'History of the World, Part II' lives up to Part 1

In the end, they pulled it off.

The problem with measuring any sequel to Mel Brooks' "History of the World, Part I" against the film that inspired it is that Brooks' original film in 1981 somehow managed to feel like much more than the sum of its somewhat uneven parts.

In one sense, Hulu's "History of the World, Part II" streaming miniseries, whose debut ran March 6 to 9, learned the best lesson possible from its predecessor's mistakes, because while it spans eight episodes, each one lasts less than half an hour, and hopscotches constantly between more than half a dozen sketch premises.

Even with this accelerated pacing, the series gets off to a relatively slow start, and seems almost intentionally to lead with its weakest material.

Surprisingly for the man who made 1974's "Blazing Saddles," a recurring plotline set during the end days of the Civil War yields some of the series' most toothless social commentary, until it introduces Wanda Sykes as Harriet Tubman, and Zahn McClarnon of "Reservation Dogs" as a Native American Union soldier who becomes one of the United States' earliest observational humorists ("You might be a colonizer if ...").

At the same time, the very first episode opens its ongoing plotline on the Russian revolution by explicitly casting the Romanovs as the Kardashians of their day, with a fictionalized musical romance between the missing Princess Anastasia and a handsome young Jewish shtetl dweller singing about how people in the future will gloss over the royal family's brutality because of their glamour.

Even the segments casting Johnny Knoxville as the infamously unkillable Rasputin, which present his assassination attempts as MTV "Jackass" stunts, are fun in a dumb way, just as Kumail Nanjiani's wry delivery as the historic author of the "Kama Sutra" will have you laughing in spite of yourself.

The series' depictions of Jesus Christ cover a lot of ground, from the misadventures of Judas being presented as a parody of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," to the romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene openly referencing the 2004 romantic film "The Notebook," to Jesus and his disciples emulating the Beatles (right down to Mary Magdalene being branded the Yoko Ono of the group).

Each version of Jesus' story in "History of the World, Part II," which starts out with Black actor Jay Ellis playing Jesus, grows ever more bold in its commentary, until the series depicts the First Council of Nicaea as a Hollywood movie studio-style whitewashing of Jesus, yielding a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style Jesus, whose stigmata allow him to fly like Iron Man.

But perhaps the most unabashed expression of this series' crazy, earnest heart is its recurring gag of setting up a 1970s sitcom around Shirley Chisholm, who in real life was the first Black woman to be elected to Congress, and to run for president as part of a major party.

Even as Chisholm (also played by Sykes) is put through her sitcom paces by trying to earn the endorsements of both Gloria Steinem and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in an installment that frames this dilemma like the teen boy who tries to take two girls to the same school dance, this series' portrayal of Chisholm practically qualifies as a retroactive campaign ad, because she's cast as a good woman who got a raw deal from history.

A cheeky bit of casting that younger viewers might not get is Black comedian George Wallace playing white Dixiecrat segregationist George Wallace, although the script takes the time to establish that Chisholm really was gracious enough to visit Wallace when he was hospitalized.

Like most sketch comedy, though, the best segments in "History of the World, Part II" are the recurring gags that deploy their punchlines briskly, then have the good grace to get off the stage, per Taika Waititi's pitch-perfect depiction of a sexually preoccupied Sigmund Freud.

Although Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, is introduced with a damp squib of a joke about the supposed origins of the game "Marco Polo," he later yields a crackerjack satire of Ancestry.com ("Khancestry"), based on the degree to which the Khans affected the global DNA pool, which gets followed by an obvious but well-played parody of "Real Housewives," starring Khan's thousands of concubines.

Even a set of mock TV ads for the removal of "problematic" historic statues, from Confederates to Russians, had me laughing.

Not everything about "History of the World, Part II" works as well as it could, but if it can keep up the win-loss ratio of its later episodes, then I'd urge Hulu to greenlight "History of the World, Part II, Season II," as teased in this series' final episode.

Be warned that this series earns its "mature audiences" rating, because while its deliberately absurd approximations of "Kama Sutra" illustrations are as close as it gets to nudity or explicit sex scenes, its dialogue lobs enough F-bombs to keep pace with a Richard Pryor standup concert.

In other streaming TV news, "Picard" Season 3, Episode 4, "No Win Scenario" proved my review of this season's first three episodes was premature, because it was the best episode of any recent Paramount+ "Star Trek" series this side of "Strange New Worlds."

Everyone came to terms with their emotional baggage, the franchise's credo of "seek(ing) out new life" was honored even in the midst of outer-space combat, and Todd Stashwick's Capt. Liam Shaw remained stubbornly unlovable while delivering a harrowing speech about his life-changing encounter with a Locutus-led Borg, which deserves to rank with Stellan Skarsgård's meditations upon sacrifice as Luthen Rael in "Star Wars: Andor" on Disney+.

And after losing loved ones, inadvertently destabilizing communities, and testing both Joel and Ellie's limits as they faced off against humans more monstrous than any fungal zombie, the first season of "The Last of Us" on HBO Max left the relationship of our surrogate father-daughter duo in a dangerous place, as Ellie showed signs of suspecting that Joel had told her lies that, if disproven in the future, she might not be able to forgive.

Finally, having praised the surreal 2022 sci-fi dramedy film "Everything Everywhere All at Once" in this column, I was pleased to see it earn Oscar wins for Best Picture (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang), Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan), Best Supporting Actress (Jamie Lee Curtis), Best Director (Kwan and Scheinert), Best Original Screenplay (Kwan and Scheinert) and Best Film Editing (Paul Rogers).

Likewise, although I reviewed it more recently, Netflix's 2022 "All Quiet on the Western Front" deserved its Oscar wins for Best International Feature Film (Edward Berger), Best Original Score (Volker Bertelmann), Best Cinematography (James Friend) and Best Production Design (Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper).

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]