Nathan’s idea to get a struggling diner some press is to have a celebrity leave an enormous tip, which of course means engineering a situation where it seems that way. After going through some unsatisfactory impersonators (including our recurring Bill Gates impersonator, as well as someone who bills himself as a Jim Carrey impersonator but is clearly just an Ace Ventura impersonator), Nathan and the diner’s owner settle on Michael Richards.
To cover his bases, Nathan wants to make sure the card the tip is charged to is in the name of Michael Richards. This leads him to offer money to someone to legally change his name. To do so in California, however, requires four consecutive weeks of a public notice of intent to do so in a local newspaper. Not wanting any sleuths to track down this information, Nathan naturally starts his own paper to run the notice.
For being one of the more asinine plots Nathan has pulled, this one actually comes together pretty well– the Michael Richards impersonator is just convincing enough that the other patrons at the diner (who obviously weren’t paying much attention to their surroundings until the staff “reacted” to the tip) will testify to it being him. I wonder if the real Michael Richards saw this episode.
DUMB STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- What’s the name of that Guy Fieri show, Nathan? “Diners, Dive-ins, and Drives.”
- Nathan calling his paper The Diarrhea Times is the sort of joke that’s ten times funnier in this case for being so stupid, because Nathan always goes through with these schemes and with a straight face.
- And the paper’s editor-in-chief? The ghostwriter of The Movement, the guide to fitness / absolute gibberish from last season’s episode of the same name. (I have a copy, naturally.)
- Sorry this week is so short. I had to write on my phone because my knees are acting up and I couldn’t make it to my desktop. Also, if you have a better idea for the title of the stray observations section, I’m listening.
- …did Nathan ever go back to the hotel room for the other Michael Richards?