Nathan Fielder is firing shots at Paramount+.
The streaming service removed an episode of Fielder’s Comedy Central series Nathan for You, the comedian complains in Sunday’s episode of his HBO docu-comedy The Rehearsal.
In the episode, Fielder explains that one of his proudest achievements is creating the Summit Ice Apparel brand, which he launched during the second episode of Nathan for You‘s third season in 2015 to promote Holocaust awareness.
“In late 2023, I discovered that the episode of Nathan for You featuring the Summit Ice story mysteriously went missing from the Paramount+ streaming service,” Fielder says on The Rehearsal.
Rabbi Shalom Denbo and Nathan Fielder on season 3, episode 2 of ‘Nathan for You’ in 2015. Comedy Central
Fielder then recreates the moment that he learned about the removal of the episode — which is still missing from Paramount+ at the time of writing — by directing Alexander Leiss, who played “Fake Nathan” in The Rehearsal‘s first season, to retype his email correspondence with Paramount.
“I wrote an email to some contacts I had at Paramount, asking them why the episode was removed,” Fielder explains over voiceover, noting that he needed to maintain professionalism with the company because his other recent show, The Curse, is also a Paramount project. “The thing that made this tricky was, Paramount is currently airing a different series of mine, a scripted drama that hadn’t yet been renewed. How I spoke to them could have career repercussions.”
In his usual deadpan delivery, Fielder recalls, “I remember wanting to convey how urgent this was for me, and yet my email was extremely cordial, using phrases like ‘forever grateful’ and ‘happy holidays.’ The network confirmed in their response that it was taken down intentionally and gave me a one-word explanation as to why: ‘sensitivities.'”
Nathan Fielder wearing a Summit Ice windbreaker in season 3, episode 2 of ‘Nathan for You’ in 2015. Comedy Central
Entertainment Weekly has learned that Paramount+ is not streaming the episode after a standards review, but it is unclear which of the company’s standards the episode failed to meet. A clip from the episode is still viewable in a video on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel.
Fielder goes on to recount the moment that he received a lengthier explanation.
“What I discovered was so shocking, a tornado of emotions began spinning inside my body,” he narrates. “The email said, 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.'”
The comedian, who is Jewish, also claims that the German Paramount+ division’s decision caused other countries to remove the episode and sarcastically draws parallels between this chain of events and World War II (a wartime-style map graphic shows the Paramount+ blue-and-white logo spreading across the European continent).
“This act by Germany triggered the attention of other European Paramount branches, and they pulled the episode, too,” he says. “Before long, the ideology of Paramount+ Germany had spread to the entire globe, eliminating all Jewish content that made them uncomfortable. This is real, by the way.”
Fielder also shares statistics about the programming currently available on Paramount+ in the United States.
“On the Paramount app, there are 50 results for ‘Nazi’, 10 for ‘Hitler,’ and zero for ‘Judaism,'” he says. “We’ve been erased.”
Nathan Fielder in season 2 of ‘The Rehearsal’. John P. Johnson/HBO
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Fielder’s claims about the “Nazi” and “Hitler” results on Paramount+ were correct at the time of this writing, with titles like the Smithsonian Channel’s The Hunt for Nazi Gold Train and V2: Nazi Rocket appearing among the 50 “Nazi” results and shows like Hitler’s Riches and The Day Hitler Died among the 10 “Hitler” results.
At the same time, there is one single result for “Judaism”: Spotlights: A Showtime Short Film Series. Additionally, the “Nazi” results include puzzling titles like The Amazing Race, Minari, and March Madness, none of which have any connection to Nazism or World War II — which may indicate that the Paramount+ search function is subpar, rather than a bias or representational imbalance in the streamer’s library.
Later in the episode, Fielder attempts to bring himself closure on the episode’s removal by hiring an actor to play the head of the German branch of Paramount+ and confronting him about the decision. He dresses the actor like a Nazi and sets the meeting in a war room.
Nathan Fielder in season 2 of ‘The Rehearsal’. John P. Johnson/HBO
“Look, I know you guys probably feel a lot of shame about what you did in the past, and now you’re trying to overcompensate by being the world leaders in fighting antisemitism, but when it comes to art, I think you have to know your place, and you have to let us Jews express ourselves, because honestly, the way you’re approaching this whole thing, people might get the wrong idea about what you actually stand for,” Fielder says to the fake Paramount executive.
After giving the actor permission to improvise, the fake exec criticizes Fielder’s technique.
“You designed this office to look like a war room, dressed me to look like a Nazi,” he says, “pretending to want feedback, but you don’t actually want to get the Paramount+ perspective or the German perspective. Look at you, pretending to be serious! This is not sincere, just a man with his grudge, using his television show to smear us instead of trying to understand us.”
The Rehearsal airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on Max and following The Righteous Gemstones on HBO.
