imagine dying and getting to the afterlife and you’re like “hey this isn’t so bad” but then you hear a familiar tune and your nonexistent heart fills with dread as you slowly turn to see… him
genuinely though stupid deaths was the funniest thing horrible histories ever did. imagine kicking the bucket so badly that your cringe fail death gets recorded as a historical event and then a few hundred years later this guy comes along and ends your entire life all over again.
i have so many questions abt the borgia family video. why does ben not get a solo. why does the blond look so good on him. who is the kid that plays geoffre and why does he not sing at any point. he looks like he was a hostage and had no idea what was going on. why can i not recognize rodrigo as jim at all and more important why does he fucking terrify me. how is martha so beautiful. like otherworldly. why does mat blink one (1) time through the entire video. why
Okay, so. Most of the jokes in Horrible Histories were pretty surface level. Which is fine, because ‘surface level’ is not the same thing as ‘unfunny’, and also it was for children. But every so often there was something that only got funnier the more you thought about it.
In Horrible Histories, sketches were often based around a show-specific trope I call the Unremarkable Time Traveler. A sketch would be set in a modern day school, or hospital, or pet shop, or whatever, and the whole thing would revolve around someone from the past showing up and trying to get the modern people to do things the historical way. So an Ancient Greek doctor’s working at the hospital, or the school’s hired a Victorian headmaster, that sort of thing. The whole joke of these sketches is very British - it’s an Absurdity interacting with the Mundane, but the Mundane’s reactions to the Absurdity never address the core strangeness of the situation (i.e. an Ancient Athenian practicing medicine in a 21st century hospital), but instead only object to the inconveniences it causes (i.e. his outdated medical practices not working). You see this sort of thing all the time in British comedies, especially classic ones. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is built on this.
So when you first watch the Historical Paramedics sketches, you have every reason to believe that this is just another Unremarkable Time Traveler situation. Two guys claiming to be from the Stuart/Victorian/etc. era show up, try their weird old medicine on people, and leave. Except.
EXCEPT.
In the other Unremarkable Time Traveler cases, they’re never the same people. It’s different every time. But with the Paramedics, it’s alwaysthe same two guys. Now, you might say ‘hey, no! This show stars a troupe of character actors, they’re constantly doubling up on roles, it’s just the same actors playing different characters!’ To which I say no! Do not presume you know more than me about this! It is,without a doubt,the same two guys! Because the Historical Paramedics have names:
(They are also, apparently, a couple)
Horrible Histories has tonnes of running characters that transcend era, but most of them are modern-era characters (Mike Peabody, Cliff Whiteley, the host of Historical Fashion Fix, etc.) who talk about or interact with the Time Travelers, or in Mike’s case, are themselves Time Travelers. The Grim Reaper, as an immortal being, is basically the only exception (and I guess the Shouty Man, but he’s really just a representation of a concept). Which makes Jeff and Nigel a bit of an anomaly, being named, recurring characters… from all manner of historical eras. What’s up with that?
Perhaps they are immortals, like the Grim Reaper, living through all of history, but popping in and out of our modern era from time to time, by whatever method the other Time Travelers also use? Could be, but I don’t think so. Jeff and Nigel are uniquely aware that their actions are not appreciated in the modern era, as demonstrated by the fact that they always run away before the real paramedics arrive. So I propose a different theory:
The Historical Paramedics are actually modern-era characters.
Jeff and Nigel are not Unremarkable Time Travelers. They are, in fact, history enthusiasts who have always lived in the late 20th/early 21st century, have somehow got their hands on an ambulance scanner, and, instead of handing it in to the authorities, are using it to harass the sick and injured while wearing silly costumes.
In other words, these two are perhaps the truest embodiments of Be Gay, Do Crime in all of televised media.
This show was so great, you guys.
(It is, admittedly, the tiniest, slightest bit possible that none of this was intentional and I have brainrot. But I don’t think that’s the case, do you? And even if it is, this idea still makes an already funny sketch that much funnier, doesn’t it? Yes. Of course it does. I knew you’d understand.)
