Nathan Fielder Parodies Paramount+ as Nazi Germany on ‘The Rehearsal’

Leave it to Nathan Fielder to take a shaggy dog story all of the approach. On the second one episode of season two of The Rehearsal, Fielder took purpose at Paramount+, depicting the streamer as Nazis after it got rid of an episode of his earlier display, Nathan For You, for “sensitivities” surrounding antisemitism.

The 2d season of Fielder’s HBO actuality comedy sequence, The Rehearsal, unearths the comic hyperfixating on ways in which he can lend a hand business airplanes steer clear of airplane crashes whatsoever vital. (Spoilers forward.) But the HBO sequence takes a detour in episode two, when Fielder discovers that Paramount+ had got rid of an episode of Nathan For You—the mid-2010s Comedy Central docu-reality sequence the place the comic would concoct elaborate schemes in an effort to lend a hand a person with a trade downside they had been dealing with—because of specious allegations of antisemitism.

In the 2015 episode of Nathan For You “Horseback Riding/Man Zone,” Fielder begins an attire line referred to as Summit Ice after finding that Taiga, the Canadian logo that made his favourite iciness jacket, had printed a tribute to the Holocaust denier Doug Collins. In reaction, Fielder, who’s Jewish, introduced his personal logo of iciness jackets, Summit Ice, devoted to spreading Holocaust consciousness and donating all income to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and different tutorial organizations. Fielder enlisted the assistance of a rabbi and pitched the trade concept to a shop proprietor at the display, which integrated showcasing their clothes in the back of a duplicate of the Auschwitz gate, swastika pennants, and a faux skeleton in an oven.

While Fielder’s Holocaust-centric iciness jacket pitch flopped within the room—“Find something else to do with your life, because you are not good at this,” the shop proprietor stated—the emblem changed into one thing of a cult hit for fanatics of the eccentric comic. Summit Ice reportedly generated $300,000 in gross sales in its first 8 weeks, with well-known people like John Mayer and Jack Black noticed dressed in Summit Ice jackets within the weeks after the episode aired. In episode two of The Rehearsal, Fielder estimates that, prior to now decade, Summit Ice has most definitely generated tens of millions of bucks towards Holocaust consciousness. Summit Ice is Fielder’s “proudest achievement,” he stated, the usage of it for instance of one thing “silly” that “can actually have an impact in the world.”

While Fielder’s Summit Ice intentions had been natural, the message of his Nathan For You stunt was once it seems that misinterpreted by way of Paramount, the dad or mum corporate of Comedy Central, and its streamer Paramount+ got rid of the episode with out informing Fielder. After attaining out to Paramount+, Fielder came upon the reasoning for taking the episode down, which he described on The Rehearsal as “so shocking” that it created “a tornado of emotions began spinning in my body.”

“In late 2023, a decision was made by Paramount+ Germany to remove the episode in their region after they became uncomfortable with what they called ‘anything that touches on antisemitism in the aftermath of the Israel/Hamas attacks,’” stated Fielder, studying an e mail he gained from Paramount+ on The Rehearsal. “This act by Germany triggered the attention of other European Paramount branches, and they, in turn, pulled the episode too. Before long, the ideology of Paramount+ Germany had spread to the entire globe, eliminating all Jewish content that made them uncomfortable.” As Fielder is describing this, the display shows a map of Europe with the Paramount+ emblem spreading from Germany throughout all of Europe in a ripple impact—without delay, a not-so-subtle parallel to the unfold of fascism.

Ever attune to irony, Fielder proceeded to devote the remaining part of the episode to “rehearsing” the dialog he would have with Paramount executives about why they took “Horseback Riding/Man Zone” off the platform. But there was once one downside. “I didn’t know what the Paramount+ Germany offices looked like, so I sort of had to take a guess,” stated Fielder. His model of the German Paramount places of work was once immediately out of Nazi Germany, with employed actors portraying Paramount “executives” with thick German accents, wearing Nazi-adjacent fits, saluting each and every different, and taking army orders. Large banners with the Paramount+ emblem draped the partitions.