How Ike Barinholtz Is Using Comedy to ‘Knock Down’ Bigotry in ‘History of the World, Part II’

It’s taken just over a decade for Ike Barinholtz to fully make it in Hollywood, with starring roles in big films like Blockers and high-profile streaming shows like The Afterparty. Now, with History of the World, Part II, he’s returning to his sketch comedy roots.

In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, the Second City and MADtv alum talks about how he ended up becoming one of the driving forces behind the continuation of his comedy hero Mel Brooks’ 1981 classic and how he thinks about what it means to be “offensive” in 2023. Barinholtz also shares stories about MADtv going up against SNL in the early 2000s, convincing Mindy Kaling he was really Russian on Eastbound and Down, his breakthrough movie performance in Neighbors, and a lot more.

When Barinholtz appears on the screen for our conversation, his Celebrity Jeopardy trophy is displayed prominently in the background. “Oh, this right here?” he asks with a sly smile. “It’s just to remind people, if you get in an argument with me, I’m probably right.”

Joking that it’s the first prize he’s won since a baseball trophy in 1988, the actor insists that he will move it to a less “auspicious” spot soon. “I care about awards, but only awards that I have won,” he adds.

Barinholtz has a long way to go to reach the EGOT status of his latest collaborator, 96-year-old comedy legend Mel Brooks. So, how did he end up getting the chance to write, executive produce, and star in History of the World, Part II?

“Like most good things, it started with a phone call from Nick Kroll,” he explains. As both a massive Brooks fan and a “huge history buff,” Barinholtz said yes the second he heard the pitch. Estimating that he’s seen the original film somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred times, he explains, “We really just kept going back to, the movie is our North Star,” promising, “If you liked the movie, I think you will like the show.”

We begin by talking about the huge responsibility of both continuing Brooks’ legacy and reviving a broad parody genre that has mostly fallen out of fashion in recent years. As a student of both comedy and history, it’s a challenge that Barinholtz was better prepared than almost anyone else to take on.

Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing by subscribing to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.

How did you think about updating the parody genre, staying true to [Brooks’] vision but also trying to make it your own or make it something that audiences now could really connect with?

It’s a great question. I think the themes of Mel still ring very true today. I think Mel, throughout his movies, makes fun of the people in power, mocks them. The protagonists are oftentimes the everyman. But I also think, tonally, he was the first R-rated movie comedy writer. So I think now if you’re doing anything R-rated, you’ve got a direct line to Mel. But in terms of some of the jokes, there is a broadness to Mel that you know you don't quite see these days. And so we knew that it is something that people aren’t used to. But you can’t really do Mel unless you do that kind of big, all-encompassing, broad tone. And it was incredibly freeing and fun. You don’t have to worry about trying to look cool. We would always tell the actors who came through, you don’t want to be the one person caught playing small in the show. You’ve got to come and play big, like Madeline Kahn or Gene Wilder or Gregory Hines. You’ve got to put it all out there. And I think everyone really adhered to that.

So all of this to say, I hope people will like it. I’m sure some people will be like, “This is not the kind of comedy I’m used to seeing!” But it’s the kind of comedy I still like to see. I still laugh uncontrollably when I watch Mel Brooks movies, when I watch Naked Gun. If I watch Airplane, it’s still hilarious. So I think it’s time it came back. Because the world is so ridiculous and crazy, you have to kind of match that energy.

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We do hear Mel’s voice and sort of see him in the beginning and it’s really great to have his presence there. How involved was he in this process? Because, on the one hand, he’s getting up there in age. But whenever you see him speak, or when I’ve gotten the chance to talk with him a little bit, he’s still so sharp. What was it like to get some of that collaboration in with him?

It was surreal. When we all talked about what we thought the show could and should be, Nick [Kroll] was like, let’s get on the phone with Mel and talk to him and make sure he approves of you guys. And I was like, can you imagine if the feedback was like, “Mel just didn’t like you.” I would just move to Antarctica and work at one of those research stations. But the first time I met him, he was incredibly warm. He was very excited that this thing that he made 42 years ago was now coming back. And when we first started pitching him what we wanted the big stories to be, he just kept getting more excited. He was very honest. If there was something he didn’t love, he’d go, “Eh…” But if you got a laugh, you’d hold onto that all week. If one of your kids got mad at you, you could be like, “Well, Mel Brooks thinks I’m funny.”

Were there any of the sketch ideas that you remember him really latching on to?

I remember him just instantly adding on to what we were pitching him like. When we first said, “We want to do a Civil War thing with a bunch of these sketches and the last one, maybe, is Appomattox,” he goes, “Great, great, at Appomattox, when Robert E. Lee bends over to sign the treaty and he turns, have his sword hit everyone in the balls.”

It’s so Mel Brooks.

It’s so Mel Brooks and it’s in the show! So yeah, he would check in with us every other week or so. And he would be very available to us, which was again, just insane. I didn’t want to bother him. But he was so great about it, so cool whenever we needed voiceover, whenever we needed him to do stuff, he’d be like, “Of course, of course.” There’s not a whole lot left like him. He’s really just one of the greats.

Talking about updating his style for today, one of the things that comes up all the time is this idea that you “could never make” something like Blazing Saddles today, that it would be too offensive for people or you’d never get away with some of the jokes. How do you think about the way his work has aged or whether it’s still OK to do the type of humor that he really became known for in the beginning?

It better be OK! Because we’ve got a whole whole TV series coming out. I mean, look, I think that there’s absolutely some words and some joke constructs that wouldn’t play in 2023. I don’t think this is a new phenomenon. I think there were comedians and writers in 1975 who were like, “You can’t say what you could say in 1955 anymore!” But I think thematically, we are still doing what he did, which is going after the stupid hypocrites that seem to always rise to power. And tonally, we really have a lot of sketches about diarrhea and vomit and penises and dildos and buttholes and tits and jizz. There’s a couple of sketches in there that are absolutely disgusting. So I am someone who believes that there are modular things that change with the times, which has always happened.

But the type of humor that Mel set off in the ’70s continued through to the ‘80s with Trading Places and Vacation and Coming to America. Those would have never been made without Blazing Saddles. And then in the ’90s with the Farrelly Brothers and then in 2000s with Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow and Adam Mckay and Will Ferrell and it continues to move that way. So I think, aside from words and maybe a couple of moments, it’s still the same thing. It’s still being stupid and gross and hopefully funny. And also hopefully a little smart, too. So whenever I see someone being like, “You could never make Blazing Saddles these days!” it’s like, yeah, you can’t make a lot of things that you made a long time ago. It’s a different time. Just like you couldn’t have made Birth of a Nation in 1950. There were people in 1950 being like “Birth of a Nation, now, that was a movie!” So to me, funny is funny at the end of the day. I’m sure there will be people who will watch this and will be offended. I’m sure there will be people that watch this and say, “They didn’t say any of those horrible words that I was hoping they would say, this is woke comedy!” And if you watch our show and your takeaway is that it’s woke, I don’t know what to tell you. Then literally everything, to you, is woke.

I think it’s always been about finding the right targets, how Mel Brooks would always be making fun of the people in power, like literal Nazis in The Producers. He was always this very prominent Jewish comedic figure and played a big role in fighting back against antisemitism throughout his entire career. I’m wondering if you think about that at all with the recent rise of antisemitism in the culture. Do you think about using comedy to fight back against that?

Yes. There is quite a bit of Jewishness running through this show, between me and Nick Kroll. I mean, he has a character named Schmuck Mudman. To your point at large, yes, I think it is very good to try and use humor to kind of make fun of antisemites, because they’re almost to a person just very fucking stupid. It gets a little exhausting. I can make fun of Kanye West and say that he’s a fucking loser and his music has sucked for years and Donda sucked shit and it was terrible and his brain is completely fried and he’s been worm-tongued by Candace Owens, which is the most embarrassing thing in the world. But after a while you just get tired. Like, oh, goddamnit we’re still doing this shit 46 years into my fucking life! But to your point, yes, I think it is good to try to use humor to knock down some of these, what seem to be institutions now of racism and bigotry. And in the show, we did try to do that. We have a “Hitler on Ice” moment and having Nick Kroll’s announcer character be like, “I hope Mussolini falls and breaks both of his fucking legs like a little piece of shit,” that was very funny to me.

Listen to the episode now and subscribe to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.

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