Horrible Histories / Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

In the live action version of Horrible Histories, there was a part where a Spartan family and an Athenian family have a "wife switch". In the scene when the Athenian wife came to the Spartan house, the Spartan husband told the Athenian wife to go hunt. The wife responded that Athenian women can only get out to meet other women and to go to a funeral. The husband then responded, "You are going to a funeral, the rabbit's." One of the few things that the Spartans were well known for was their laconic humor (and were in fact the origin of the term "laconic").
In 'The Borgia Family' song, there's a strange lighting effect across Lucrezia's eyes throughout the thing - which just so happens to be another 'Addams family' homage; this was how they lit Morticia in the films to make her look more eerie. Also from the 'Borgia Family' song. Gioffre is always looking around, presumably to highlight his character as a bored 12-year-old, until you realise he's not just looking around, he's looking over his shoulder, checking for enemies. If you lived with that family, you'd be constantly looking over your shoulder, too. At first, it seems odd that Gioffre isn't singing along. However, this is a reference to the fact that the boy wasn't exactly fond of the rest of his family, and is a suspect in Giovanni's murder.
Some of the musical references achieve this by matching historical ideas and figures with comparable modern day genres and artists. For example:
- Charles II, a king known for his excesses and love of partying, is portrayed as a rapper.
- Cleopatra with her squicky romances and love of fashion is portrayed as a Lady Gaga Expy.
- The women of World War Two are a girl group ("Original Girl Power!")
- The Viking invaders of England are a hair metal band (the ancestors of Spinal Tap?).
- Blackbeard the pirate captain sings Gilbert and Sullivan-esque operetta.
- The Luddites' literal 'rage against the machine' is given the Sex Pistols-esque punk treatment.
- The most notorious Roman emperors, known for their extravagance, mental issues and childishness, sing a pastiche of Michael Jackson's "Bad".
- The best example may be the song I'm a Greek, which extols the virtues of Ancient Greece in the style of Flanders and Swann. Donald Swann was a great admirer of Greek culture, and would no doubt heartily agree with the sentiments.
- A few are much more blatant, like a song about Dick Turpin to the tune of Stand and Deliver.
- The video for Crassus' Rap looks like it might be the most expensive one in the whole series - but then he is the world's richest man.
- Then there's the World War Cousins, gee, three family members who were friendly to eachother being thrown into these circumstances? sounds like a sitcom waiting to happen! Never mind that Hitler surviving World War I created World War II, which in turn inspired classic BBC sitcom Dad's Army!
- Who better to parody for a song about iconic Welshman Owain Gwyndwr than another iconic Welshman?
- And in that vein, why shouldn't a song about Australia be sung by a Kylie Minogue Expy? Said song is mostly based off "I Should Be So Lucky." What is Australia frequently called? "The Lucky Country."
- "Brand New Land to Find", a song about British exploration featuring Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and John Davis, is set to "Combine Harvester" by the Wurzels, which references both the West Country origins of those historical figures and the romanticisation of events that were primarily about acquiring wealth and property.
Why are the cavemen able to shrug off blows to the head so easily? Research has shown that prehistoric humans had thicker skulls.
Why do the skits featuring Oliver Cromwell tend to be particularly hostile towards him? As a Puritan, Cromwell was extremely hostile towards actors and theater on religious grounds, resulting in banning them both on pain of fines, imprisonment, even torture; realistically, you would not expect a bunch of actors to portray him in a particularly favorable light!
It seems strange that the show does not make much sketches about about the 20th century outside of the two world wars, but then you realize the decades were generally known for economic prosperity, more progressive values on things such as class, and were much more peaceful. Simply put, those periods in time were not horrible.
Georgian "detective" Jonathan Wild is depicted in a Sherlock pastiche because Wild actually was pulling the sort of Engineered Heroics scam that Sherlock was falsely accused of in the episode "The Reichenbach Fall."

Fridge / Horrible Histories

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