Trivia / History of the World Part I

• Acting for Two: Mel Brooks has five roles in the movie. Moses, Comicus, Torquemada, King Louis XVI, and Jacques the Garcon de Piss.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: John Hurt did this movie because he had just gotten through doing two dramatic films, and said that he wanted to have some fun and do a comedy.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: "It's good to be the King!" is often misquoted without the 'the' in shout-outs by other works.
• California Doubling: The French Revolution scenes were filmed in England, because Mel Brooks wanted to avoid a language barrier.
• The Cast Showoff: Being played by legendary tap dancer Gregory Hines, Josephus of course escapes the gallows by distracting the executioners with a soft-shoe number.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Croatia, the film was called The Funny Side of History.
  • In Sweden, the film was called "Det våras för världshistorien del 1", "Springtime for the History of the World Part I"
  • In Portugal, the film was called A Crazy History of the World.
• Copiously Credited Creator: Mel Brooks is credited as writer, producer, director, star and songwriter (for "The Inquisition" and "Jews In Space").
• Deleted Scene: In an interview with Gene Siskel, Mel Brooks revealed that he'd filmed a brief scene that made light of the notorious Three Mile Island incident. "I had a father and a mother made up to look like half a dog and half a cat as a result of a nuclear meltdown," Brooks told Siskel. When test audiences reacted poorly, this bit was removed. However, at least one journalist managed to see an extended cut which contained the footage.
• Distanced from Current Events: According to Mel Brooks, one scene was removed that referred to the Three Mile Island accident.
  I had a father and a mother made up to look like half a dog and half a cat as a result of a nuclear meltdown. But the audience was seriously chilled and didn't laugh, so I left it out.
• Irony as She Is Cast: The vestal virgins in Caesar's Palace in "The Roman Empire" segment were all Playboy playmates.Hugh Hefner appears as the pipe-smoking entrepreneur talking about his invention, the "centerfold".
• Prop Recycling: As mentioned in this video, the background behind the tailgunners in the "Jews in Space" sequence came from the V'ger set of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
• Referenced by...: The card game Guillotine, set during the French Revolution, features one character called the Piss Boy, almost certainly in reference to this movie.
• Uncredited Role: Bea Arthur as a dole office unemployment clerk in "The Roman Empire" segment.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The role of Josephus was written with Richard Pryor in mind, but he was unable to accept due to his infamous freebasing accident in 1980. Not the first time circumstances cheated him out of the lead in a Mel Brooks jaunt.
  • The role of Count de Monet was originally meant for John Cleese, but he was unavailable.
  • Ursula Andress turned down a role.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Mel Brooks plays roles in every time period. The finale implies that the Roman and French Revolution characters are the same guy by different names... somehow. Mel is a 2000-Year-Old Man, after all.
  • Rudy de Luca who plays Captain Mucus, can also briefly be seen in Prehistoric Man segment. He's the caveman that gets accidentally killed by a thrown spear.
  • Also Ronny Graham does double duty as Oedipus and a tortured Jew who relays his unfortunate experience of being anally tortured with a red hot poker.

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