Titled History Of The World, Part I—Mel Brooks’ scattered but memorable collection of historical comedy skits originally published in 1981—was always meant to be a joke. (It’s a riff on Sir Walter Raleigh’s famous The History Of The World, Volume 1, no promise of a sequel just beginning.) And yet, you wouldn’t know: 42 years later, we’re watching the teaser trailer for Hulu’s sequel History Of The World Miniseries Part II.
World History Part 2 | teasers | Hi
As we reported last year, this long-awaited (?) sequel is a co-production of Brooks, who introduces the teaser, and Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, and Nick Kroll, all of whom appear prominently. And while we don’t get glimpses of “Hitler On Ice” or “Jews In Space” — both promised in the fake trailer that played at the end of the original film — we do get a sense that the four-part series is going to be quite a lot cover historical ground.
Highlights include Sykes as Harriet Tubman (who calls a flimsy Confederate played by dim lightbulb master Tim Baltz the “inventor of the bathtub”) and Joe Lo Truglio as a Catholic official who definitely, absolutely doesn’t want Jesus in the official artwork to be represented as white. (Also, there’s a spot where Jake Johnson as Marco Polo yells “Marco!” and it’s a silly laugh, but we’d be lying if we didn’t admit we got it.)
Also: celebrities all over this. Brooks himself doesn’t appear in any of the sketches — man is 96, let him take a break — but we get appearances from *take a deep breath* Pamela Adlon, Zazie Beetz, Quinta Brunson, Dove Cameron, Danny DeVito, Jay Ellis, Josh Gad , Johnny Knoxville, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily Ratajkowski, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, Taika Waiti, JB Smoove, Jillian Bell, Sam Richardson and Richard Kind. (And we definitely missed some.) Phew!