- Title: History of the World: Part II – I
- IMDb: link
The first episode of Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part II, a sequel to his 1981 film no one was really asking for, is, to put it kindly, brutal. Following the same format of the 42 year-old film, the opening episode of the Hulu series offers us various sketches throughout history. Some are one-offs, and others will be returned to over and over again over the course of the series. Very few, however, are funny.
While there’s some interesting ways to work in modern culture and conventions into the Russian revolution (in a clever use of Dove Cameron as Anastasia Romanov) or the Civil War (less clever use of a sideline reporter), the characters needed to carry the stories can’t seem to push the boulder of dated material over the preverbal mountain which is made up mostly of cheap looking sets. Even one of the better sketches, playing on the idea of women’s ideas being coopted by men in the Aaron Sorkin-ish Shakespeare writer’s room, featuring an insufferable Josh Gad, drags on long after any humor has been bled from the single joke of the sketch. It makes me sad to say, but maybe some history should be ignored.