Hulu announces History Of The World, Part II series from Mel Brooks
The legendary director and comedian is finally getting around to making the sequel
40 years after the release of History Of The World, Part I, Mel Brooks is finally getting around to making a sequel—and this time it will be in a format that arguably makes more sense for the concept than a feature film. As announced today in a press release, Hulu has picked up History Of The World, Part II as an eight-episode variety series executive produced and written by Brooks, Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen, and Kevin Salter.
The original movie was basically a series of historical vignettes, so cutting out the middleman (and the pretense of it being a movie) by just making it a sketch comedy show seems like a smart choice. In a statement, Brooks said that he “can’t wait to once more tell the real truth about all the phony baloney stories the world has been conned into believing are History.”
The movie covered everything from the dawn of man through the French Revolution, which gives the Hulu series 220-odd years to play with. We don’t know what sort of wacky historical hijinks will be involved here, since the press release says the writers room is just getting to work this month and production won’t start until spring, but it’ll be interesting to see if Brooks and company leave room for a third History Of The World.
Call it recency bias, but a lot of important stuff has happened in these last 200 years for an eight-episode variety show to cover all of it. We had two Brush presidencies, two World Wars, and six Transformers movies! Or will History Of The World, Part II catch up to the release of Part I in the ‘80s and we’ll get a Mel Brooks musical comedy routine making fun of Mel Brooks musical comedy routines? Because that could be incredible.