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The program began with something obnoxiously called a “sizzle reel,” ten minutes of clips so short I couldn’t begin to take notes on them. But for the most part they consisted of Maher touring various holy sites and interviewing diehard followers of the “Big Three”–Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. After a short onstage interview the filmmakers showed a series of longer clips that gave a better idea of their scorched-earth policy. Maher was quick to distinguish the project from mainstream movies like Evan Almighty that lightly spoof the Bible while leaving its bedrock assumptions unchallenged. As Charles put it, “Most movies tend to poke gentle fun” at religion, whereas “we want to stab it to death.”
Most of the other clips featured similar gags, with the sort of quick cuts to stock footage that we’ve all seen in Michael Moore’s movies. (One particularly choice sequence tells the story of Adam and Eve through a cheaply animated kiddie flick; whenever God appears, he does so in the person of the title character from the camp horror flick Leprechaun.)
