History of the World: Part II

Being a life long MB fan, this has glimpses of the old days, but current societal trends steer this series into a dull, unfunny direction. Reminds me of post 2000's SNL. Tries to be funny, is trying to be trendy, but it does not translate well into Mel Brooks humor. If the effort was to try to "tune up" the traditional Mel Brooks style of writing, Bring it into a new era, It faceplanted. It felt like younger writers were whispering in Mel's ear, "no no... this is funny stuff, it will play!" Mel "Are you sure??? This just doesn't make sense to me... but if you think so..." Don't get me wrong, I see some comic genius for sure. Noah, Alexander Bell, 1 of the Lincoln bits, the underground railroad were quite funny. Unfortunately the rest felt as if they were trying to grow a batch of Mel brooks humor in their cinematic garden and it was choked out by weeds, mired in fields of boring, ugly kudzu.

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.

This is not Mel Brooks Humor.

This is a reboot of The Kroll Show with special guest Wanda Sykes.

There is WAY too much Nick Kroll here.. way, way, way way too much... and I have never found Nick Kroll funny. He just does some silly accent and thinks THAT makes a bit funny.. it doesn't.

The Sykes sketches are far more political in nature than they are funny. Sykes brought her soapbox to the set....

The Bariholtz sketches are okay.. but only because they are OFTEN merely trying to mimic the atmosphere of Blazing Saddles in some way. Several aspects are direct, uhmm, "homages" to Blazing Saddles.

Every single actor in this is also a producer...

I imagine Mel Brooks just "trusting" these people to write what's (permissibly) funny today. After all, MOST of Mel Brooks's films would NEVER be made today because they would be seen as too offensive.

Unfortunately, this series just isn't funny..

.... the Jackass/Johnny Knoxville/Rasputin bits are the only okay aspect throughout the ENTIRE series.. and they are only 2 minutes in length, if that.

If you like Nick Kroll.. you may love this series. If, like me, you find Nick Kroll more annoying than funny, you may hate this series.

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.

What an embarrassment!

Hammy improv-style acting of unfunny scripts depicting various moments in history

A few name actors ... Danny DeVito, Wanda Sykes, Marla Gibbs, Kym Whitley, Rob Corddry ... get stuck in this mess but most of the cast are a bunch of nobodies who likely have Youtube shows or something of that ilk.

While Mel Brooks' original 1981 movie was one of his worst, this TV series makes that film look like a masterpiece.

I barely made it through the first episode. Schmucky schtick about Abraham Lincoln, Rasputin, Shakespeare and a Russian shtetl (with inane musical numbers) make this just about unwatchable.