Despite the haphazard and not-studio-sanctioned conception of the show’s hidden narrative, those plot elements ended up being some of the strongest parts of the show. In the fourth episode, which happened to be the installment that most heavily featured the “Wizard of Loneliness” himself, the crew investigated a so-called “Poor Farm” in the middle of the desert where billionaires would go to pretend to be the down-on-their-luck, working-class-to-homeless denizens of the “poorest place in America.”
After filming the segment, the crew loaded up the famous Van just to find that it wouldn’t start, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere. Realizing that none of the crew had brought cell-phones, Jon accepts the vaguely ominous offer of a passing truck driver to give one of them a ride to a payphone ten miles away. Jon volunteers Nathan, and the sound guy rides off in the truck, leaving the rest of the crew to perform the next four minutes in complete silence.
The truck driver takes Nathan hostage and demands that Jon give him ten thousand dollars as ransom in one hour, a deadline that Jon narrowly beats. After Jon buys Nathan’s freedom, the truck driver sets fire to the money and reveals himself to be a billionaire real-estate developer, with the entire hostage situation being another “Poor Farm” ruse.
Jon Benjamin Has a Van didn’t make much of a splash when it hit the airwaves in 2011, and Comedy Central elected not to renew the show for a second season. After lukewarm reviews and nearly non-existent ratings, the show faded into obscurity, only to be remembered as a footnote on the resumes of its illustrious cast.
Still, Jon Benjamin Has a Van marked an important milestone in Nathan Fielder’s relationship with Comedy Central, a partnership that would eventually blossom into Nathan For You, which in turn paved the way for HBO’s The Rehearsal. Therefore, without Jon Benjamin Has a Van, we would never see the full extremes of what the medium of television is capable of when you give a socially awkward Charles Manson-level manipulator an unlimited budget and an army of actors trained in the “Fielder Method.” So for that, we celebrate Jon Benjamin Has a Van in all its messy glory.
Top Image: Abso Lutely Productions
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