Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Historical Roasts’ On Netflix, Where Jeff Ross And Friends Roast Some Very Dead People

If you wanted to roast historical figures, who would you decide to roast? Probably history’s most evil, reprehensible people, right? But what if you decided to roast some of history’s most admired people? That’s the idea behind Jeff Ross’ new series Historical Roasts. Read on for more on this oddball series….

HISTORICAL ROASTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Jeff Ross comes out wearing a Union officer’s uniform and a massive mustache/sideburn wig. The audience is dressed in Civil War-period costumes. “Get the flags out! We’re roasting my favorite president: Abraham Lincoln!” he yells, while sounding like Foghorn Leghorn.

The Gist: Jeff Ross, the “roastmaster general,” who has made his name over the past 15 or so years expertly roasting celebrities for Comedy Central, the Friars’ Club and elsewhere, has turned his attention to historical figures. And his guests of honor come from all over history: Lincoln, Freddie Mercury, Cleopatra, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (yes, he’s roasting MLK) and Anne Frank (yes, he’s roasting Anne Frank… Gilbert Gottfried plays Hitler!). The idea is that the historical figure, played by one of his comedy buddies, is roasted by three other historical figures, all played by various comedians and actors.

For instance, Lincoln (Bob Saget) is roasted by his wife, Mary Todd (Natasha Leggero), who is almost too busy boozing and popping Xanax to be coherent; Harriet Tubman (Yamaneika Saunders), who complains that Lincoln took the credit for freeing the slaves when she actually freed actual slaves via her Underground Railroad; and John Wilkes Booth (John Stamos), who launches into an overwrought monologue about why and how he shot Lincoln.

Then, in the ages-old roasting tradition, the guest of honor gets up and roasts the host and the rest of the people on the dais. But, in the case of this roast, the historical figure also gets the audience to join in on an inspirational message, as Saget does when, as Lincoln, he gets the audience to chant “Fight the power!”

Our Take: There is no doubt that Jeff Ross has been one of the best, most prepared roasters we’ve seen over the past two decades. But while other comedians who have made their name via roasts — Whitney Cummings and Lisa Lampanelli are two good examples — have moved away from the genre, Ross has leaned into it, squeezing as much juice from the “roastmaster general” lemon as he possibly could. We’re afraid to say that, with Historical Roasts, that lemon is just down to seeds and pulp.

We were OK with the show’s very loose format, where it seemed the comedians came out in costume, read a teleprompter and didn’t rehearse all that much. The idea is that it’s supposed to be a party, and that’s the feel Ross and his fellow producers have created. But the jokes aren’t at all focused. In the Lincoln episode, it feels like there were more Full House jokes, due to the presence of Saget and Stamos, then there were jokes about Lincoln. Booth wore a Trump sticker on his lapel. And it felt that the roasters were more roasting the characters they were playing than roasting the guest of honor.

But the overall problem was that the jokes just didn’t land. Roast jokes are always hit and miss, but when they land, they can be gut-bustingly funny. These jokes barely elicit a chuckle. And, while it’s hard to analyze jokes because they’re so subjective, one of the reasons why these jokes don’t land is that Ross chose admirable people rather than people who have, to put it mildly, very public flaws. It’s one thing to make fun of Donald Trump or Charlie Sheen or William Shatner, because they all have significant baggage they can attack. But Anne Frank? MLK? Lincoln? What are you going to poke fun at with Lincoln? His beard?

We wanted to like this show, to the point where we watched the second episode, where Freddie Mercury (James Adomian) is roasted by Kurt Cobain (Nikki Glaser), David Bowie (Seth Green) and Princess Diana (Fortune Feimster). This one felt more focused, mainly because Freddie did have things in his life that were good roast material. But, Glaser as Cobain did nothing but make fun of Cobain, Feimster as Diana just kept going blue with talk of poppers and oral sex. And Green as Bowie decided to just hammer the fact that his good friend Mercury ripped him off. None of it worked, which leads us to think that the writing needed more time to find what was actually going to elicit the biggest laughs.

Sex and Skin: Besides Mary Todd Lincoln accusing Abe of having an affair with Stephen Douglas, not much.

Parting Shot: Jeff introduces the comedians playing the historical figures, and gives the show’s tagline: “We’re teaching history a lesson!”

Sleeper Star: Saunders did well enough with Tubman, a person who is so revered that all we know about her is her heroic acts, that we want to seek out her standup now.

Most Pilot-y Line: Saget drops coins in Ross’ hand and says, “Here are some pennies.”

Our Call: SKIP IT. Historical Roasts is a long half-hour that should be funnier. Maybe it’s time for Ross to go back to the standup career he had before becoming “roastmaster general.”

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Historical Roasts on Netflix