History of the World: Part II

If you're looking for the hilarious kind of stuff Mel Brooks did back in the 1970s, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for actual history, you won't find it here. There are a few hilarious moments - if you understand the context - and there is also a lot of just really dumb stuff here.

If you're familiar with Curb Your Enthusiasm, then you might get a kick out of the Curb Your Judaism sketch. It doesn't have Larry David, but J. B. Smoove is on hand and it's still pretty hilarious. (It helps if you know something about the story of Jesus, which, even if you're not a Christian, is still a pretty fascinating story in itself.)

"The Last Sermon" sketch is a funny satire of the Beatles "Get Back" documentary. I think it may be only funny if you know something about the Beatles to begin with. And the story of Jesus. And the infamous quote John Lennon said about the Beatles and Jesus.

"The Civil War" sketch is just plain dumb. We know in real life U. S. Grant drank a lot. But a sketch in which that is pretty much the entire joke, well, it's just not that funny. West Virginia, in real life, remained loyal to the Union. So why are West Virginians depicted as Southerners? It's just dumb.

Wanda Sykes as Shirley Chisholm is a silly, sometimes mildly amusing satire of 70s sitcoms.

Most of the sketches are just kind of forgettable. The one about Kublai Khan meeting Marco Polo is actually pretty funny, but the rest of that one just didn't do anything for me. A lot of this stuff is the kind of thing where you're waiting for it to get funny, waiting for the punch line, it just doesn't happen.

Started loving it but each episode got worse and worse. The "Shirley" stuff was unwatchable. Unfortunately, it feels like it is half of the series. There were LOL moments but be prepared to fast forward a lot. The moments are worth the watch with some of the actors. Definitely enjoyed enough to keep watching.

Whomever pitched this as a series is hopefully not allowed to get paid anymore.

Now I'm just trying to make sure there is enough characters to post this review and hopefully save others from judging it too harshly. Mel Brooks is amazing. This has great moments. Not enough moments to justify so many episodes of nonsense.

Listen, I love Mel Brooks. Love his humor, his zingers and bluntness. But this was not funny and I don't blame Mr. Brooks for that at all. If you're a fan of Ike Barinholtz, Nick Kroll and Wanda Sykes then this show is for you because they are the main characters and in every episode (Sykes being in only 7 of the 8 episodes). They also direct and write episodes. If you're looking for laughs, this isn't the show for you. I'm seriously hoping they don't make a season 2 because it was so boring and there was too much of Krull and Barinholtz that just killed it for me. Some of the bits went on too long and you just lose interest. Took me way too long to finish the last 2 episodes because I just didn't want to do it.

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.

History of the World Part I was comedy genius. Mel Brooks was in his prime, putting out hit after hit.

Part II is nowhere near that. This honestly doesn't even feel like Mel Brooks is involved outside of narrating. Like some others have said, HOTW Pt II is basically a combination of the shows Drunk History, SNL and Mad TV. It would have been better if they'd done one episode per scenario, like one episode for U. S. Grant, one episode for Judas, etc. But mashing up multiple short clips into a 30 minute episode doesn't work here.

I know this type of comedy isn't for everyone. But it feels way too forced. Some of the actors are way past their prime and should have called it quits years ago.

Overall, this just isn't it. And it's a shame because people waited 40+ years for a sequel that sucks.