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:
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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
- 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.
- 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.”
- 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."
- 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.
- Will Success Spoil Jeff Davis? The Last Book About the Civil War
, published in 1963 during the centennial of The American Civil War, is both a comic and very anachronistic recounting of the war itself and a parody of Civil War buffs and reenactors themselves.
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.
- Horrible Histories: A comedy sketch series, where each episode is an anthology of sketches about different historical eras.
- 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.
Web Animation
- 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.
- history of the entire world, i guess: An abridged interpretation of history from the Big Bang to 20 Minutes into the Future.
Web Video
- Epic Rap Battles of History pits two historical figures in a rap battle, with each side making abundant use of historical jokes, facts, and, in some cases, small recounts of historical events. So, while not conventionally the way this trope is presented, there's still a lot of hilarious history parodying.
Western Animation
- Schoolhouse Rock!: "The Shot Heard 'Round The World" offers an abridged history of The American Revolution itself and glorifies Washington and his army.