Worldwide success after its release in 1981, the film “La Folle Histoire du monde”, a burlesque comedy that parodies history, religion and their great characters, had marked its time.
Better late than never. More than 40 years after the crazy history of the worlda sequel to the famous parody of Mel Brooks on the founding moments of history or religion arrives Monday, March 6 on the American platform Hulu, from the Disney group.
At 96, the New York comedian lends his voice to the eight episodes of this series, entitled History of the World, Part II, which he produced and co-wrote with 40-somethings Nick Kroll and Ike Barinholtz, and Wanda Sykes, who also appear in the cast. “His comic mind is still very sharp (…) The guy has crazy life force and still jokes“, confided, impressed, Nick Kroll, during a press conference of the Television Critics Association in January.
Worldwide success after its release in 1981, the film There crazy history of the world, a burlesque comedy, sometimes coarse, which parodies history, religion and their great characters, from the Stone Age to the French Revolution, had marked its time. Mel Brooks portrays a clumsy Moses who knocks down and breaks the Tables of the Law, or a lustful Louis XVI who uses his position to harass women. The film ended with the announcement of a sequel, with a fake Hitler in a Nazi uniform in the middle of an ice skating show, hitler on ice.
Humor, a weapon against fanaticism
Promise kept, over eight episodes of half an hour each, which revisit with more or less long sketches, and in disorder, the kiss of Judas, the invention of the telephone, the Civil War, the Revolution Russian or the Allied landing in Normandy. Between misunderstandings and anachronisms, we find the paw of Mel Brooks, updated at the time of social networks. The viewer is invited to the writing sessions of Romeo and Juliet around Shakespeare, at the photo session of the Yalta conference with Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, or behind the scenes of diplomatic negotiations on the Middle East.
Born June 26, 1926 into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, Mel Brooks has always made humor and derision his favorite weapon against fanaticism, since his first film, The producers (1968), whose starting point is a disastrous musical celebrating Adolf Hitler. He is one of the few American artists to have obtained the coveted “EGOT”, a sort of grand slam of culture awards (Emmy Award, Grammy Award, Oscar, Tony Award). The French release of the series is planned on Disney + but the date is not fixed, it was indicated at Disney.