We have left out the dull parts. Take, for example, the Role of the Plow in the Settlement of Nebraska. "The hell with the Role of the Plow in the Settlement of Nebraska"—that is our motto. This philosophy left us with plenty of extra room, which enabled us to provide you, the reader, with large, restful expanses of white space, as well as numerous riveting 'behind-the-scenes' historical anecdotes that you will not find in a normal history book because we made them up.
— Dave Barry Slept Here, introduction
Uncle trope to The Abridged Series, which parodies history in a similar fashion. The aim of this trope is to entertain rather than educate, making plenty of Historical In Jokes and generally playing by the Rule of Funny rather than sticking to boring facts. Genuine historical facts (the stranger the better) will be mixed in with debunked legends, anachronistic absurdities, and Historical Character Confusion.
In books, expect each chapter to end in a textbook-like set of ridiculous exercises. Silly footnotes are also common.
Contrast The Abridged Series, which is the shortening and parodying of fictional works. Compare and contrast Historical Fiction, which is fiction set in a distinctive historical period.
Examples:
Comic Books
- The Cartoon History of the Universe: Downplayed with this series by Larry Gonick. Although it does go quite a bit into actual history and facts and dates, the panels and commentary are drawn in a way that is meant to be both humorous and educational.
Films — Live-Action
- History of the World Part I: Its entertaining, history-based nature makes it an example.
- Year One: If we were to take all of the historical facts behind The Bible at face value, we'd get this film — a comedic Anachronism Stew of Bible Times and Ancient Rome.
Literature
- 1066 and All That:
- A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings, and 2 Genuine Dates: Published in 1930 with a cheeky long title, making this trope Older Than Television. The text covers only the memorable parts of English history and gives special attention to all the Good Things that happened to make England C. of E. and a Top Nation.
- This two modern history sequels by different authors also qualify Nineteen Eighty Four And All That and Nineteen Sixty Six And All That.
- America (The Book): It's a Satire of high-school textbooks about the history of American democracy and politics.
- Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys by David W. Barber is a semi-serious take on this applied to the history of Classical Music; the history (largely biographies of major and/or interesting composers) is mostly accurate, but well-interspersed with jokes and silly footnotes.
- Dave Barry:
- He attempts to summarize his wife’s high school history textbook as follows:
“History: 5,000,000,000 BC — 1962: After the Earth cooled, it formed an extremely Fertile Crescent containing primitive people such as the Hittites, who believed in just the stupidest things you ever heard of. Then came Greece and Rome, followed by Asia. All of this came to a halt following the Middle Ages which were caused by the Jutes and featured the following terms underlined by my wife: the steward, the bailiff, and the reeve. Next, the Turks got way the hell over into France, after which there were towns. And the Magna Carta. Then France and England fought many wars that involved dates such as 1739 and were settled by the Treaty of Utrecht, which also was used to harness water power. By then the seeds had been sown for several World Wars and the Louisiana Purchase, but fortunately, we now have a fairly peaceful atom. Now go fetch Grandpa some more bourbon.”
- Dave Barry Slept Here
- His "Year in Review" annual feature.
- He attempts to summarize his wife’s high school history textbook as follows:
- It All Started With Columbus by Richard Armour is a deliberate American homage to 1066 and All That and written for "those who, having perused a volume of history in school, swore they would never read another."
- The Decline And Fall Of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy is a hilariously snarky example.
- Horrible Histories: As it is more edutainment than pure parody, the history is usually pretty accurate (for when the relevant book was written), but still mixed in with pretty merciless jokes.
- Scotland: A Very Peculiar History - Volume 1: With No Added Haggis and Volume 2: With No Added Bagpipes.
- A Short History of Nearly Everything is a semi-serious take on this.
- Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis? The Last Book About the Civil War
, a parody of Civil War Studies published in 1963 during the centennial of The American Civil War.
Live-Action TV
- Drunk History: An education series where comedians get drunk and narrate historical events to the best of their abilities which is acted out, with the actors lip-synching all the dialogue.
- History of the World Part II: a sequel series to Part I
- Horrible Histories: A comedy sketch series, where each episode is an anthology of sketches about different historical eras.
- Philomena Cunk:
- Cunk On Britain is a parody of sweeping history documentaries on Britain complete with the same methods done by presenters and even the same stock music, presented by Philomena Cunk.
- Similarly Cunk On Earth parodies documentaries on world history.
- Saved by the Bell: In "The Gift", History Teacher Mr. Testaverde recaps all the material for the history exam speaking as quickly as possible, making it very difficult to understand him.
Theatre
Websites
Web Animation
- OverSimplified: What did you expect?
- Unbiased History: It's basically an abridged interpretation of Ancient Rome and in spite of the name, it actually is blatantly biased towards particular factions for laughs, sometimes even reinterpreting entire events in their favor.
Web Videos
- collectivecadenza: "An Abridged History of Western Music in 16 Genres" (watch here) summarizes Western musical trends in a humorous way.
- Bumbles McFumbles: On the history of Disney.
- Istorie pe Șleau: About Romanian history.
- bill wurtz:
- history of the entire world, i guess: An abridged interpretation of history from the Big Bang to 20 Minutes into the Future.
- history of japan: It focuses on Japan specifically.
Western Animation
- Histeria!: It's centered on comedic sketches loosely based on historical events and topics.
- School House Rock: "The Shot Heard 'Round The World" offers an abridged history of The American Revolution itself and glorifies Washington and his army.
