NICK KROLL

The League and Big Mouth star, 44, said yes to working with one of his heroes—Mel Brooks—in the upcoming sketch comedy variety series History of the World: Part II. It’s been over 40 years since the release of the Ĥlm. Now the series will continue the funny and twisted look at diģerent periods of human history with a stellar cast that includes Kroll, Brooks, Wanda Sykes, Josh Gad, Ike Barinholtz, Johnny Knoxville, Taika Waititi, Jack Black and many more.

Has humor changed since the original film came out in 1981? I grew up watching the original History of the World over and over. My family owned it on VHS, and it was a very seminal movie for me in forming my sense of humor from the rhythms that Mel Brooks has. And so I watch it now and it still makes me laugh, but like all comedy, there are jokes that worked 40-some-odd years ago that don’t work now. There are jokes that I told 10 years ago that aren’t funny anymore because the references don’t make sense; the language is not the language that you use currently.

But ultimately, what Mel was doing in that movie was poking fun at people in power, the rich. I feel like in a lot of that movie, the people in power are dumb and greedy. And I think that ethos still applies today, and we tried to carry that through into this series.

So, it’s the comedy version of Succession? Yes, although one could argue

Succession is a comedy as well. But yeah, someone recently said comedy is like fashion, there are things that we thought looked cool 30 years ago that aren’t great today. But then things come back around and become retro and you go back to references. But there’s always Mel Brooks. If you want to keep the analogy going, it’s like Gucci; it’s just timeless.

Mel Brooks is 96, and he narrates this. Did he contribute in other ways? We started to bring ideas to Mel, different versions of what the show could be, and he had very clear thoughts on that. And he also had jokes. There are jokes throughout the show that Mel pitched.

And then I had the privilege of directing him doing his voiceover.

And inside every episode of his narration, there are jokes that he came up with on the spot, so his fingerprints are all over it.

Every single person who worked on the show, the writers and so many of the actors, were there because they grew up watching him and have been influenced by him. So, there’s a direct influence and then there’s the indirect influence of what his work meant to forming so many people’s concept of comedy.

History of the World goes from when man first inhabited the Earth to Jesus to Abraham Lincoln to Shirley Chisholm. How did you narrow it down? I brought in Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz and Dave Stassen, who’s not on camera, but serves as the other executive producer of the show, and a writer. I had decided I was interested in the Russian Revolution, which felt very much like a Brooksian area to explore. He had done this movie The Twelve Chairs but it felt like there was more to be done in that space. Ike was fascinated with Ulysses S. Grant and the Civil War felt like a very rich area to explore. And Wanda felt like Shirley Chisholm was someone who’s very important to American history but had not had a lot of exposure. And then the story of Jesus and Mary was another really rich area. In those big stories, you want to find stories that are familiar to the public, with familiar characters, but also have a lot of stuff and people that we have not seen.

The cast is incredible. Did people call you or did you do a normal casting process? It was both. When we announced it, we got some immediate incoming calls. Johnny Knoxville, who I’ve known for a long time was like, “Mel Brooks is my hero. If you need anything at all, give me a call.” So, when we were writing the Russian Revolution, we thought, Who’s better to play Rasputin than Johnny Knoxville?

So many of the people on the cast are friends, so when we were casting Sigmund Freud, we thought, Who would be better to be Sigmund Freud doing a master class than Taika Waititi? Or Mel has a long-standing relationship and is very fond of Josh Gad, and [he came up] when we were thinking, Who could be Shakespeare, but Shakespeare in what felt like a modern comedy writer’s room? Jack Black as Joseph Stalin—I have a relationship with Jack and was able to call him and say, “We have this idea,” and he was on board.

Hannah Einbinder, who’s the star of Hacks, came very early on and said, “I’m a massive fan of this movie, and if there’s anything along the way let me know.” And then we came up with the Amelia Earhart sketch. And so, people reach out saying, “We’d love to be a part.”

When did you know you were funny? I always thought I was funny. I think it took a little while for everybody else to decide I was funny. I started doing improv and stand-up in college. I remember very clearly doing my first read through of a bunch of sketches for a sketch show I had auditioned for in my freshman year in college and booked. I left that and was like, Oh, this is what I should be doing.

I had a really clear feeling of, This is the thing that I have been waiting for. I had been watching Mel Brooks movies my entire life and loved comedy. But I didn’t even know that you could be a comedian—it didn’t feel like something that was in the world that I grew up in, which was filled with privilege and opportunity. Was there a point at which you said, “O.K., this is going to work?” Yes and no. I think there’s always a feeling, if you’re a specific kind of person, that it never feels like enough or like you’ve done it. But, doing History of the World, it’s beyond my wildest dreams that I get to work alongside my hero. That feeling in and of itself is just truly mind-boggling.That’s a truly different level of “I have made it.”

Isn’t that great to know that there are still things to achieve? Because that’s what gets you up in the morning, knowing that you have a purpose.

Of course, now you have a kid to get you up, too. Yeah, the kid is now getting me up about an hour and a half to two hours earlier than I would like to be waking up. But then you get up with them and you’re feeding this little person blueberries and you’re like, What’s more important than this?