NYC’s status as the world’s greatest city will be put on trial Tuesday

New Yorkers love to declare that their city is the greatest in the world, and with good reason. If you can get over the spotty subway service, constant smell of trash and a disheartening degree of income inequality, then it’s pretty clear that New York is hands down the most amazing place on earth. 

But with that great power and prestige comes great responsibility—specifically the responsibility to relentlessly defend New York from people alleging that their hometown is a better place to live. On Tuesday, comedian Chris Gethard is taking this duty to a whole new level by inviting people from across the country to Skype into his show (The Chris Gethard Show) and defend their city’s cred against New York's.

The schtick, dubbed “New York City vs. the World,” will be filmed live (as with the rest of the episodes on the show), and will give callers the opportunity to explain the merits of their city. “You can even try to dethrone New York, but I will have actual taxi drivers on hand who are gonna yell at you,” Gethard says in a promo for the episode. 

On top of the cabbies, Gethard is also bringing on New York Knicks player Michael Beasley as a guest defender of Gotham. Considering that Beasley just joined the team last year and had not lived in the city previously, he seems like a strange fit for this episode (for what it’s worth a late-night live comedy show on TruTV isn’t the most glamorous stage in town). 

Gethard has long been a cheerleader for New York, specifically the its weirdness. His 2010 book Weird New York takes a deep dive into why the city is—and always will be—a strange place. He reinforced this point in a feature he wrote for Time Out New York in 2014.

“The threshold for the bizarre is higher here than anywhere else in the nation,” he says. “Think, for example, about the Chelsea Birdman.... In any other town in America, that’s the strangest person anyone has ever seen. That’s pretty much a superpower. New Yorkers don’t stop and think about that guy, though. We keep walking, annoyed that his mystical ability to communicate with other species sometimes blocks our way and makes our walk from the office to Duane Reade 11 seconds longer.”

If you just so happen to believe that New York is not the world’s greatest city and want to stand up to the likes of Gethard, Beasley and a group of taxi drivers, you can fill out an application to be a caller on the show right here. The episode airs live on Tuesday, May 22, at 11pm on TruTV. 

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