Drunks of future past

Let’s face it, unless you have something like Heneral Luna, Lincoln, or even 300, there’s a big chance you won’t bother reading up on history. “Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.” So say the old fogeys hopped up on textbooks and footnotes. But really, with the eternal spectre of stupidity popping up in our nation’s recent events (i.e. Bongbong Marcos bringing up the ghost of an old dictator) like a flaming bag of poop, it’s wise not to ignore such warnings. Pinoys have such short memories anyway. One moment we’re ousting a president for corruption, the next day we’re cheering him on as he takes a mayoral seat.

The success of Heneral Luna has brought a spotlight on the subject of history — and that’s a good thing. It brought up a lot of questions, especially for those who had to brush up on their Agoncillos, Constantinos and Zaides. Was Emilio Aguinaldo really that terrible? Who’s this Buencamino dude and what did he do to piss off nationalists? Why was Mabini sitting down for the entire film? Why were leather pouches in the late 1800s shiny as f**k?

These dudes belong to a gallery of interesting heroes and villains that populate our history. Only writers the likes of Ambeth Ocampo and Nick Joaquin have made these coma-inducing factoids engaging. Historical films do more than blow up these figures on screen. Clearly, it’s better to sit through a two-hour film featuring a military general and his posse of super good-looking dudes (“I love a man in uniform,” says everyone who loves a man in uniform after watching Heneral Luna) than a lecture with a wrinkly professor. Comedian Derek Waters, though, has a better take on making history damn watchable: Get a bunch of your comedian friends drunk and let them narrate landmark events. That, basically, is the premise behind the Comedy Central series Drunk History.

For the last three seasons (four, if you include “Season 0” on the Funny or Die website), Waters and his merry band of drunkards have told countless stories of American history, with a stellar list of actors reenacting and lipsyncing the narrator’s slobbering pieces of dialogue. Dan Harmon (creator of Community), SNL alum Jenny Slate and director David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer) have all recounted tales of cocaine godmothers, pioneering journalists, and Nobel-prize winning astrophycists with hilarious lines to fill in the gaps books couldn’t tell us.

It wouldn’t be enough to just listen to these wasted retellings; the actors go on to depict these figures in all their inebriated glory. Will Ferrell has played Abraham Lincoln (one of the most prominent characters in the series; he’s appeared approximately six times, played by different actors); Bill Hader was John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola; Johnny Knoxville took on Johnny Cash; and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer has played the abolitionalist (and sometime spy) Harriet Tubman (a role she also played, fictionally, in 30 Rock).

Imagine if our own heroes would have their own Drunk History episodes, narrated by Filipino comedians: Tessie Tomas as a drunk Imelda Marcos trying to flee the country (“Where the f**k are my Pradas??? They need to be in this briefcase!!”); Willie Nepumuceno as Erap trying to figure out what was happening in his impeachment trial (“Sino yan? T*angina! San galing yang envelope na yan?”); or Eugene Domingo as Marcela Agoncillo making the Philippine flag (“Alam nyo mas maganda na yan kaysa sa bungo na nakalagay sa flag, no! Yuck! Kadiri kaya!”). These would certainly make for rowdy history classes a day after.

Alcohol, after all, is such a fitting bookmark to commemorate historical events. There’s the possibility that the lack of recreation over the last few centuries might have forced our ancestors to down incredible amounts of tuba and lambanog just to pass the time. “Alcohol is nice to celebrate when you finish your vision,” Waters said in an interview.” It should be the ending, not the beginning, he warns. “You know what I mean? Why it works for our show is because it makes you feel smart. It makes you feel like you know everything.”