Christmas in New York with Eric Metaxas (GAM279)

Noah Lugeons

Heath Enwright

***Christmas in New York with Eric Metaxas*** is the story of the Dunning-Kruger effect (that's it). It's an hour-long sketch comedy variety show starring Eric Metaxas, who clearly got told her was funny by a stripper and decided to make a comedy show.

### **Opening Phrase**

Where each week we sample another selection from Christian cinema, and apparently I'm powerless to stop it.

### **How Bad Was It?**

Well, if you love the 1960s Dean Martin Christmas specials, but you really want them to be hosted by someone with all of the talent and charisma of 2020 Dean Martin, you will *love* this movie.

### **Best Worst**

* Heath: ..."up next" on YouTube. [Milton Friedman on *Donahue*.]
* Noah: ...YouTube ads. [Conservative content in Georgia, nineteen days from the runoff election.]
* Marsh: ..."no anding." [Metaxas getting mad with an SNL alum attempting to inject humor.]

### **Notes**

* Check out Marsh on Twitter, *Be Reasonable*, *Skeptics with a K*, and at The Good Thinking Society or Skeptic of the Year.
* Eli isn't on this episode because watching someone attempting to deliver a sketch to stony silence is triggering.
* The episode was uploaded to Metaxas' YouTube channel on 2 January 2020, but aired by TBN at 8/7c on 23 December 2019.
* Marsh, Noah, and Heath are privileged to have never encountered cheap polyester towels that do not dry you properly.

### **Jokes**

* [Noah: Oh, and then—because again, he doesn't know what comedy is—they add this element that this character wants to smoke a cigarette, but he's not allowed to because, you know "cancel culture ruins everything, and everything's ruined because liberals!", or whatever. But he thinks now that he's given this character a personality trait or characteristic that can be brought to repeatedly, he's done with his comedy. Right?] [Heath: Eli's not here man. Just like… you're… that's just not classy.] [Marsh: You're absolutely right, that's not fair. In Eli's defense, garlic bread is totally different from cigarettes: it's a totally different type of thing; there's way more nuance to garlic bread...] [Heath: It's something he's said before in the past, and that's… funny.] (45:00)
* [Marsh: Also, they try to make out this big mythos behind it, as we've explained there, and it cuts to the video that this swamp thing released as a country hillbilly kind of record. And the video's on a grainy VHS, and it's got the wobblesto it that a VHS would have… but it's got the timestamp in the bottom left corner of May 2018, and I don't know that a lot of people were recording on VHS two years ago.] [Noah: Well, it was in Louisiana, so yeah, who knows?] [Heath: I missed that! He was using a VHS recorder two years ago! \*squeaking laughter\* Where would you even get that?! How would you even find the hardware and the tapes? What?] [(1:02:36)

### **Interstitials**

* First Writer's Room Meeting (7:30)
* Eric Metaxas' Recognizers (34:04)
* List the Races I'm Allowed to Make Fun Of (1:04:54)
* Noah's Dad's Occulus / Hampers(1:32:18) [Post-Credits]

### **Tropes**

* Looks Like…
* Nothing Happens
* RACISM!

### **Links**

* Episode on Audioboom
* Episode on YouTube
* Film on YouTube
* IMDb

### **Ad Reads**

* Hello Fresh: Making Entire Meals Out of Food(1:36:46)