History of the World, Part II…

I did not see it, but I am curious if they seemed to avoid trying to be offensive or did they keep the same trend as the original? You wouldn't think it would be that hard to come up with good historical material.

After seeing the trailer I have to admit it looked like a low quality version of Kentucky Fried Movie, which was good but very low budget.

I guess one danger is that you might need to have some historical perspective to find many jokes funny. The original seemed to cover material that is generally well known, if nothing else because it was covered by a lot of popular movies of the time.  This one could cover areas far less known by most.

 I recently saw The Death of Stalin, which is quite funny if you have a perspective on the time, but would not come off as funny if you didn't.

It's a clumsy attempt to mash modern pop culture into historical events. 

Anastasia live streaming during the murder of the Romanovs was a low point of an already bottom notch piece of work.

I'm gonna go ahead and say it, I dont think mel brooks is funny. I liked blazing saddles, but I think Richard Pryor carried it.

I tried rewatching spaceballs because I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. I only made it about 20 minutes.

Yeah, I'll join the consensus. It's not good. First off, it's really a Nick Kroll/Wanda Sykes show that Mel put his name on. And I don't normally mind Nick and am indifferent towards Wanda. There are some pretty impressive cameos, it's just a shame that they were given such bad material to work with. I probably liked the Judas "Curb" parody the best, but that's not saying much.

I did watch all 8 episodes. I don't know why. Maybe I kept hoping it would get better, maybe it was just respect for Mel, I dunno. But that's 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.

gearheadmb said:

I'm gonna go ahead and say it, I dont think mel brooks is funny. I liked blazing saddles, but I think Richard Pryor carried it.

I tried rewatching spaceballs because I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. I only made it about 20 minutes.

Lets start with the quick "WTF" Richard Prior wasnt in Blazing Saddles, you may need to rewatch it.  He was part of the writing crew but hard to say who carried who there without knowing who wrote what parts.

Based upon the trailers alone I had a bad feeling this thing was going to be a trainwreck.  Im sorry to hear I was correct but at least I wont waste any money watching it.

In reply to JThw8 :

I know he didnt act in it, he was a cowriter, and you can definitely tell which jokes he wrote and which mel wrote.

I was hoping for a better outcome for the show.

The Producers and Young Frankenstein were Mel's best movies, in my opinion , and I liked Blazing Saddles, too (I like Gene Wilder in almost anything). History of the World part I was kind of fun, too, in spots, and it at least followed a sort of linear timeline.

I, too, am not crazy about the mash-up of current pop-culture and parody history, and I think Part II got lost trying to be cute with introducing modern items into the "historical" record. I thought the sketches that worked best were the ones that stayed in their own eras. I also didn't like the skipping around between stories. Part I, for all of its faults, was slightly more coherent storytelling. I would have rather seen each episode as a single sketch, not told in bits and pieces. I think that would have helped with the editorial process, too, as they could have removed quite a bit out of each one to tighten things up.

...and I have no idea what the point was with the recurring Rasputin bits. Totally unnecessary 

In reply to nlevine :

They were the only funny parts. And historically accurate, kinda. He was really really hard to kill. Poisoned, shot, stabbed, castrated, thrown into s frozen river, damn near invincible. 

I managed all episodes but barely because I'm not a quitter.  Also I'll give anything at least 3 episodes to see if they get their footing.  By #4 I was like well why not finish while I play with my phone.

"You're going to Rock Ridge.  No not that one."  ok I chuckled there.

nlevine said:

 and I think Part II got lost trying to be cute with introducing modern items into the "historical" record.

 You have to admit, the guy with the boom box on his shoulder blaring Funky Town was one of the great jokes in Part 1.

In reply to triumph7 :

True that...