I'm of an age where Mel Brooks was a big hit with me in my youth. I wasn't seeing his movies for the first time as they were released (I was a little too young for that), but they seemed to be run on television all the time, so I caught them again and again that way. They were heavily edited in that forum, of course... so when I would catch up with the unedited original versions a few years later? They'd blow my freaking mind.
In those terms, there's always been one quintessential Mel Brooks movie for me. No, not the clever and thoughtful Blazing Saddles. No, not the widely-regarded-as-hilarious Young Frankenstein. I'm talking about History of the World, Part I. I encountered it before Kentucky Fried Movie or other "sketch comedies shows as movies," reveling in its anarchic fire hose approach to comedy. Years later, I'd discover just how much more crass it was in its non "edited for television" version, and laugh all over again. Objectively, it's not Mel Brooks' best movie (or even in the conversation), nor is it all that funny.
But History of the World, Part I has long been punching above its weight class for possibly one weird, specific reason: that "Part I" in the title... and the final sequence of the movie, a trailer of sorts for a "Part II" that was obviously never going to come. Except that now, over 40 years later, it has, in the form of an 8-episode TV series on Hulu.
History of the World was sort of a grandparent of Drunk History, an anarchic and inaccurate look at various history events. The original, using a film's run time, defied the conventions of sketch comedy television by letting each idea take as much time and space as it needed -- a segment could run half an hour or half a minute, depending on how many jokes there really were to explore in the premise. Part II leverages the serialization of modern television to get at the same thing; there are one-off bits, and other "story lines" that continue over multiple episodes. In doing so, II really does feel like a sequel to I.
Mel Brooks is still around (at the age of 96!), and he does serve in Part II as the narrator, setting up each bit. But it doesn't seem like his involvement extended much beyond this. (It's hard to imagine Brooks deciding to do a multi-episode run about a fake sitcom starring Shirley Chisholm, for example.) But the influence of Brooks looms large, and Part II feels like it's a sort of passing of the torch to a new generation.
There's a large writing staff on Part II, and an even larger number of recognizable actors who show up on screen for an episode or two. But leading the charge are Nick Kroll, Ike Barinholtz, and Wanda Sykes. The former two take up the mantle of the "Jewish, loud and proud" streak that's always been a hallmark of Mel Brooks, while Sykes builds on the larger awareness Brooks has often displayed about other oppressed minorities. (No, Brooks was there on LGBT issues 40 years ago... but I think his comedy has generally "punched up, not down.")
As you should expect of any sketch comedy, History of the World Part II is very hit and miss. Some bits make me laugh out loud, others leave me stone-faced. Some sketches run long enough to do both. But at half an hour, it seems easy enough to sample one episode and see if this is the kind of thing for you. It was, mostly, for me. It wasn't outstanding... but good enough in bite-sized chunks. I'd give History of the World Part II a B-. Hopefully, I've name-dropped enough in this write-up; if you've liked any of the people or things I've mentioned, you might want to check it out.
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