
Nathan Fielder has no fear. Despite his timid demeanor, he goes full force into every experiment born from his own sick and twisted brain, putting himself in situations where others have surely wanted to inflict harm on him. But still, through four seasons of Nathan For You on Comedy Central and at least the first episode of his new HBO show, The Rehearsal, he’s come out unscathed, even when messing with the most sacred thing of all: our food.
In The Rehearsal, Fielder puts his knowledge of building a business to the test. In the first episode, he builds an exact replica of Brooklyn’s Alligator Lounge (complete with a “functioning” pizza oven) so that one man can rehearse a tough conversation he needs to have with a friend at the real bar. There are even hired extras running the bar to make it all feel as accurate as possible. (I won’t give away anything else—you really have to see it to believe it.)
But before building an entire pub from scratch, Fielder tried his hand at helping struggling businesses survive in Nathan For You, and along the way he appeared to learn a lot about everything from frozen yogurt to chili to Starbucks. Some of these lessons were learned the hard way, making them even harder to watch. Here are 10 cringeworthy (but hilarious) times Fielder messed with our food and drinks and got away with it.