History Podcast / TheScathingAtheist

* RunningGagStumbles: On God Awful Movies, Heath is usually the one to announce the name of the movie being reviewed ("We watched...") and provide a short description of how the gang felt about it ("It's the story of..."). The anti-abortion film ''Unplanned'' compelled him to change it up juuuuust a little.

* AcceptableTargets: These guys attack far right wing Christian bigots for a living. They don't even like democrats that much. The list of people they ''won't'' attack doesn't even include Anne Frank, because Eli is Jewish and will happily pretend he would happily dig up and defile her corpse. Good taste is ''barely'' a limiting factor, and if they disagree with you on religious or political grounds, they'll metaphorically dig up and defile your corpse.

* DeepSouth: The show started in New York City, but spent a large amount of its time in Valdosta, Georgia. It has since relocated to "Secret lair, Pennsylvania" to Noah's relief. Regardless of where they are from, their stories are inevitably the result of religious harm, so the heavily Christian South is naturally a large target for the show.

** Since hiring lawyer and fellow podcaster Andrew Torrez from the legal podcast Opening Arguments, Andrew has had to step in a few times to clarify that a few of the worst pedophilia, rape, and murder-based jokes are indeed jokes so the crew won't be held liable. The show has somehow gotten more and more obscene over time, likely because now that their lawyer can advise them '''exactly''' where the line is regarding what can and cannot be legally stated on a podcast.

** Commercial breaks have a formula where one person would say, "Well why don't you try (brand name)" and the person responding would ask, "Oh, what's [{{Beat}}] (brand name)?" Eventually this turned into a further running gag where supposedly the person asking the question what the brand name is, would get a "point" where the tally of points was never actually taken/given. Fights would develop sometimes where someone not initally on the ad would ask the question and receive a "point", or a person on the ad would chime in to ask the question out of turn. Also, any guest on the show who asked the question got "a point", which angers Eli and/or Heath, especially if they are new to the show and have to be added to the (non-existent) "board". Eventually this gag was taken up to eleven in one episode where Eli and Heath were constantly fighting about who received the point and ruining each advertisement, leading into a medieval style mediation adjudicated by their attorney P. Andrew Torrez.

** When there is a story in the news segment that seems innocuous, but upsets Christians for some reason or another, one of the guys would call for "Anna?" [Bosnick, Eli's wife, whom is also a musician/composer], a short cheery jingle called "Christian Freak Out" would then play: "What guys talking about? The newest, the greatest, Christian freak out!" In one episode, a headline apparently upset both Christians and Wiccans for different reasons, so after playing the regular jingle and explaining that Wiccans also felt upset, the jingle changed to "Wiccan Freak Out" and the music styling turned into a somewhat Goth sounding OneWomanWail. In another episode there were three Christian Freak Out stories back to back, the jingle (being a recording) was played normally for the first story, the second story had the jingle played at a faster tempo, and for third story when they tried calling Anna's name twice (first with no response), Anna responded: "I'm on my fifteen! [minute break]"

* BerserkButton:

The Scathing Atheist starts with the [[AuthorTract Diatribe]], in which Noah rants about a different aspect of religion each week, then segues into Headlines, where the two hosts talk about news events in the week that relate to religion or atheism. In the middle of headlines, Noah's wife Lucinda does a segment titled "This Week in Misogyny" that talks about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin misogyny and patriarchy]]. Other segments include "The Holy Babble"(now Bible Piece Theatre), where Noah, Lucinda, and Heath read Literature/TheBible in its entirety (later moving onto the Quran and the Book of Mormon), and segments where Noah interviews different people associated with the atheist movement.

The team recently started yet another spinoff show called Citation Needed, where they team up with the Cognitive Dissonance Podcast. On this show they will go through Wikipedia pages and discuss a specific subject, making fun of the content, and pretend to be experts based on their new knowledge (because this is the internet and that's how it works now). Eli has also started another podcast called Dear Old Dads with fellow Citation Needed host Tom Curry and long-time friend of both the Scathing crew and the Cog Diss crew Thomas Smith (Serious Inquiries Only, Opening Arguments, Comedy Shoeshine). The three men are fathers and the joys and difficulties of fatherhood and of manhood more broadly are the focus of the show.

** All three hosts have a talent for roast humor, which naturally leads to a no holds barred [[{{CrossesTheLineTwice}} Crosses the Line Twice]] insult assault on '''anyone'''. They have decided to use their powers for good and held two events called "Vulgarity for Charity", where donors are encouraged to contribute to charity, and the cast will insult anyone at the donor's request. The first was for the aforementioned Secular Student Alliance fundraiser. The second one was where they brought on the Cognitive Dissonance podcast to insult people. They ended up raising $25,000 for Modest Needs.

** Commercial breaks have a formula where one person would say, "Well why don't you try (brand name)" and the person responding would ask, "Oh, what's [beat] (brand name)?" Eventually this turned into a further running gag where supposedly the person asking the question what the brand name is, would get a "point" where the tally of points was never actually taken/given. Fights would develop sometimes where someone not initally on the ad would ask the question and receive a "point", or a person on the ad would chime in to ask the question out of turn. Also, any guest on the show who asked the question got "a point", which angers Eli and/or Heath, especially if they are new to the show and have to be added to the (non-existent) "board". Eventually this gag was taken up to eleven in one episode where Eli and Heath were constantly fighting about who received the point and ruining each advertisement, leading into a medieval style mediation adjudicated by their attorney P. Andrew Torrez.

** When there is a story in the news segment that seems innocuous, but upsets Christians for some reason or another, one of the guys would call for "Anna?" [Bosnick, Eli's wife, whom is also a musician/composer], a short cheery jingle called "Christian Freak Out" would then play: "What guys talking about? The newest, the greatest, Christian freak out!" In one episode, a headline apparently upset both Christians and Wiccans for different reasons, so after playing the regular jingle and explaining that Wiccans also felt upset, the jingle changed to "Wiccan Freak Out" and the music styling turned into a somewhat Goth sounding OneWomanWail. In another episode there were three Christian Freak Out stories back to back, the jingle (being a recording) was played normally for the first story, the second story had the jingle played at a faster tempo, and for third story when they tried calling Anna's name twice (first with no response), Anna responded: "I'm on my fifteen [minute break]!"

The team recently started yet another spinoff show called Citation Needed, where they team up with the Cognitive Dissonance Podcast. On this show they will go through Wikipedia pages and discuss a specific subject, making fun of the content, and pretend to be experts based on their new knowledge (because this is the internet and that's how it works now).

* CriticalResearchFailure: For God Awful Movies, there are a lot of films, especially Christian films, where they portray a [[StrawCharacter character who is supposed to be a different religion/belief]] than the religion the film is promoting and it gets nearly everything, if not everything, wrong. For example, in Film/GodsNotDead where there is a female Muslim character who covers her face and head (but not all of her hair) with a scarf to please her "very traditional" father who is picking her up from school; except she also is wearing a short sleeve shirt, tight jeans, and has cleavage showing!

** Heath will then give a fake sponsorship for the episode, usually in the form of a play on words of a religious phrase or product.
** There will then be a member of the atheist/secular community to quote [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} Dr. Farnsworth's]] "we did in fact evolve from filthy monkey men." or some variation.

* Spinoff: TheSkepticrat, which focuses on politics, and GodAwfulMovies, which reviews movies, based on a frequent segment on the show.

* CriticalResearchFailure: For God Awful Movies, there are a lot of films, especially Christian films, where they portray a [[StrawCharacter character who is supposed to be a different religion/belief]] than the religion the film is promoting and it gets nearly everything, if not everything, wrong. For example in Film/GodsNotDead where there is a female Muslim character who covers her face and head (but not all of her hair) with a scarf to please her "very traditional" father who is picking her up from school; except she also is wearing a short sleeve shirt, tight jeans, and has cleavage showing!

** Commercial breaks have a formula where one person would say, "Well why don't you try (brand name)" and the person responding would ask, "Oh, what's [beat] (brand name)?" Eventually this turned into a further running gag where supposedly the person asking the question what the brand name is, would get a "point" where the tally of points was never actually taken/given, and any guest on the show who said the line got "a point" which angers Eli and/or Heath. Eventually this gag was taken up to eleven where Eli and Heath was fighting about who received the point and ruining each advertisement during the episode, leading into a medieval style mediation adjudicated by their attorney P. Andrew Torrez.

** The signoff for God Awful Movies started off with variations on a man from Brooklyn telling you to [[RefugeInVulgarity go fuck yourself]], but then Eli gave an outro as a spoof of [[{{Film/TheBreakfastClub}} The Breakfast Club]]. Now the cast gives epilogues after ad-libbing "Don't You (Forget about Me)" by [[{{Music/SimpleMinds}} Simple Minds]].

** Commercial breaks have a formula where one person would say, "Well why don't you try (brand name)" and the person responding would ask, "Oh, what's [beat] (brand name)?" Eventually this turned into a further running gag where supposedly the person asking the question what the brand name is, would get a "point" where the tally of points was never actually taken/given, and any guest on the show who said the line got "a point" which angers Eli and/or Heath. Eventually this gag was taken [[UpToEleven Up To Eleven]] where Eli and Heath was fighting about who received the point and ruining each advertisement during the episode, leading into a medieval style mediation adjudicated by their attorney P. Andrew Torrez.

* CriticalResearchFailure: For God Awful Movies, there are a lot of films, especially Christian films, where they portray a character who is supposed to be a different religion/belief than the religion the film is promoting and it gets nearly everything, if not everything, wrong. For example in Film/GodsNotDead where there is a female Muslim character who covers her face and head (but not all of her hair) with a scarf to please her "very traditional" father who is picking her up from school; except she also is wearing a short sleeve shirt, tight jeans, and has cleavage showing!

* CriticalResearchFailure: For God Awful Movies, there are a lot of films, especially Christian films, where they portray a character who is supposed to be a different religion/belief than the religion the film is promoting and it gets nearly everything, if not everything, wrong. For example in Film/GodsNotDead where there is a female Muslim character who covers her face and head (but not all of her hair) with a scarf to please her "very traditional" father; except she wears a short sleeve shirt, tight jeans, and has cleavage showing!

* CriticalResearchFailure: For God Awful Movies, there are a lot of films, especially Christian films, where they portray a character who is supposed to be a different religion/belief than the religion the film is promoting and it gets nearly everything, if not everything, wrong. For example in Film/GodsNotDead where there is a female Muslim character who covers her face (but not all of her hair) to please her "very traditional" father, except she wears short sleeves, tight jeans, and cleavage showing!