I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen History of the World: Part I. So I don’t know how this new show compares to the original film. I assume it follows a similar format, but I’m not sure how well it stacks up.
The show tells bits of history in a series of comic sketches. In this episode, we got a few sketches apiece for two major stories: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert Todd Lincoln getting captured in the South, and Shirley Chisholm visiting George Wallace in the hospital after he was shot. There are also a few additional sketches and some interstitial bits featuring Galileo on social media.
I got the impression that, at the very least, the Civil War story is featured in other episodes as well, like an ongoing serial. The first of its sketches opens with a “previously on” sequence, although that itself might’ve been a gag. This recurring vignette was probably my favorite of the episode. I enjoyed Ike Barinholtz playing fairly straight as Ulysses S. Grant, and there’s an amusing bit where Robert Todd Lincoln, realizing they won’t be hanged until they finish saying their last words, decides to stretch his out. He begins, “First of all, I’d like to thank my parents. To Dad, you were always so tall!” Another of the actors in these vignettes is the always-welcome Zahn McClarnon a.k.a. Big from Reservation Dogs. He gets some of the best lines in the episode; I loved, “If your house is near a river you can’t pronounce…you might be a colonizer.”
Wanda Sykes stars in the Shirley Chisholm sketches, which are done in the style of an old-school sitcom, complete with its own opening credits. It features the “wacky hijinks” of Shirley Chisholm and her crew trying to sneak into the hospital knowing George Wallace won’t want to see her. I smiled when she comes to a room with a handwritten “whites only” sign taped to the door and announces, “This must be him.”
The Galileo bits, starring Nick Kroll, are mildly amusing at best. They lean too hard into the “historical figure using modern technology” gag, and they quickly wear out whatever novelty they have. There’s also a quick sketch featuring Johnny Knoxville as Rasputin, with the other Jackass playing his followers as he gives demonstrations of ways he can’t be killed.
Andrew Rannells appears in another one-off sketch, this one about the Yalta Conference. Rannells plays Sergei, billed as one of the most famous photographers in the world, and the sketch is about the taking of the historical photo of Churchill, FDR, and Stalin at the Conference. Despite artistic struggles in the beginning—”The one in the middle is driving me nuts!” he gripes, about FDR—he pulls it out, treating the moment like a photo shoot and shouting various prompts to the word leaders to guide their poses. I smiled at, “Show me your pearly grays!”
Recommend?
In General – Not necessarily. There was some amusing stuff here, but not enough that I’m all that interested in seeing the rest of the series.
Andrew Rannells – A soft maybe. It’s not a must, but he’s entertaining.
Warnings
Violence, language, and thematic elements (although treated in a very comedic manner.)
No comments:
Post a Comment