Machinima’s ‘Real Fake History’ Gives Pop Culture The Ken Burns Treatment

As we learned from one of Community’s best ever episodes, Ken Burns’ heralded documentary films are also ripe targets for parody. Now, Machinima is taking aim at Burns’ signature filmmaking style with Real Fake History, a mockumentary that pretends pop culture stories are historical events.

Each episode of Real Fake History dives into a different pop culture franchise. Across ten installments, the series will visit everything from Starship Troopers to Game of Thrones to Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. The first episode, however, treads upon the familiar nerd territory of Star Wars by examining the Battle of Endor. Narrator Phil Morris (Seinfeld’s Jackie Chiles) leads the way, The Guild co-star Jeff Lewis provides the most comedic punch, and, as it does in real Ken Burns documentaries, the camera slowly pans across every single image it encounters. It’s pretty fun stuff, though the commenters seem more interesting in explaining how, contrary to the video’s explanation, the Stormtroopers are NOT clones. Never change, Star Wars

Beyond Lewis, Real Fake History’s cast also includes several other notable names from the online video community. Specifically, Sandeep Parikh and Tony Janning of The Legend of Neil fame are both slated to appear.

New episodes of Real Fake History will arrive each Tuesday. Subscribe to the main Machinima YouTube channel if you’d like to stay up to date with the series.