History of the World: Part II

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.

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.

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.

Wow, what a waste of talent. As someone who has loved Mel Brooks for decades (and quoted "Blazing Saddles" on practically a weekly basis for just as long), this was a crushing disappointment.

Clumsy, forced jokes that would embarrass your average middle-schooler combined with just flat-out unfunny writing make a cringeworthy, discombobulated mess. This is also the first time I've ever seen Wanda Sykes NOT be funny. And the D-Day scene at the beginning of episode 2 was just a foul, disgusting mess. Somebody obviously thought that just having people fire stupid lines at each other quickly would somehow be funny - it's not.

Madeline Kahn is spinning in her grave.

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.