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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that Horrible Histories...

192 replies

ProcrastinatorGeneral · 26/07/2011 11:23

...Should damn well release a CD!

OP posts:
JaceyBee · 04/08/2011 00:11

Oh yes, Ben Willbond is my number 1 too. Looooove him. In fact, I would pretty much take any of them, not fussy! Isn't it funny that this started off as a thread about the songs and pretty quickly descended into which ones we'd like to do? Grin

dazzlingdeborahrose · 04/08/2011 07:25

We love Horrible Histories :-) I did see an interview with the programme writers and Terry Deary (who started the whole phenomenon) and they did say that the one unbreakable rule was that everything had to be a historical fact. It might be obscure, they might exaggerate but it was fact. It has ignited a complete love of history in my son.

does anybody know when the HH proms will be shown on tv?

NorfolkNChance · 04/08/2011 07:57

End of August apparently, just in time to get them interested in history before school starts!

AlmaMartyr · 04/08/2011 08:01

I really enjoy it. DCs a bit too young for it but DH and I like watching it. Quite keen on a couple of them as well Blush

Edam - I follow some of the actors on Twitter and after the prom they were apologising profusely for not coming out to see their fans. Apparently they really wanted to but weren't allowed to.

Deanna1977 · 04/08/2011 09:42

Love Horrible Histories. My DS1 (2.11) loves the songs & insisted on me singing the 4 Georges with him 3 times complete with actions yesterday. Its one of the few programmes that I can watch with him without poking my eyes out with a stick. Its funny & the songs are pure genius. Series 4 is on the way - hurrah!

SabrinaMulhollandJones · 04/08/2011 10:11

I thought the writer (of the books at least) prides himself on the fact that all the facts ARE 100% true in HH.

I'm a major fan - love it, and I think I am actually in love with the Dick Turpin one. Scrap that, I'm a bit in love with all of them.....

slartybartfast · 04/08/2011 10:31

there is definately something about that matthew b person isnt there.
but i also like the tall curly haired one, no one seems to have mentioned him.

the explanation of WW1 was good - thanks for that link.
HH is truely funny TV, i am always nagging dc's to watch it, while i sit and chuckle.

Blush

ds used to read the HH books which are great. although, again, i preferred them to h im. but he plans on doing history a level, so somethign somehwere must have clicked.

NorfolkNChance · 04/08/2011 10:38

I quite like Jim (George V & Richard III) as well.

Have just ordered series 1 & 2 on DVD for me DD

NorfolkNChance · 04/08/2011 10:38

That should be George IV

SabrinaMulhollandJones · 04/08/2011 10:44

Yes, an Amazon order beckons....ahem, for the children of course!

ProcrastinatorGeneral · 04/08/2011 11:08

Erebus HH isn't supposed to be about teaching history. The point is that it gives you the more fun, gory and horrible bits that they miss out at school. It's entertainment with a base in fact. An ideal accompaniment to normal lessons:)

OP posts:
FaultyGoods · 04/08/2011 11:11

I also love HH. Went to the Prom with my two DCs (had to get up very early to do it and queued for ages). Pachacuti is my absolute favourite quickly followed by the Monarchs song. My DCs are obsessed by HH - luckily. Wink

I agree with the posters who say it ignites a passion for history, this has definitely been the case for my two.

sieglinde · 04/08/2011 12:17

Procrastinator, but it often IS normal lessons nowadays. I hate it (HH). Teaches pointless smug contempt for the past.

cyb · 04/08/2011 13:50

Woo Hooo!

You've been Artois'd!

edam · 04/08/2011 14:09

I really don't understand how you can say that, sieglinde. In what way does HH teach smug contempt for the past, exactly? In my view, it does the opposite - encourages an interest in the past. (I was a history geek at school, btw, and am often enraged by politicians and public figures pontificating on a topic while ignoring the historical parallels - South Sea Bubble kept coming to mind during the late 90s/early 2000s.)

sieglinde · 04/08/2011 15:04

The Horrible tells you... the Tudors are killers, the medievals are dirty idiots. The Greeks are grimy, the Romans are rotten. The Victorians are Vile. I read the whole Tudor volume and it was full of errors. I didn't record them, however, but here is the blurb from the HH webpage:

Terrible Tudors weren?t just terrible. They were a heck of a horrible bunch! What with Henry VIII and his unlucky wives, and beastly Queen Bess and her slaughtered suitors, even the Tudor kings and queens were royally rotten! So find out?
Why Henry VIII thought he?d married a horse
Which terrible torture methods the twisted Tudors used
Which shocking swear words they simply loved to say
How an awful Tudor axeman kept botching the job
What foul food the Tudors ate
Plus there are bloody beheadings, a mysterious murder, lots of curious quizzes and some gruesome games.

I mean, come on. How can this be anything other than contemptuous? Actually the Tudor legal regime used torture less than virtually any other regime in Europe. The pathetic joke about Anne of Cleves is just News of the Worldese. The foul food is just cultural prejudice run absolutely amok.

And where's the other side of the picture? Discoveries in science and exploration, all kinds of new art including the secular stage, awesome music, great buildings, a great era of shipbuilding and sailing, and almost incredible naval win against a super[power, the beginnings of real homegrown political thinking. Too boring, isn't it?

sunshinenanny · 04/08/2011 15:42

maybe the point of these programes is to get children interested so they delve a bit further into the history of the time. My freinds children seem to enjoy them.

stealthsquiggle · 04/08/2011 16:25

I agree with ProcrastinatorGeneral (great name, BTW) - HH is great at exciting interest which then gets fed with a more, shall we say, balanced view in normal lessons. If it is being used instead of normal history lessons then that is not good.

DS (8) fairly frequently comes up with random facts/answers to quiz show questions (which, being cynical, we check) - and it is about an even split between school, HH and other sources as to where they came from.

Mollythulu · 04/08/2011 16:40

I just signed the fb page to try and get a cd as the dc's already know most of the words & would love it in the car. To all the 'But it ism't PROPER history' naysayers - so it isn't GCSE level - er, I think they take enough care to tell you which bits are true and which aren't to prevent confusion tbh. Besides, when was te last time you did Yr 5 or 6 history. Seems to me it's far more detailed than the 'facts' my old Yr 5 and 6's were learning - I ended up teaching the teachers (although they knew enough to cover the curriculum requirements) & I know relatively little about history!

peeriebear · 04/08/2011 17:01

I don't think an episode on 'the beginnings of real homegrown political thinking' is going to make under-tens sit up and engage with the subject. There is enough hard fact in the programmes to sow seeds of a wider interest in history and as has been said before, they are rigorous in presenting correct information. One of their skits is entirely about correcting inaccurate historical 'facts'. My DDs are 9 and 4 and LOVE it, and so do I. :)

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 04/08/2011 18:07

Imagine the viewing figures of a strictly factual, no funnies, no singing, no dancing chronologically correct CBBC history programme?!

I'm the last person to argue for the dumbing down of education, but I really don't see how it is contemptuous of the past at all - it's satirical and clever. Kids TV was rubbish when I was little, there was nothing remotely as intelligent as HH. I seem to recall Crackerjack, The Krankies and Chucklevision.

SabrinaMulhollandJjones · 04/08/2011 18:09

Actually, no, kids TV wasn't rubbish really - just there was nothing to equal HH IMVHO....

Some of the 70's kids TV was, of course the stuff of legend...

theluckiest · 04/08/2011 18:15

My name is theluckiest and I am a history geek. I admit it. I adored history as a child and what ignited my interest? Not my dad (who studied Ancient & Medieval History for his degree), not my mum who could rattle on about Plantagenets, Tudors, etc for hours, not the weekend excursions to places of historical 'interest', not the mountains of factual books piled up all over the house.....it was that we were learning about the Egyptians and I found a pile of old Asterix books (remember them? bloody loved them). Funny, irreverent and highly historically questionable but once I had devoured them I wanted to know about the 'real' history behind the silliness.....Lo, a lifelong passion was born.

Which is exactly what HH does. And I love it. And I think it is also the funniest comedy on telly which is why it wins comedy awards. And I could happily snog any of the actors (particularly Jim who looks like a bigger version of my DH....DS1 has even said 'Look, Daddy!' when watching HH. Sigh, I wish....)

I guarantee a fair few teenagers in the 80s got turned onto history by watching Blackadder. Masses of historical inaccuracies but clever, witty and bloody good entertainment exactly like HH (which is even cleverer if you think about it as they have to keep it relatively 'clean')

Hurray for HH. Mumsnet HQ, perhaps an online perv chat with some of the HH cast could be lined up?

NorfolkNChance · 04/08/2011 18:24

Oh yes please Miss can we have a webchat? We'll be ever so good and clean the black board and everything.

Rosemallow · 04/08/2011 18:26

YANBU
My DC are both under 3 but I watch horrible Histories religiously with DP. Have learned more from this than I did in 10 years at school!
The songs are ace!