Jason Mantzoukas’s Return to ‘Nailed It! Holiday!’ is Netflix’s Greatest Gift To Us All

Hear ye, hear ye! The holiday season is officially here! Season 2 of Nailed It! Holiday! just hit Netflix, thus marking the start of the Yuletide Season. Hilarious host Nicole Byer is back for another round of festive-themed fails, and she’s brought back co-host Jacques Torres, hunky backstage manager “Whhhhesss,” and one of the MVPs of last year’s Nailed It! Holiday! That’s right: Jason Mantzoukas is back for more Nailed It! and it is the greatest gift Netflix could give to us all.

Nailed It! Holiday! is a spin-off of Netflix’s popular baking show Nailed It! Unlike other baking competitions — like say, The Great British Baking Show — Nailed It! is a show that celebrates failure. The bakers brought in to compete in two back-to-back challenges are as amateur as they come, and often don’t know the basics of cooking. Nicole Byer and Jacques Torres ask these sweet summer children to attempt to make and decorate wildly complex desserts in an extremely limited amount of time. The hope is that they do a good enough job, or at the very least, have a hilarious fail.

The show works because Byer, Torres, and their guest judges are having a delirious amount of fun with the insanity on set, and because the bakers genuinely are game to laugh at themselves. The show has become an instant hit with viewers of all ages, a point undercut by this season of Nailed It! Holiday!‘s rather lovely cold open. We watch as Nicole Byer tears into a massive bag of fan mail and most of the notes are from children who have fallen in love with the silly show and are dying for more.

Now, almost every show features a guest judge who is either a popular culinary figure or hilarious comic. These fresh voices always add a bit of oomph to the madness, but comedian Jason Mantzoukas was an instant legend on the show. Like batty baking guru Sylvia Weinstock, Mantzoukas fit in seamlessly with the bonkers world of Nailed It! Mantzoukas appeared in Season 1 of Nailed It! Holiday! in a New Year’s Eve-themed episode called “3…2…1, Ya Done!” The extra wrinkle he added to the mix? Because he is deathly allergic to eggs, the bakers had to make cookies, cakes, and everything else without using the popular baking ingredient.

Mantzoukas appears in the Season 2 premiere of Nailed It! Holiday!, and while his egg allergy doesn’t come up, it’s not forgotten. Not once did we see someone crack an egg and add it to their batter in the episode. I guess they either didn’t want to make it a thing this time around, or Mantzoukas’s egg allergy is just a part of Nailed It! canon?

However Mantzoukas isn’t the only hilarious heavy hitter coming to Nailed It! Holiday! Season 2. Saturday Night Live legend Maya Rudolph, Brittany Runs a Marathon star Jillian Bell, celebrity chef David Burkta, comedian and Unbelievable stand out Bridget Everett, and famed pastry chef Ron Ben Israel all guest host episodes this season. And for the first time ever, a famous face throws their oven mitt into the proverbial ring and competes alongside the normies. Mantzoukas’s How Did This Get Made co-host Paul Scheer competes in the Hanukkah-themed episode, “Shalo-many Fails!”

Nailed It! Holiday! Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix. 

Watch Nailed It! Holiday! on Netflix