Drunk History Takes on New Jersey in Season Premiere

Drunk History, the Comedy Central series that asks funny people to get drunk and talk about the history of various things, aired its season three premiere last night with an episode devoted to our good neighbor New Jersey.

The episode’s three narrators are L.A.-based writer Tess Lynch (Grantland, The Morning News), and actors Mark Proksch (The Office) and Jenny Slate (Parks & Recreation, Obvious Child). They skip over some of the more sleazy parts of Jersey’s reputation (ahem, Snooki) in favor of tales that go a bit further back in time. There are sloppy accounts of the nineteenth century “Bone Wars;” Hoboken aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe (played by Greg Kinnear); and the invention of the Holmdel Horn Antenna, courtesy of Bell Lab’s Arno Penzias (Justin Long) and Robert Wilson (Jason Ritter).

A.V. Club gives the episode an “A” rating, mostly praising Slate’s narration. “[She] picks up that ball and kicks it into space, pushing the episode into wacky, yet still grounded, territory. She’s the perfect Drunk History narrator: silly but focused. And she weirdly cares about the story she’s telling, giving endearing—if ahistorical—details to the characters.”

See the full, 21-minute-plus episode here.