Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Tuesday with VBS.tv: Drunk History: Ben Franklin Part 2

As I said yesterday, this will be the final installment of Drunk History that I make for a while. The purpose of teaming up with VBS.tv and its content was to explore lesser seen and lesser-known parts of our world. But I couldn't help but get carried away with this hilarious series as every single episode cracked me up like the first time I ever watched a Trailer Park Boys episode. That said, I have most certainly save the best for last with this episode.

Benjamin Franklin is one of the most beloved and eccentric of the American founding fathers. But like most of the other founders of the United States, he was a complete weirdo. Sure he invented things that we still use today and was one of the more brilliant voices behind the American Revolution, but he was also a complete letch. It has been said that his years long presence in the French court as a diplomat resulted in more illegitimate children than Blackbeard and Ramses II combined. Were he alive today, he would be scandalized to the point of obscurity before he could invent something like zip codes. There would be literally hundreds of "I'm sorry" speeches to press conferences with Mrs. Franklin looking on with a disgusted face next to him. But we didn't have such a sensationalist media back then, and things like this weren't discussed all in polite company.

So in this episode of drunk history, Jack Black returns as Ben Franklin, and writer and amateur historian Eric Falconer returns with yet another drunken attempt at recanting a tale and Franklin's life. Enjoy!!


I had to use the YouTube link for this one due to the VBS.tv site being momentarily down, but this one allows you to at least  buffer the video a bit to prevent that irritating stop/start phenomenon inherent to VBS's media player.

5 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

You're right it is good, never knew this about him.

Zombie said...

love the drunk history lessons! lol.

Unknown said...

that's a lot of "a week later"s....

haha my favorite part was "I don't know if you know how to light a fire. You're a woman. It's 1770"

I like the George Washington's slave one the best actually. My least favorite was the Lincoln one. I thought it was rather drab.

Melanie said...

Eric Falconer seems to be a very fun drunk. Jack Black was born to play Ben Franklin. I will miss these videos. A lot. Just sayin'. You can bring 'em back whenever.

Marlene said...

Ha. Learn something new every day. I think a lot of people "in power" are like that. Must be the two go hand in hand.