Confessions of a talking head: My history TV show experience.

I haven’t been public about this until now, but apparently I’m going to be on a documentary show that’s going to air on the History Channel. The program is called History’s Deadliest, hosted by actor Ving Rhames, and the episodes I’ll be on, I’m told, will air in the spring of 2027, possibly April. This past week, August 31-September 1, I took a very brief trip down to Los Angeles to tape the show. It was an odd experience, to be sure. I thought I would share it with you, the paid-tier subscribers of the Garden, before talking about it elsewhere. You might find it interesting.

Here’s how this all came about. In the early part of August I was contacted via email by a producer for the show, asking if I was interested in being interviewed. At first I dismissed it, as I receive numerous scams almost every day, but I researched the producer’s name and the show and found he was legit. We went back and forth via email a few times and we set up a Zoom call with him and a more senior producer. I didn’t realize that the call was more of an audition than anything else. Evidently they liked me, because within a week they were talking about flying me either to New York or Los Angeles to do the taping. The trip came together pretty quickly after that.

I admit that at first blush I had some reservations. The History Channel has a poor reputation among professional historians, mainly for its promotion of pseudohistory through ridiculous shows like Ancient Aliens, The Curse of Oak Island and Hunting Hitler. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be associated with it. I told the producers this flat-out. Interestingly, the senior producer told me that he not only understood but sympathized, and said that there was a concerted effort within the network to persuade the brass to drop what’s called their “Friday night lineup” and show only responsible history. I made clear that I didn’t want to have any association with pseudohistorical nonsense. The show I was being asked to be on was, he insisted, completely above board. While not A+ graduate-level academic history, when I was shown the script and began going over it I saw that it was indeed real, defensible history. A bit sensationalized at times—and I pushed back on certain elements I felt were a little too dramatic—but, if we want to encourage the History Channel to actually show real history, this was at least a good way to do it.