The Mel Brooks sequel “History of the World: Part II” premieres on Hulu March 6, but there’s room for more than one amateur sociologist / historian / gagmeister on the planet. To wit: the British mockumentary series “Cunk on Earth,” now on Netflix. It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in months, and not just on Netflix.
Some context. For a decade now, the character of oblivious television personality Philomena Cunk, finessed with indelible deadpan idiocracy by Diane Morgan, has been an increasingly popular TV phenom in Britain. She made her first appearance on the “Daily Show”-esque satirical news program “Weekly Wipe,” created by Charlie Brooker, who went on to do “Black Mirror.”
From those early appearances, longer BBC 2 specials were born — “Cunk on Shakespeare,” “Cunk on Britain,” “Cunk on Christmas” — in addition to book spinoffs. “Cunk on Earth” presents five half-hour segments purporting to survey the whole of human history, inventions, accomplishments and follies. It adds up to an alternate-reality, fact-optional version of David Attenborough’s scenic, slightly gassy chin-strokers, a la “A Life on Our Planet.”
