History of the World: Part II (2023)

Watchseries; Like a lot of other commenters, I grew up with Mel Brooks' movies and liked them a lot at the time.

I remember History of the World Part I in the early eighties, it had a lot of laughs and for a while I even used some of the quotes with my friends.

Life however, along with entertainment and humor in general, has changed since then. What once was funny might only be cringeworthy today.

Which brings us to History of the World Part II where "cringeworthy" may be the best description.

Somebody must have greenlit this, what were they thinking?

"Worked back in the early eighties, it still will be fine"?

Well, it's not. Not at all. And that really is a pity, because with a little bit of thought it could have been great, especially with a cast like that. A chance, completely missed.

Like a lot of other commenters, I grew up with Mel Brooks' movies and liked them a lot at the time.

I remember History of the World Part I in the early eighties, it had a lot of laughs and for a while I even used some of the quotes with my friends.

Life however, along with entertainment and humor in general, has changed since then. What once was funny might only be cringeworthy today.

Which brings us to History of the World Part II where "cringeworthy" may be the best description.

Somebody must have greenlit this, what were they thinking?

"Worked back in the early eighties, it still will be fine"?

Well, it's not. Not at all. And that really is a pity, because with a little bit of thought it could have been great, especially with a cast like that. A chance, completely missed.

History of the World: Part II watchseries. Right from seeing the first footage of this show I could almost sense the myriad problems that would eventually crop up. Firstly, this is no 'Part II'. It retreads almost all the events of 'Part I'; almost as if Brooks & co. Didn't think there was enough new history to spoof and so simply went and remade all the biblical stuff. This gives them a bunch of easy targets to tide them over, hitting the same stale beats again and again. There's no reason to expect it to improve in later episodes.

Secondly is the structure and tone. There's a reason everyone is comparing this to a series of cheap SNL sketches because that's the exact same type of humor seen here. The writers/directors roundtable include up to sixteen different people, and they all display the historical knowledge of maybe two middle-schoolers. Even worse, all of them seem obsessed with the modern liberal idea of 'punching up' and 'speaking truth to power' (cringe), but no one has told them that this doesn't make comedy funny or even worthwhile, only self-righteous and predictable.

The saddest part is that Mel Brooks should know better. The guy is well into his 90s by now; he has to be one of the only comedians left who has any idea of what vaudeville used to be back in the first half of the twentieth century. You'd think he could provide a valuable perspective into the comedy that non-entities such as Nick Kroll and Ike Barinholtz could never dream of. Alas, he does not. These skits wouldn't last a day in real vaudeville. The actors would be egged, and that would be far more funny to see, though the directors might deserve it more.

Mostly what it does is illustrate the tragic state of comedy today---in fact the Marvel Cinematic Universe has better comedic actors than Brooks has here. If you look around you can see several progressives praising this junk. But I don't think even they deserve it.

With the exception of the obvious voice over cameos, Mel Brooks doesn't appear to have been involved at all in the actual production of this series. Why would you sully a living legend with this garbage?

I believe kids today would use the vernacular 'super cringe' and 'sus'. I'd use terms such as. 'historically inaccurate' 'politically offensive' and 'false propaganda'.

The series had one element that was 'Mel Brooks', the musical numbers. Its largely absent of production value, set size, intelligible writing or any cohesive elements otherwise. To be fair, the preview of season 2 seemed like it'd be better. They should have just skipped over season 1 and went right to season 2, IMHO.

Most anthologies are "hit or miss" but this one is extreme in that and, unfortunately, mostly miss. What's even more depressing is that a project bearing the name of Mel Brooks, the Grandfather of Bad Taste, shows so little of his trademark edgy humor. The funniest bit -- far FAR -- is a horribly offensive and utterly hilarious version of Jesus's capture by the Romans entitled "Curb your Judaism." THAT'S the Mel Brooks I know and love! Some bits, like the Russian Revolution, Shakespeare, the Oslo Accords, and the actual "Hitler on Ice" promised at the end of Part I show some of the old Brooks magic. But, sadly, such moments are few and far between.

I hate to use the "W" word, but not sure what other reason there is for spending so much time on Shirley Chisolm (a minor US politician from the 70's) and presenting her as such an important figure in the history of the entire world. She is presented in a seemingly endless, painfully unfunny, virtue signaling sketch based on "The Jeffersons." Another endless and unfunny bit is Jesus (who is Black, of course, along with Mary Magdelene and several Apostles) doing a takeoff on The Beatles "Get Back" documentary. There's a "Jackass" takeoff that is just awful. Other sketches just don't work, and too many attempts to comment on either the technology or social issues of today fall flat.

I'd like to say that they could make a decent 90 minute film out of the 4 hours of the show but I'm not sure. I know they could make an awesome 30 minute show... maybe a "Best Of" would work better?

If you haven't watched Mel Brooks, then don't make this your first impression -- go back and watch "The Producers," "The Twelve Chairs", "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein." Go and seek out "The 2000 Year Old Man" with Carl Reiner. Even minor works like "Spaceballs," "High Anxiety," and, of course, "History of the World, Part 1." If you have consumed all that, you can watch this and try to enjoy the good nuggets. But do NOT let this be your first impression of one of the greatest comic geniuses of all time.

It just feels like "this is supposed to be funny, right?" Where as with the first one the audience sees history through Mel Brooks eyes, this one just feels like Drunk History sketches without the drunk person. It doesn't feel like the piss is being taken, it's just feels cheap. There's no voice that ties it all together, it's all really funny people whose ideas don't mesh well. All these performers are charismatic and so its watchable, like background while your cleaning kinda watchable, but the jokes themselves aren't clever enough for the performers delivering them.

It all feels like sketch that might work live, but definitely doesn't work filmed.

Ultimately, it suffers from everyone behaving like it's a comedy. What worked so well about the first movie is that all of MB's characters behaved as though they were the hero's of their narrative, but this one is just clowning, and at least for me, that really doesn't translate to film.

JB Smoove as JB Smoove is so far the best part.

Nick Kroll is not a funny actor, nor is he a funny writer.

He is the child of a multibillion dollar family, and boy does it show in this series.

Clearly, Mel Brooks was paid a lot of money in his advanced years in order to get this made with his approval, and his only real involvement was as narrator.

Since all the heavy lifting with a show like this is done thru it's comedic writing, the absence of Mel's writing is sorely felt here. Just not a funny moment to be had.

Yet another IP squeezed to the bone for the sake of nostalgia. This should have been made 30 years ago with much more involvement from Mel Brooks and much less from Nick Kroll.