There’s a reason Nate Jackson’s debut Netflix comedy special arrives during barbecue season.
Perched on a stool under the spotlight at his shows, the comedian spends most of the evening delivering hospital-worthy third-degree burns to crowd members who want the smoke. If you lock eyes with him in the first five rows, chances are you even paid extra to be his next victim by sitting in “the roast zone.”
During a recent pair of packed, back-to-back gigs at the Wiltern last month, the Tacoma-bred comic made full use of his flame-throwing abilities to torch his highest-paying L.A. fans over their questionable fashion choices, weird haircuts and bad teeth. As the evening progresses he dives deeper, extracting more information and grilling them about their personal lives and romantic relationships with a camera zoomed in on them, broadcasting their faces on a jumbo screen if they were at a Dodger game. When everything works right, Jackson finds a way to weave the stories of his random burn victims together in a way that makes the whole show feel pre-planned. Meanwhile, even as Jackson is busy making fans the butt of his comedic freestyle, the person laughing the hardest is usually the roastee. It’s the mark of good crowd work that’s not simply well done but more importantly done well.
This ride of the unpredictable twists and turns is given the same spotlight and attention in his special as his pre-written jokes in a way that keeps the pace engaging while making his audience the stars of the show. It makes his debut “Nate Jackson: Super Funny” a testament to the style and the brand of comedy he’s grown from a weekly comedy night to a brick-and-mortar comedy club and now a Netflix special that bears the same name.
Recently Nate Jackson spoke to Nate Jackson about his career coming up in the Tacoma comedy scene, refining his ability to improv on shows like MTV’s “Wild ‘N Out” and using his crowd work skills to go viral on TikTok.
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
