Mel Brooks is a legend. Honestly, there’s no other way to put it. For decades, fans of the 1981 cult classic History of the World, Part I waited for the other shoe to drop. We all remember the teaser at the end of the original film—Jews in Space, Hitler on Ice. It felt like a promise. But years turned into decades, and it became a running joke in Hollywood that the "Part I" in the title was just Mel being Mel, a meta-gag about the hubris of historical epics. Then, out of nowhere, History of the World Part II actually became a reality on Hulu. It wasn't a movie, though. It was a sprawling, chaotic, star-studded variety series that felt like it was trying to make up for forty years of lost time in one go.
History is messy. Comedy is messier.
When you look at the landscape of sketch comedy today, it's hard to find someone who hasn't been influenced by Brooks. Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes, and Ike Barinholtz—the primary architects behind this new chapter—had a massive mountain to climb. You can't just recreate 1981. The world is different. The jokes that killed in the Reagan era would probably land with a thud today, or worse, just feel dusty. So, they went for volume. They went for a "everything but the kitchen sink" approach that mirrors the frenetic energy of the original while grounding it in modern sensibilities.
What Actually Happened with History of the World Part II?
The production didn't just happen overnight. It was a massive undertaking involving a writers' room that looked like a "Who's Who" of modern alternative comedy. We're talking about voices from The Kroll Show, Broad City, and Saturday Night Live. They had to figure out how to take the DNA of a Mel Brooks project—the puns, the breaking of the fourth wall, the musical numbers—and stretch it across eight episodes.
It's a lot.
Some sketches span the entire season, like the Harriet Tubman "pimp my ride" style segments or the deeply weird, almost tragicomic look at the Romanov family as if they were stars of a 2000s-era reality show. This is where the History of the World Part II gets interesting. It doesn't just do "history jokes." It does "media jokes about history." It critiques how we consume stories. By framing the Russian Revolution through the lens of a "Keeping Up with the Romanovs" aesthetic, the show manages to be both a history lesson and a scathing indictment of influencer culture.
The Mel Brooks Influence
Mel is in his late 90s. Let that sink in. He's still sharp, still involved, and served as an executive producer and the narrator for the series. His voice provides the connective tissue. When you hear that raspy, iconic delivery, it instantly validates the project. It tells the audience, "Yeah, this is the real deal." But Brooks wasn't in the trenches writing every line of dialogue. He gave the keys to the kingdom to Kroll and Sykes.
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This was a hand-off. A torch-passing.
The Comedy of Direct Confrontation
One thing History of the World Part II does better than most modern revivals is lean into the discomfort. The original film had the Spanish Inquisition as a Busby Berkeley-style pool side musical. The sequel takes on the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, and the Middle East. It’s risky.
Take the Shirley Chisholm sketches. Wanda Sykes plays the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress with a mix of reverence and absurdity. It’s styled like a 70s sitcom, complete with a laugh track and funky transition music. It works because it highlights the absurdity of the obstacles she faced while making her a hero. It’s not just "haha, old clothes." It’s "look how far we haven’t come."
Then you have the Council of Nicaea. Imagine a group of bishops arguing about the divinity of Jesus as if they were in a high-stakes corporate boardroom. It’s petty. It’s pedantic. It’s exactly how you imagine a bunch of guys in the year 325 AD would actually behave if they were given a budget and some power. The show thrives in these specific, zoomed-in moments where historical figures are stripped of their marble-statue dignity and turned into annoying coworkers.
A Cast of Thousands (Literally)
The sheer volume of cameos in History of the World Part II is staggering. You have Quinta Brunson, Taika Waititi, Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, and Danny DeVito. It feels like every funny person in Hollywood was given a toga or a Union uniform and told to riff for fifteen minutes.
- Johnny Knoxville as Rasputin doing Jackass-style stunts is inspired casting.
- Josh Gad as Shakespeare in a writers' room is painfully relatable to anyone who has ever worked in creative services.
- Zazie Beetz brings a grounded coolness to the Mary Magdalene story that helps the religious satire land without being purely sacrilegious.
Does every joke land? No. Sketch comedy is a numbers game. If you don't like a bit, wait five minutes. Something else will start. That's the beauty and the curse of the format. But the hits far outweigh the misses. The "Jews in Space" segment finally appearing—even if it was just a brief payoff—felt like a spiritual closing of a loop for fans who have been waiting since the Carter administration.
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Why the Critics Were Torn
If you look at the reception, it wasn't a universal standing ovation. Some people wanted a 1:1 recreation of the 1981 film. They wanted the same lighting, the same pacing, the same type of Borscht Belt humor. But you can't go home again.
History of the World Part II is a product of the streaming era. It’s designed for binge-watching. It’s designed for TikTok clips. The pacing is faster, the editing is jumpier, and the social commentary is much more pointed. Some critics felt it was too "woke" or too "modern," but those people usually forget that Mel Brooks was always radical. He made a movie about a Black sheriff in 1974 (Blazing Saddles). He was always poking the bear. The bears have just changed.
The nuance here is that the show acknowledges the artifice. It knows it’s a sequel to a movie that didn't need one. It plays with that insecurity.
The Technical Side of the Past
Visually, the show is impressive. The production design team had to jump from Ancient Greece to the 1920s to the Civil Rights era, often within the same shooting day. The costumes aren't "Halloween store" quality; they look like they belong in a prestige drama, which makes the stupid jokes even funnier. There is a specific type of comedy that only works when the surroundings are taken seriously. If the set looks cheap, the joke feels cheap. If the set looks like Lincoln, and the actors are arguing about a "fart-based" misunderstanding, the contrast creates the laugh.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Creators
If you’re looking to dive into this series or if you’re a creator trying to understand how to revive a "dead" IP, there are a few things to keep in mind.
Context is everything. You cannot ignore the time gap. If you’re watching the series, don't expect a shot-for-shot remake of the 1981 vibe. Look for the themes instead. The theme of "power is ridiculous" is the bridge between the two projects.
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Study the variety format. Sketch comedy is a dying art in some ways, outside of SNL. This show proves that you can tell a cohesive story across a season using fragmented pieces. For writers, the lesson here is "thematic consistency over narrative consistency." You don't need a plot if you have a point of view.
Respect the source, but don't worship it. The creators of the sequel clearly love Mel Brooks, but they weren't afraid to make fun of his tropes. They used his style to mock the modern world. That’s the only way to make a sequel work—it has to have its own soul.
To truly appreciate what they did here, go back and watch the 1981 film first. Notice the silence. Notice how long Mel lets a gag breathe. Then watch the series. You'll see the evolution of comedy in real-time. We've become more impatient, sure, but we've also become more literate in how history is "constructed" for us by textbooks and movies.
Check out the Harriet Tubman sketches specifically for a masterclass in genre-bending. They take the "tough-as-nails" action hero trope and apply it to a historical figure who actually was that tough, highlighting the absurdity of how we usually portray her in dry, boring history books.
The most important thing to remember is that history isn't over. As the show implies, we're making more of it every day, and most of it is probably going to be pretty funny to someone 40 years from now. Stay curious about the stories that get left out of the main narrative. That's where the best comedy lives.