Dan Naturman
A quintessential New York club comic running purely on aggravation.
3 specials · 2001–2024
Start with Comedy Central Presents, the breakout (2005 · 21 min · Comedy Central)
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Dan Naturman takes the stage with a jittery, unsettled posture. He grips the microphone and immediately starts complaining, leaning into a high-pitched, nasal voice that makes every observation sound like a grievance he has been muttering to himself on the subway. The rhythm is relentless. He does not pause for applause breaks or wait for the room to catch up. He just powers through a dense string of setups and punches, looking mildly annoyed that he has to explain his frustration to a crowd.
Specials
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Comedy Dynamics · 42 min
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A half-hour of nasal New York grouchiness and modern anxieties.
Comedy Central · 21 min
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Premium Blend: David Alan Grier (S5E6) with David Alan Grier, Scott Kennedy & 2 more
David Alan Grier hosts a four-act stand-up showcase.
Comedy Central · 25 min
On stage
He is a fixture of the New York club scene, the kind of pure standup who thrives in a basement room at midnight. While he reached broad audiences through deep runs on talent shows like America’s Got Talent, his true habitat is the Comedy Cellar. He represents a specific breed of East Coast comic: unflashy, entirely joke-driven, and completely uninterested in being earnest.
He relies on traditional setups and hard punches rather than sprawling stories. Naturman builds his sets around his romantic failures, his distaste for technology, and the general inconvenience of other people. He plays a modern curmudgeon, but the sheer speed of his delivery keeps the act from dragging. Because he refuses to wait for the audience to stop laughing, the jokes stack up in rapid succession. The minor drawback is that the pacing rarely shifts. The entire set stays at a single, agitated sprint.
He abandoned law after graduating from Fordham to pursue standup, a biographical detail that makes perfect sense. He performs exactly like a man who realized he was too irritable for a desk job and decided to voice his impatience into a microphone instead.
Turning points
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2004–2008
Last Comic Standing Celebrity Favorite
He emerged as a celebrity judge favorite of Drew Carey and Brett Butler on Last Comic Standing in 2004 and advanced to the semi-finals upon returning in 2008.
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Semifinalist on America's Got Talent
Naturman competed as a stand-up comedian on Season 9 of America's Got Talent, successfully advancing to the semi-final round before being eliminated.
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2017–2019
Recurring Role on HBO's Crashing
Naturman expanded into screen acting portraying himself across multiple episodes of Pete Holmes' HBO series Crashing.
At a glance
- Born
- , New York, New York
- Style
- observational, self deprecating, crowd work
- Breakout
- Comedy Central Presents
- Topics
- Elsewhere
- Wikipedia
Podcasts
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The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table · co-host
Comics and guests debate pop culture, politics, and standup comedy upstairs at the legendary Comedy Cellar table.
Also on screen
- Bedford Springs
- Noise
- American Loser
- Top Five
- Semi Respectable
A clip to start with
Dan Naturman Stand-Up 08/30/16 | CONAN on TBS