History of the World Part I

Episode 13: History of the World, Part I (1981)

Theme: Mel Brooks Month
Hosts: Oz & Curtis

This week, Oz and Curtis limp across the finish line of Mel Brooks Month with History of the World, Part I — the only film bold enough to take centuries of human history and condense it into a chaotic blender of cavemen, biblical cameos, Roman orgies, French cleavage, and more urine jokes than any human timeline ever demanded.

Join your two exhausted historians as they explore:

• Why this movie feels like Monty Python’s deleted scenes, but re-edited by a substitute teacher who forgot to take attendance.

• How Mel Brooks plays every character except the funny ones — including a philosopher, a king, a waiter, and the world’s most overworked piss boy.

• Why the first 15 minutes (cavemen! Moses! Orson Welles randomly narrating!) give you hope… and then the Roman Empire sequence immediately steals your wallet and joy.

• How Dom DeLuise as Nero nearly saves the movie with his chaotic buffet-powered hedonism — but even he can’t rescue a 20-minute chase scene that lasts longer than recorded history.

• The moment Gregory Hines tries tap-dancing his way out of a slave auction, which is somehow both impressive and wildly uncomfortable.

• And, miraculously, how the Spanish Inquisition musical number becomes the best scene in the film simply by showing up, doing its joke, and getting out before the movie collapses under its own toga.

From oversized moles to bizarre cameos to a horse named Miracle doing more narrative lifting than any human character, Oz and Curtis dissect the Mel Brooks movie that proves even geniuses have off days — sometimes very, very long off days.

Final Verdict:

Oz — A failing grade in world history
Curtis — One street vendor selling Absolutely Nothing™
Both — Still stuck wondering why the French Revolution lasted longer than most actual revolutions.