'Audible groans' as Christian nationalist org’s late-night comedy show bombs

Eric Metaxas speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Guardian reports a group of conservative donors spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a right-wing version of late-night talk shows.

Seeking to compete with the “Tonight Show” and the “Late Show,” leaked documents reveal the Ziklag group, a secretive Christian nationalist organization that aims to reshape culture to match its version of Christianity, requested “$400,000 to $500,000” from members to fund four pilot episodes of a rightwing chat show, “Talk Show With Eric Metaxas.”

“For too long, the late-night talkers on network TV have filled the airwaves with progressive rants and outright mockery of anyone who espouses traditional American values,” according to a leaked Ziklag email. Ziklag added that the “Talk Show With Eric Metaxas, will “change that forever.”

The email said the group planned to show the five pilot episodes, “to digital distributors, networks and TV ownership groups.”

“The Guardian sat through nearly four hours of the Talk Show, and found it to be an almost exact copy of existing late-night shows, just worse: with hack jokes about tired issues and has-been, conservative guests. The show was never picked up, presumably to the chagrin of Ziklag and its investors, who had lofty expectations,” the Guardian reports.

“Spoiler alert! The secular elites who currently reign over late-night TV are about to find out the joke’s on them!” Ziklag’s pitch email read, while lauding conservative radio host Metaxas as an eager proponent of the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

“His comedic bent has gone largely unnoticed until now that is…” Ziklag said in its email.

“Unfortunately, across the four pilots, Metaxas’s comedic bent was noticeable only by its absence,” said the Guardian, which included examples.

“Big news in the world of show business,” Metaxas announced at the onset of his first episode. “Harrison Ford will be returning for a fifth Indiana Jones movie. Yeah. In this one Harrison will find an ancient artifact … by looking in the mirror.”

Other quips included: “Barbie’s longtime companion, Ken, just turned 61 years old. Yeah. And he said the perfect gift for his birthday would be to finally get a prostate” and “In India, doctors removed 526 teeth from a seven-year-old boy’s mouth. The boy is recovering nicely. However, the Tooth Fairy declared bankruptcy.”

The Guardian reported “audible groans” from the audience.

The Guardian reports Ziklag claimed the show would welcome “guests who are routinely shadow banned on other talk shows,” and quoted Metaxas as saying: “It’s kind of like Stalin has air-brushed these people out of the culture.”

The first episode featured an exclusive interview with Carrot Top, the 60-year-old prop comedian.

“Tonight’s show is loaded with talent,” Metaxas told his audience.

Read the full Guardian report at this link.

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