Thursday, October 30, 2008

We Can Dig It

Back in the late 90s, Warner Brothers Animation created a history-themed cartoon series called Histeria. Masterminded by the same wacky minds that brought you Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures, Histeria presented historical topics in the form of flashy, bizarre sketches and musical numbers. It was basically as though the Animaniacs ate a history book laced with acid.

Here's one of the sketches:



Yes, that is really Isaac Hayes singing.

I was alerted to the show's existence this afternoon while composing my own meditation on the theme from "Shaft," and it was love at first sight. (Even though my own Taft song was better.)

Topics on the show spanned Western civilization, from Caesar to Napoleon to the Clintons. And okay, some of them are kind of shoddily researched, but they appear to make up in entertainment what they lack in accuracy. Alas, there's no DVD set, but you should be able to catch a few dozen of Histeria's greatest hits on YouTube.

1 comment:

ANR said...

Really like your blog. I agree that history is loaded with hilarious stuff. I'm sure you would love the "historted" cartoons. Check them out "www.historted.com"