Horrible Histories (2009 TV series)/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Black Bart: [typical pirate voice] Listen up, ye scurvy scum. It's been many moons since I've had fresh blood aboard my ship. Now you all know me by reputation - Black Bart! The most bloodthirsty pirate ever to sail the seven seas!
Crew: [raucous laughter]
Black Bart: Now I don't know any of you, see? So, to ensure we don't have any... misunderstandings... I'm going to tell you how I runs things on my ship! Rule One: Fighting!
Crew: [more raucous laughter]
Black Bart [switches to posh accent] No fighting!
Crewmember: ...Hey?
Black Bart: It's anti-social, and a good way to lose an eye, isn't it Mulligan?

  • The chav version of the story of Helen of Troy...

"Helen... you is well fit. Your face could launch a thousand ships, yeah?"
"Listen up, yeah! I want all us Greek soldiers to march on Troy, you get me? We're gonna tear that city UP! Kill dem all, izzit? Yeah, it is!"

I go berserk and my eyes go glazy,
I get so mad I could stab a daisy!
[Beat] But I won't. 'Cause that'd be... stupid.

  • The "You've Been Artois'd!" sketch. "Boom-boom bang-bang, baby!...I know these words, you see? I am 'street', yes?"
  • This exchange, as quoted in the Fridge Brilliance entry, in the Ancient Greek Wife Swap sketch:

Spartan husband: (holding out a spear) Go get us something to eat.
Athenian wife: But... I wouldn't know how to hunt! Athenian women aren't allowed out of the house, except to meet other women, or to go to funerals!
Spartan husband: You will be going to a funeral. [beat] The rabbit's.

  • Bitchy Mozart ("So you beat zat...girlfriend!") vs. pompous—and conveniently deaf—Beethoven ("So you just stick zat in your schnitzel!") for the title of Greatest Composer Ever in the Prom special.
  • A professional leech-catcher from the Middle Ages demonstrates how it's done... involuntarily. Several times. While trying to explain to a sceptical pal how great his job is.
  • The 'Kidnapped!" sketch, a movie trailer-style spoof on Saxon marriage laws. Mr. and Mrs. Random Saxon are just sitting outside their hut when an intruder suddenly runs up, bonks him on the head and runs off with Mrs. Random, leaving her husband to yell after them:

Husband: Hey! That was a new helmet!
(awkward pause)
...And I'm quite annoyed about you kidnapping my wife, too!

  • The 'Silly Tudor Laws' sketch, in which a nobleman is forced by Queen Elizabeth I to first wear a woolly hat, then remove his sword-impeding cloak, and then his royals-only purple doublet... leading inevitably to:

Elizabeth: Cecil, there appears to be a naked man in our throne room.
Cecil: Yes, your Majesty.
Elizabeth: Do we have a law against this?
Cecil: Not yet, your Majesty.

  • Greek ruler Draco sentences a hapless apple-snatcher: "Guards! Take him away and make him dead! Oh... and if you can think of anything worse than death, do that too, OK? OK."
  • A sketch pointing out that nobody really knows whether King William II's hunting accident was deliberate or not: "Oh, dear. I appear to have shot the King. That's bad, isn't it?"
  • The Historical Paramedics.

Geoff: Man-child! Do you wish to be a gallant hero?!
Modern boy: (nods warily)
Geoff: Then you must wee on this man's head!

  • Historical Masterchef. Just... all of it. Particularly Jim Howick's portrayal of Greg.
    • The increasingly strange introductions are a highlight though:

Greg: PEOPLE MAKE FOOD, AND WE EAT THE FOOD.

John: THAT IS THE FORMAT OF THIS SHOW AS I UNDERSTAND IT.

  • A World War II sketch in which, the British government having had all the road signs and place names blacked out to prevent German spies from knowing where they were, a train carriage of passengers and the conductor frantically work out ever-more-complicated ways of announcing the name of the next station without revealing it to any German spies. At last the one passenger who hasn't said anything, thoroughly fed up, says "I'm the German; would it help if I left the train?" and proceeds to jump off.
  • Caligula declaring war against Poseidon.

Soldier: (shows a spear with fish) We...ah... got some of his soldiers?

  • The aBook sketch—the invention of the codex as a dead-on parody of an Apple advert, 'unique turnable pages' and all. "It's the book that rewrites the book on... writing books."
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