TV Thursday: Get Buzzed, Get Drunk, Get Crunk, Get Cunked Up

If you’re reading this, you’ve likely heard of Philomena Cunk by now. Most Americans first became familiar with Britain’s daftest documentarian thanks to Cunk on Earth, the first of her docu-shows officially released in America, on Netflix in 2023. But Philomena Cunk (played by Diane Morgan) has been around for a while, first appearing in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe¹ with her “Moments of Wonder” segments, which are available on YouTube. She then spun off into her own specials and series, one-offs such as Cunk on Shakespeare and Cunk on Christmas, and miniseries like Cunk on Britain and the aforementioned Cunk on Earth. The latest was 2024’s Netflix one-off Cunk on Life.

I’m bringing you today’s article because her newest series, Cunk on Cinema, is premiering Sunday on Netflix for the Stars and Stripers and BBC Two for the Union Jacks. So if you’re not familiar with her, now’s a good time to catch up.

While Diane Morgan described Cunk to Stephen Colbert as “me with no social skills,” I don’t think Morgan is that daffy or Cunk is that antisocial. Mostly what defines Cunk is a complete cluelessness about the subject she’s trying to cover, baffling metaphors, strange digressions (often about her mate Paul²), and interviews with subject experts who quickly realize just how out of her depth she is— and if Cunk were as antisocial as Morgan thinks, they would probably never humor her. (When one expert in Cunk on Earth explains to her that nuclear weapons are in fact still very much in existence, she breaks down in distress and asks to change the subject… which then leads to the two bonding over their shared love of ABBA.)

Of course, while Philomena Cunk’s work attempts to cover the whole of history, she herself has been working in the documentary field in our modern times, roughly three to four decades after the 1986 premiere of BBC sitcom Brush Strokes.

And slightly less longer after the 1989 release of unrelated Belgian techno anthem “Pump Up the Jam.”

Well, if you watched those whole videos, you probably have a good idea of what Philomena Cunk’s output is like. But if not, here are a few of my favorite examples, in particular from the BBC shows and specials that never officially made their way to the States, to lower the possibility I give away some good jokes you can easily see for yourself:

• Cunk on Christmas, taking religious art a little too literally: “The baby Jesus wasn’t an ordinary baby. He was born with a big yellow circle around his head, which must have been hell for Mary to push out, especially when you think nothing had ever been in or out of her down below before.”
• Cunk on Shakespeare, interviewing a Shakespearean actor: “Do you just learn the famous bits, like ‘To be or not to be’? Or do you learn all the bits in between, as well?” “I have to learn all the bits in between.” “You’re fucking joking.”
• Again, analyzing Shakespeare’s comedic chops: “Of course, if you go to watch a Shakespeare comedy today, you’ll hear the audience laughing as though there are jokes in it, even though there definitely aren’t. That’s how clever Shakespeare is.”
• From Cunk on Britain, made at a time when “Britain is standing at a fork in its crossroads,” on England’s witch trials: “Matthew Hopkins devised a method to test if a woman was a witch. Hopkins’ method was absolutely fool-proof. Which was handy, because it had to be done by village idiots.”
• And two longer segments from that show, first her discussion of Henry VIII. I’m not going to transcribe it, just watch— it’s a great example of her being earnest and sort-of correct but also completely clueless,
• And then this exchange from Cunk on Britain, attempting to discuss the Arthurian legend with an expert academic:

• King Arthur came a lot, didn’t he?
• I… I think that you mean that he’s associated with the court of Camelot.
• No, it definitely says “King Arthur came a lot.”
• Camelot.
• Camelot?
• Yeah, it’s it’s his court. Where he, where he held court. It’s, it’s a place.
• Oh, right. But do we know if he came a lot? Or, like, just the same as an average man? Like about a tablespoon.
• The only evidence I have in that regard is that he is said to have had one child.
• Right. So probably not.
• Probably not.

The complete list of Cunk projects:

• “Moments of Wonder” (shorts on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, 2013-15)
• Cunk on Shakespeare (one-off special, 2016)
• Cunk on Christmas (one-off special, 2016)
• Cunk on Everything (book / audiobook, 2018)
• Cunk & Other Humans on 2019 (one-off special, believe it or not, 2019. Also I think other humans are in fact involved)
• Cunk on Britain (miniseries, 2018)
• Cunk on Earth (miniseries, 2022 UK, 2023 US)
• The World According to Cunk (book / audiobook, 2024)
• Cunk on Life (one-off special, 2024)
• Cunk on Cinema (miniseries, in a few days or so if you’re reading this on time)

Anyway, I hope I’ve convinced you to give the United Britain of Great Kingdom’s greatest documentariarian a shot. And if you like her, you may want to consider some similar and inspirational shows as well. Alan Partridge is a fictional character in a fictional world (and, aside, possibly the UK’s greatest comic character), but he is similarly hopelessly out of his depth, although far more insecure and egotistical about it. Da Ali G Show³ is, of course, centered around a similarly idiotic documentarian interviewing real people. And blurring the line between reality and comedy is a staple of Nathan Fielder’s, and odd documentaries that go inexplicable places is what you’ll find with John Wilson.

Other TV news

Hey, Adults not only got renewed, but got 16 episodes for season three, practically unprecedented in our world where cable and streaming are moving closer and closer to the UK model than our old network model. This interview with John Landgraf goes into more detail. (I think; at some point, you need a subscription to keep reading, but I was mostly looking for the parts about the renewal and the 60% jump in viewership between seasons one and two.)

Upcoming TV Thursday Programming

I don’t know. Please, I’m begging you, someone else volunteer to finish the month. If you make me publish something on Thanksgiving Day you will all be extremely disappointed with it.

1. I never much watched it (or, to tell you the truth, Black Mirror), but I did catch a little bit of his Screenwipe. Long after it aired, of course, but it was long enough ago that he did mention The Shield as an actually good American television show. So I guess he has at least some taste. ↩︎
2. At one point in Cunk on Life while interviewing a scientist about DNA (“tiny and complex, like Tom Cruise”) and of course calling it “D and A,” she gives us this: “My mate Paul tried to create a new lifeform by inserting his DNA into a grapefruit, but halfway through the experiment, the greengrocer started hitting him.” ↩︎
3. I probably won’t bother to see the new movie. I suspect he doesn’t have his fastball anymore, the reviews haven’t been good, and, if I’m being frank and especially considering the last three years, his hardcore Zionism (and the hardcore-to-the-point-of-psychosis Zionism of one of his writers, Lee Kern) and the fact that his most famous character is stereotyping a Muslim nation as backwater racist sister-fuckers are a lot harder to take. ↩︎