For most people, Charlie Brooker is best known for his dystopian series ‘Black Mirror’, an anthology that shows several different technological dystopias. The show is dark. From a social credit like app to a Prime Minister forced to have sex with a pig, and have it shown to the internet (which spookily occurred prior to David Cameron’s premiership). Brooker has done very well out of the series, with Netflix paying him $40 million for its third season, and it is fair to say the man has done pretty well from starting out as a video game reviewer.
But in-between his time with Netflix and his journalism days, Brooker would star in an annual review of the year, titled ‘Charlie Brooker’s 20—Wipe’ alongside a weekly iteration of the same series, during which time he created the character of Philomena Cunk, who alongside the character of Barry Sh**peas (I think the name is German) would give insight and general views of the public on certain matters. It was with the character of Cunk that he would branch off into spin off series, with the most recent one being ‘Cunk on Earth’. Like I said, Charlie Brooker is best known for his darker material, and his comedic writings won’t be for everyone, but I would highly recommend Cunk on Earth to anyone, especially if you find the following from the end of episode one funny: ‘next time… we’ll be looking at two of the most important books in history, the Bible and the Quar’an, and finally answering the question – which is best?’
Cunk on Earth is a 5-part mini-series staring the ever-talented Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk – alongside Al Campbell as the aforementioned Barry Sh**peas. The two would often talk about current events, with the main joke being one or two major flaws in their knowledge, one example being from an episode of Weekly Wipe, where on the topic of a TV show discussing Irish Travellers, Barry stated ‘people said it was racist, but it wasn’t, cause none of them were black.’ The character of Cunk’s role increased in the yearly ‘Wipes’ as she was given an extended segment away from the ‘recent historian,’ entitled ‘a moment of wonder.’ This allowed the character of Cunk to discuss more serious ideas like a ‘Pocalypse,’ and interview intellectuals like Professor Brian Cox – in which she responded to his statement of the sun incinerating the earth by asking ‘do you think we might be able to do something about it? Can’t we put it out with a big hose or something?’
The character of Cunk acts like a serious presenter with a childlike view on the world, often getting in funny quips about different subjects, a few examples include: Mother Shipton, ‘a mystic in Yorkshire who lived in a cave, which at the time was better than living in Yorkshire, just like it also is now;’ the subject of society and early cities, in which she stated ‘it’s hard to believe I’m walking through the ruins of the first ever city, because I’m not. That’s in Iraq, which is miles away, and f***ing dangerous.’ It’s hard to really describe the brilliance of these lines alone as text, as so much of the humour comes from Morgan’s monotone delivery of the lines (which is recommend googling to see for yourself). Cunk on Earth acts also as a sequel to ‘Cunk on Britain,’ a show with a similar format, but only confined to British history, rather than general world history as does Cunk on Earth. The series can be described as somewhat formulaic, and you can often guess a few of the jokes: Cunk discussing a wild theory with her mate Paul in opposition to that of an intellectual; Cunk meeting intellectuals and talking utter nonsense about a subject (in which the scenes can vary depending on the intellectual they get); a brief clip of Technotronic’s 1989 song ‘Pump Up the Jam’ (which in later episodes has text appear, asking such culturally intriguing questions as ‘can you get me a Twix?’).
A lot of the humour can only last a first time view, making rewatching a bit poor, but nontheless still hilarious. There is also some slight visual humour that may go unnoticed, such as one seen where an Indiana Jones ‘travel by map’ scene occurs, and lists place names incorrectly, like the continent of Africa as ‘Wales,’ and also areas around Mongolia (which in itself is labelled ‘Ghengis’) are labelled ‘Ghengisn’t.’ The following paragraph will go over mild spoilers of the show, and if I have convinced you of seeing it I highly recommend you stop reading this article, get off the toilet (where you probably currently are) and start watching it on iPlayer. If I haven’t, then feel free to continue reading.
The first episode entitled ‘In the Beginnings’ goes over early civilization, discussing cave paintings and early civilizations – in which Cunk states ‘if you use a modern computer to simulate what it used to look like, the results are nothing short of breath-taking,’ a line that narrates over footage of a Minecraft base (and I mean that literally) – alongside the ‘tragic invention of maths.’ The episode ends with the discussion of Rome, and Cunk playing a game of ‘invented or perfected,’ in which she listed out things that the Romans either invented or perfected, which included underfloor heating, the calendar, roads, concrete, the alphabet and ‘anal bleaching.’ Episode 2, Faith/Off, discussed faith, discussing the likes Jesus – ‘born Jewish but converted to carpentry, as he followed his dad into the primitive chair and table industry’ – before moving onto to the dark ages and religion and South American religions (with an advert for the fictional holiday resort of Talum). Before discussing the spread of Islam, with a 15 second black out over Cunk’s opinions on Islam with ‘This content is not available in your territory’ presented over it, accompanied by royalty free elevator music. The episode then goes onto to discuss the spread of Christianity, alongside Cunk’s view of medieval times – ‘suddenly the gaiety is interrupted when… an arrow flies into the room, it thuds into this wall, right in the middle of the Bayeux Tapestry… the arrow has a message on it… it’s from Robin Hood, threatening the entire Round Table for what they did for Gandalf… it’s chaos, a dancing bear howls in anguish, someone starts loading pigs into a catapult, a space invader floats across the room sh**ing a harpsicord made of glass horses onto the floor.’ The next instalment, The Renaissance Will Not Be Televised starts off in ‘the year… 1440, not now but then.’ It covered the printing press, arts work like that of the Mona Lisa, and Galileo’s trial. It ends with the discovery of America, the formation of the United States of America, and the French Revolution, also discussing the works of Beethoven, who has been reincarnated as an Amazon Alexa rip off called the ‘B8-Hoven Smart Home Plus’ by Silicon Valley Boffins. Episode 4, The Rise of the Machines, discusses the industrial revolution, which starts off with Cunk looking at old guns, and discussing the pain that would (or not) come with getting shot in the eye, with Cunk concluding ‘guns played a huge role in shaping America, and also in killing people.’ Cunk also asks how Lincoln being shot in the head impacted his ability to lead, before moving on to electricity and transportation, discussing her confusion with planes, and humanity’s obsession with the sky as ‘there’s nothing up their… not even seats,’ believing that planes only fly by belief of the public. A brief homage to Top Gear occurs with a replica Model T Ford, a car at such a slow speed, the segment was only narrowly more exhilarating than modern Top Gear. Cunk also talks about both world wars, getting emotional at the end of the penultimate episode after finding out nukes were still around, and that they were not, as she previously assumed, blanks. The final episode, Wars of the Worlds, goes over the cold war and its several proxy wars asking, ‘is that a bit like picking your character to fight with in Street Fighter 2’ and ‘If this was Street Fighter 2… would the Russians pick Zangeif because he’s from the Soviet Union?’ (presumably Brooker getting use out of his old video game journalism day). Cunk also expresses her disgust after finding out Laika the dog died during the space race, and that there is, as she stated, ‘a dead dog in space.’ Cunk also talks about popular cultural of the time, including Elvis Presley who had ‘overcome childhood poverty and a hip impediment.’ The episode also catches up with the release of ‘Pump Up the Jam’ and goes over the advancements of computers, mobile phones and the status of Bill Gates’ Marriage. The episode ends with Cunk in a green screen to joke about the Covid Travel Restrictions during filming (It appears that the crew only went to Rome, and for the rest of the shoot stayed within the UK).
‘Cunk on Earth’ is not a ground breaking series in many regards, and many of the jokes it does are repeated from prior Cunk series, but Brooker, Morgan and the whole team have produced a short series with less than a 3-hour watch time that is extremely funny, whilst also getting a few quips about different subjects in, like that of religion. Like I said, not everyone will find the series extremely funny, and the only times that I laughed out loud on rewatches was during either slightly non-PC jokes, or ones with mild swear usage. But if you do like mildly topical humour, and any or Brooker’s other works, I can highly recommend that you give it a watch.