In the April 27 episode of The Rehearsal, “Star Potential,” Nathan Fielder notices a connection between the airplane-safety problem he’s attempting to solve this season and a problem he recently faced in his personal life. While observing pilots and their first officers struggle to speak frankly with each other — a lack of communication he believes leads to airplane crashes — he remembers a time when he had a similar struggle. In late 2023, he says, he discovered that Paramount+ Germany removed a 2015 episode of his Comedy Central series Nathan for You, “Horseback Riding / Man Zone,” from its streaming service after growing “uncomfortable with anything that touches on antisemitism in the aftermath of the Israel/Hamas attacks,” which led to Paramount+ offices across the globe doing the same. Fans of Nathan for You will remember “Horseback Riding / Man Zone” as the episode that launched Summit Ice, Fielder’s real outdoor-apparel company that has raised millions of dollars for Holocaust-awareness organizations like Vancouver’s Holocaust Education Centre.
In hindsight, Fielder wishes he’d fought Paramount+ harder on its decision, so in “Star Potential,” he engineers an elaborate role-play with an actor playing an executive at Paramount+ Germany set in a Nazi-esque war room so he can have his showdown. “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,” Fielder tells the would-be Paramount bigwig. “But when it comes to art, I think you have to know your place, and you have to let us Jews express ourselves.”
In case you need a refresher on the removed episode — which is still currently available to stream on Max — the Summit Ice storyline of Nathan for You begins with Fielder learning that his previously preferred brand of outerwear jacket, Taiga, had published a tribute to a Holocaust denier in a company newsletter. Fielder comes up with the idea of Summit Ice, the “first outdoor-apparel company to openly promote the true story of the Holocaust,” to undo the damage he did in the past by casually wearing and promoting Taiga on his show. The journey takes a twist when Fielder meets with a real L.A. rabbi to consult on the project and the rabbi encourages him to up the ante. While Fielder initially wanted to subtly integrate Holocaust-awareness messaging into the company’s branding using the slogan “Deny Nothing,” the rabbi instructs him to integrate overt Holocaust imagery like arm bands, swastikas, ovens, and gas chambers to make the message less ambiguous. “You need to see images to know you can’t go through life with your head in the sand,” the rabbi says. This culminates in Fielder creating a physical Summit Ice retail display under the supervision of the rabbi featuring all the provocative imagery he suggested. Marc Belland, the retail-store owner who’d agreed to lend Fielder the space for the display, is aghast. Fielder includes a still of the display in The Rehearsal for context.
Despite the retail display being a bust, Fielder set up a successful online store (and, briefly, a pop-up store in Vancouver) after “Horseback Riding / Man Zone” aired to sell Summit Ice. Following the most recent episode of The Rehearsal, though, the website has undergone a revamp. It now promises a “new era for Summit Ice,” the debut of a new apparel line called the Cypress Collection, and a new mission statement on the website’s “About” page:
Founded in 2015 in Los Angeles, California, Summit Ice® is a not-for-profit entity dedicated to producing premium outdoor apparel and raising awareness of the Holocaust. The millions we’ve earned through the sales of our outerwear has financed education programs for young people grades 5-12 in Western Canada and throughout North America to educate them about intolerance, racial bias, and genocide. However, this focus on the message behind our jackets has come at a cost.
For nearly a decade, we’ve made the mistake of putting our charitable goals ahead of the quality of our products – often slapping our logo onto down-market merchandise instead of taking the time to design real clothing from scratch. It’s a confession that’s not easy to make, but it’s true. And unfortunately, we feel our customers have taken notice. In October of 2023, our sales plummeted by nearly 90% and we couldn’t figure out why. After extensive market research, only one answer made sense: consumers had suddenly become more savvy about the quality of softshell jackets. Therefore, we believe the best way to achieve our goal of raising awareness is by shifting our primary brand focus from genocide to craftsmanship.
Welcome to a New Era of Summit Ice™.
With the launch of the Cypress Collection™ and our New Original Softshell™, the practice of putting charity ahead of quality has come to an end. Our latest designs are the result of an intensive multi-year development process, testing dozens of prototypes to arrive at a new line of outerwear that will stand the test of time.
Since our founding, 100% of our profits have gone to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in Vancouver, Canada and other organizations that work to fight intolerance. And this practice will continue. But our newfound investment in quality means that, at least in the short term, slightly less money will go to them so we can put our resources toward delivering you the best technical jacket on the market. And hopefully in the long run everyone will benefit. We’ve learned that charity doesn’t mean you have to compromise quality.
In this new era we Stand For Everything™. Now that’s something no one can deny.
“Horseback Riding / Man Zone” isn’t the only Nathan for You episode currently unavailable to stream on Paramount+. Last year, fans on Reddit pointed out that, in certain regions, the season-two episode “Daddy’s Watching / Party Planner” had been removed from the streamer and, in the United States, the season-two episode “Taxi Service / Hot Dog Stand” is currently unavailable as well.
Paramount+ would not comment on the removed episodes of Nathan for You or any of the allegations Fielder makes in The Rehearsal. So when it comes to the charges of the streamer suppressing Jewish art, its response is more or less to follow the Summit Ice slogan: Deny Nothing.
Related
- The Rehearsal Recap: Rejection
- A Scaredy-Cat’s Guide to The Rehearsal Season-Two Premiere
- The Prescience of Nathan Fielder’s Summit Ice
In season two, the comedian paints the streamer as Nazi Germany — and launches a new era of Summit Ice.
