Beech Tree News Network

2024 was a historic year for comedian Nate Bargatze.  As the highest-grossing standup comedian in the country, he set attendance records at massive arenas.  The first time he saw his name in a gymnasium, however, was Donaldson Christian Academy in Nashville, Tennessee.  Nate never played on that court.  “I was cut every year from my basketball team but now they can’t cut me”.

He's donated more than a million dollars to his alma mater, a Nashville area private high school his family could afford only because his father taught there.  Nate’s father, Stephen Bargatze, also happens to be a professional magician.  Before that, he was a clown.  After dropping out of community college, Nate moved from Nashville to Chicago.  It was in Chicago that he honed his comedic style, performing for free in small clubs.

“I would never trade it and I would never go back.  You just didn’t know better.  There’s nothing better than when you don’t know that there’s better”.  He then made the move to New York.  But in 2014, just as his standup career was taking off, Bargatze made a surprising move back home to Nashville.  “I always thought it (moving back) was the first thing I did that wasn’t for me.  I wanted my daughter to grow up in a normal situation, as normal as it can be.  When I moved back, I just didn’t tell anybody”.  He didn’t tell anyone because he thought people would think he had quit.

Nobody would think that now, Bargatze has since released five 1-hour specials, written a New York Times bestselling book called Big Dumb Eyes (it’s hilarious.  I read it over vacation in July) and sold more than a million tickets last year alone.  Sunday night, he will host the Primetime Emmy Awards on CBS. “I love showbusiness.  I love all of this.  There’s part of me that wants to do everything.  I’m just curious to go well. What is that like? When you do Saturday Night Live, I wanna see the chaos.  I wanna feel the chaos”.  Bargatze has hosted Saturday Night Live twice.  His “Washington’s Dream” sketch became one of the shows most viral sketches in years.  There’s more acting on the horizon.  Bargatze just finished filming his first feature, The Breadwinner co-starring Mandy Moore, that’s set to hit theaters next spring.  His character is a bumbling dad; a role he says isn’t too dissimilar to his real-life personality.  “In the movie, I have three daughters.  (In real life) I have one daughter.  Bargatze’s daughter Harper introduces his standup specials.  He met his wife Laura when they were 21.  They were co-workers at an Applebee’s.  I went from living with my mom to her.  So, I don’t know what it feels like not to have some woman go “I don’t know if I’d do that”.

Nate’s shows are intentionally family friendly.  He’s a clean comic.  “You could have your kid watch my standup and not have to be like “woah, what’s going on”.  While working clean can be a savvy business decision that allows you to sell tickets to the widest audience possible, to Nate, it’s also part of a larger mission.  “You feel like you’re being asked to do this and the career that I have, so you just gotta trust the path and stick with it”.  With “Good Clean Funny” as its mantra, Bargatze’s company, Nateland, produces specials, live events and podcasts featuring other clean comedians.  He even has dreams of opening his own theme park and movie studio in Nashville.  “I’m not gonna be able to go to every city in America for the rest of my life.  The goal is to create a space where visitors, including families with children, have the flexibility to explore independently as they wish”

To pull off his ambitious plans, one of the most successful touring comedians of all time is already planning the end of his touring days.  "I'm on this tour now and plan to do one more after."   Then I need to go do movies and I need to build that world up, do all that stuff.  So, I’m gonna dive into that aspect of it.  I can see myself making movies another 15 years if I’m allowed.  This could all fall apart”.

These days, during breaks in his grueling tour schedule, he tries to take his mind off standup.  One of his early gifts to himself was a golf simulator.  He is scheduled to perform two consecutive shows in Denver the day prior to hosting the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.   He wouldn’t have it any other way.  (9-7-25 CBS Sunday Morning, Connor Knighton reporting).