For your reading pleasure, please enjoy our interview with co-showrunner David Stassen about the writing of History of the World Part II from Backstory Magazine’s issue 49 – now available to read! If you enjoy what you’ve read, we hope you’ll join us to read the rest of the issue by subscribing to Backstory Magazine!
David Stassen on crafting an 8-episode sequel to Mel Brooks’ classic 1981 film
By Danny Munso
“Mel Brooks was one of my first babysitters.” David Stassen is recalling his childhood days, when he and his brother would rent Brooks’ seminal films to keep themselves entertained while their parents would be out to dinner or hosting guests. “Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part I and Blazing Saddles were in a rotating loop in our house. We wore out the VHS tapes on those. Mel was my introduction to comedy.” So it was especially surreal when Stassen and creative partner Ike Barinholtz were asked to be part of History of the World, Part II, a follow-up to Brooks’ seminal 1981 film, which used various comedic sketches to showcase historical events. The effort originated with actor-writer Nick Kroll—a fellow Brooks diehard—who spent a few years asking the legendary filmmaker and comedian for permission to spearhead a follow-up. Brooks finally agreed the time was right, and Kroll invited fellow comic Wanda Sykes to join him on the project. Their next call was to Stassen and Barinholtz, who grew up together in Chicago and became frequent writing partners, including on series including The Mindy Project and MADtv. “Being that they’re both multihyphenates and busy, Nick and Wanda wanted some people who are executive producers who would be there every day. We talked to them and said immediately, ‘We’re in.’”
From the beginning, Hulu was on board as a partner, meaning History of the World Part II would take the form of a miniseries rather than a film. To begin the writing process, the four hammered out a structure for the series. Though they had much more runtime real estate that Brooks did—the original film runs just over 90 minutes, while the new series would be eight episodes ranging from 22 to 30 minutes—they wanted the two to feel similar. “We knew we wanted to do it like the movie, where we had these tentpole stories that were going to be longer sketches with more of an arc to them, and then in between we’d pepper in our smaller, one-off sketches,” Stassen says. “Nick always wanted to do this character he had named Schmuck Mudman, a Jewish mudpie salesman in Russia, so we thought, Alright, let’s tackle the Russian Revolution. Ike is a big Civil War buff, and he had a hankering to play General (Ulysses S.) Grant, so then you look for the funny thing: Oh, he was rumored to have a drinking problem—we can do something with that.” Those two stories, along with another pair— the story of Jesus and Sykes’ portrayal of the first African American congresswoman, Shirley Chisolm—form the spine of History of the World, Part II, which the scribes alternated penning throughout a 20-week writing window. “We would do the Russian Revolution for a couple weeks then take a break. Then we’d write some sketches for a few days and go back to writing the Civil War for a couple weeks. We built out the [whole] show that way.”
The majority of the series was written over Zoom, save for one backyard meetup for the executive producers. Stassen and Barinholtz had just come off serving as showrunners for the animated Chicago Party Aunt, which was done right as the pandemic began, so they were already comfortable managing a virtual writers’ room. Still, sometimes their ease with it was lost on the others. “Ike and I have known each other for almost 40 years, so we’ll joke around and do bits like we’re angry with each other, and on Zoom some of those bits might not translate well,” Stassen laughs. “I don’t want to say comedy suffered because of Zoom, because that would mean this show suffered, and that wasn’t the case.” Once the actors were on board, though, they were able to settle into some on-set rewriting. “That was a bit more normal. We could feel out the energy of something, and that really made a difference.”
The Russian Revolution, Civil War and Shirley Chisholm arcs each play out in a consistent style throughout the series’ run. The Chisholm storyline, for example, takes the form of a 1970s sitcom named Shirley!, complete with a studio audience laugh track. Yet, the four separate stories telling various parts of Jesus’ all have a different feel and tone, with the first, which tells the tale of how Judas (Kroll) betrayed Jesus (Jay Ellis), done as a Curb Your Enthusiasm parody—including Curb mainstay J.B. Smoove as Luke. Other entries spoof the Beatles’ documentary Get Back, while the story of Mary Magdalene (Zazie Beetz) and Jesus’ relationship takes the form of The Notebook. The final sketch transforms the First Council of Nicaea into a focus group. “That is a real thing, where the bishops of Europe got together and got their stories straight on what was going to be in the Bible,” Stassen says. “We thought that would work as a funny focus group, where they ultimately decide that Jesus was white.” There was an early idea to do all the Jesus stories in the style of a 70’s blaxploitation film but that proved too expensive to execute, causing the writers to pivot to the resulting four very different styles that we see in the finished product.
Viewers will note that with a few exceptions—as in Kroll’s recurring sketch where he runs a company that removes offensive statues—History of the World, Part II prefers to deal with ancient history rather than current events. In fact, other than the Chisolm story and a quick sketch about the fall of the Berlin Wall, even the majority of the 20th century is ignored. “I don’t think it was too conscious a choice,” Stassen says. “We had a lot of fun scouring Wikipedia all day and bringing up these historical events. So we learned a lot about history and all had fun reading up on that stuff. I think we also wanted to pay tribute to Mel. Mel feels classic so we wanted to go back a couple thousand years and do stuff that felt like it was in the Mel universe.” For Stassen, dealing with older events was simpler, more settled and arguably safer than some of today’s hot topics. “It wasn’t, We can’t touch this or We’re going to get in trouble. It wasn’t anything like that. Comedically, our sensibility was it’s not that funny if X number of people suffered during this event 11 years ago, but it’s kind of funny that X number of people suffered during this event 800 years ago.’”
Stassen has turned to directing in recent years—he and Barinholtz just sold the political mockumentary Maximum Truth, which they co-wrote and Stassen helmed, to be released in June—and so he helmed a number of History’s sketches, with brilliant comedy director Alice Mathias shepherding much of the rest. He was behind the camera for a sketch in the series’ first episode, which is sure to grab the attention of working and aspiring screenwriters. Featuring an overbearing William Shakespeare (Josh Gad) heading up a writers’ room of scribes helping him to write his best-known plays—on which, of course, he will put only his name—the segment is one of the high points of Stassen’s History directing experience. “It’s a play on the idea that maybe Shakespeare didn’t write all his plays and he would be this tyrant showrunner,” Stassen says. “You don’t need to work in TV to get it. Everyone has a boss who takes credit for their ideas. Josh Gad came in and blew the doors off everyone. Everyone on set had tears gathering at the top of their COVID masks. He was at that level for, like, 10 hours straight.”
Brooks himself wasn’t involved with the show on a day-to-day basis but did check in at every level of production. “He would pop into the Zoom a couple times with the writers,” Stassen recalls. “He would always wear a button-down shirt, a sport coat and a handkerchief pocket square—just pure class. He was on table reads with us via Zoom, watch cuts of the episodes and give us his blessing or ideas.” Brooks even gifted the writers some joke ideas he had been saving up for some 40 years. There’s one moment in the Civil War arc where, at the signing of the treaty, Robert E. Lee (Jack McBrayer) bends to sign and hits his fellow soldiers in the groin with his protruding sword. “Mel always wanted to do that joke.” Brooks was involved in the solution to a problem the producers found when they were editing and needed a proper beginning and ending to the show. Their answer was simple: Brooks. He had already contributed voice-overs introducing every sketch but now the producers wanted the man himself on camera to introduce and close the series—kind of. In the opening, the now-96-year-old tells the audience he agreed to appear only if Hulu ensured he looked exactly as he did in 1981 when he made the first film. Suddenly, a deepfake version of a much younger Brooks appears on-screen with the body of a tall, muscular man. That is mirrored in the series’ final sketch when Brooks’ face is inserted onto the body of a character that we won’t spoil here. “I don’t remember which idea came first, but they both came together around the same time in post. Comedy especially is just rewriting and rewriting and rewriting, so we did reshoots and put Mel in. And all of that [was conceived] as we were thinking about what the show needed.”
Having Brooks in the thick of the new show four decades after he birthed the original feels right to Stassen—and if his recent visit to the icon’s house is any indicator, Brooks is eager for more. “He already wants to know when they’re going to order a season two,” Stassen says. Indeed, the creators are ready and willing to make History of the World Part, III if the audience numbers demand it. He even has an entire tentpole story that was written but not included in Part II as well as numerous sketch ideas. “Now that the show has come out, it just makes you want to do another one immediately.”
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There’s plenty more to explore in Backstory Magazine issue 49 you can see our table of contents right here.
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