History Bites

This is a brilliant combination of comedy and interesting history. Try to imagine the result of the SCTV cast (John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Martin Short, Dave Thomas, etc.) taking on the teaching of history, and you have a good picture of the result.

The premise is "what if TV had been around for the last 5000 years?" and depicts modern shows (eg. Seinfeld, etc.) as if they had been done in those periods. The witty parody of these shows is reason enough to tune in. This is fine comedy.

Some of the topics are pretty specialized (Math Cults, for example), but the learning is painless, and will frequently have you laughing out loud.

As far as I can tell, this is only available on the Canadian History Television network, though you might want to check with the US History Television channel and your favorite PBS affiliate.

"Only in Canada, you say? Pity."

I didn't think it possible-- a history program which sticks to the relative truth and fact of the matter while simultaneously keeping those with short attention spans interested.

Featuring hundreds of laughs an episode, and offering the kind of satirical wit that seems so very common in Canadian humor (Air Farce, 22 Minutes, and etcetera, anybody?), History Bites seems to hold its own as one of the more tasteful programs on television.

It certainly beats ninety percent of the programs appearing on the Comedy Network in terms of humor and taste.

10/10.

I liked History Bites, it was a very fun show to watch but it was also educational. I like that it was able to be entertaining while it also informed. OK so it's not like it was teaching us a ton of great new information we couldn't learn on Wikipedia or that we don't already know from schools, but for a family show it is great and kids can get a lot out of this show. Likewise the comedy was not gold but this show was way way more entertaining than most educational history shows would be. The host Rick Green seems like a really nice person and he is likable, a very good host for a show like this. The actors all are fine for the roles they are doing, basically sending up historical figures with impressions. Totally worth seeing if you like history and or family friendly entertainment!

Pretty good way to trick people into learning- by entertaining them. Much more entertaining than educational, but they do their research well, though some of their joke are off the bat. They're not history teachers.

I was so bad at history, but putting it in a comedic context always helps it to seem interesting. You have to hand it to Rick Green for creating so many really clever projects.

This was a funny show that taught little lessons about history through comedians doing period specific sketch comedy as historical figures.