bargatze admitted he is wasteful but also practical: “Toothpaste. I will use it to what I think the average person uses it to. I don’t think I should feel muscles trying to get it out. I’m not going to have an iron on top of it. But she’ll do it more. So I know when I’m done with it, I give it to the hobo I married.” 

It’s also the difference between my husband and me because, by God, I will squeeze that last bit out, too.

Even the jokes I’d seen previously from social media reels, like how noon is so far away when you get up at 5:45 a.m., had me in stitches. I can’t say I’ve ever loved his donkey jumping/falling off a high dive story, but it certainly worked in this special to revive it, admitting he has more in common with a pilgrim than his daughter’s futuristic personality. 

“I don’t know technology. I don’t know what AI is. I don’t think you get to know what AI is and also see a donkey jump off a high dive. I think it was one or the other, and I saw the donkey, so I’m out.” 

The one thing I know going into every Bargatze special is I will laugh until I’m crying and can’t breathe. That moment came when he talked about how his parents are getting older and their risk of falling. He explained that he’ll trip, but his upper body will realize it and catch himself. His parents don’t have that luck: “And they hit the ground so hard. It’s like they got thrown off a roof. Everybody hears it, they’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ I’m like, ‘My parents are down! I got to get ’em up.’ My mom’s got a bruise that won’t go away for two years. I just walk ahead of them now. I’m like a Sherpa. Just let them know the terrain that we’re about to hit. ‘Got a little carpet coming up. Got a little carpet. When we go outside, a little brighter than inside. Yeah, and cobblestone. You ain’t gonna make that. So, lay down. Lay down on the carpet. I’m gonna back the car up in the building.’”

How he could tap into this reality that everyone goes through with older parents or grandparents and make it hysterical rather than cringy is beyond me. But I know exactly what he’s talking about, and it’s tapping into those life moments that make Bargatze one of the best comedians ever. 

“Your Friend, Nate Bargatze” is tough to rank among his other specials because they all fit perfectly into the moment they premiere. His ability to “read the room” of the culture and make people laugh in an inoffensive way is what people are craving these days, and he did it flawlessly with this special. As I do with his other specials, I have no doubt that I’ll go back and watch it repeatedly.