History Series / PhilomenaCunk

* ClassicalMusicIsBoring: Philomena certainy believes so, she complains that Beethoven's 5th Symphony doesn't have lyrics and so is "literally meaningless". She points out that every time somebody talks about the middle ages there has to be an annoying harpsichord sound playing in the background. At one point she is made to listen to a 100 year old phonograph recording. it looks like she's about to burst into tears, and she pleads for it to be turned off.

--->'''Cunk''': In gruelling and exciting scenes like these, expertly depicted in the pulse-quickening video game ''Call of Duty 2'', soldiers grumbled out of their boats, looking for power-ups and health kits, terrified every second that a Nazi bullet might kill them, forcing them to respawn several feet away and be delayed by a number of seconds.

Philomena Cunk, played by English actress Diane Morgan and usually referred to simply by her last name, is a fictional character created as a talking head for Creator/CharlieBrooker's ''Weekly Wipe''. She later received her own ''Moments of Wonder'' segment within that programme, and eventually went on to star in several commissioned {{mockumentary}} series, the titles of which all begin with ''Cunk On...''.

** Cunk is also clearly a bit of a phoneaholic, and several moments can be found where she is presumably supposed to be regarding something or someone with fascinated awe but isn't because she's clearly gotten bored and started playing with her phone instead.

* TheAbridgedHistory: ''Cunk On Britain'' is a parody of sweeping history documentaries presented in Cunk's signature, clueless style.

Philomena Cunk, played by Diane Morgan and usually referred to simply by her last name, is a completely clueless journalist and commentator created as a talking head for Creator/CharlieBrooker's ''Weekly Wipe''. She later received her own ''Moments of Wonder'' segment within that programme, and eventually went on to have several of her own series commissioned.

* ''Cunk On Earth'': Nothing less than a history of human civilisation, in which Cunk asks the big questions, such as "What was the Soviet Onion?" and "Do we know if China has a roof"?

The ''Cunk On...'' shows are marked by Cunk's total absence of basic knowledge about whatever she's talking about, coupled with her firm confidence that she ''does'' know what she's talking about. Joel Morris, one of its writers, said that the basic joke with the character is that viewers ask themselves, "Why have they given a show to someone who knows less about this than me?"

She interviews various (real) authorities on the subject in question and frequently asks questions that are so bizarre that they don't know how to answer. Unlike other shows such as ''Series/{{Brasseye}}'' and ''Series/DaAliGShow'' where the interviewees weren't aware that they were being interviewed by a fictional character, in the ''Cunk On...'' shows, the interviewees are 100% in on the joke. Which, the creators say, is the point.

** In ''Cunk On Earth'', a similar gag has a non sequitor reference to the 1989 single "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic each episode, followed by a minute or so of the song's video and some entirely inaccurate factoids about it. Subverted by the final episode of the series where the song actually has some reference to the events mentioned around it (specifically the Berlin Wall), though the factoids remain inaccurate.

** Cunk is also clearly a bit of a phoneaholic, and several moments can be found where she is clearly supposed to be regarding something or someone with fascinated awe but isn't because she's clearly gotten bored and started playing with her phone instead.

* TheVitruvianPose: The title sequence of ''Cunk On Earth'' has a drawing of Cunk doing this.

** In ''Cunk On Earth'', a similar gag refers to the 1989 single "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic, followed by a minute or so of the song's video and some entirely inaccurate factoids about it.

* AbbeyRoadCrossing: Cunk naturally does one of these in ''Cunk On Britain'' when talking about the Beatles ("George, Ringo and their guitar players.")

* TheDitz: Cunk, obviously. (Zig-zagged from time to time: see DumbassHasAPoint).

* {{Malaproper}}: Cunk thinks that Shakespeare's ''Titus Andronicus'' is called "Tight Arse and Monicus", she refers to the bubonic plague as "the bionic plague", and she calls the Magna Carta the "Magma Carta", which in turn causes her to inform us that, according to Google Translate, "'Magma Carta' is Latin for 'cardboard volcano'."

** Later in the same programme, she observes that school in Shakespeare's time was a lot easier than school today, because back then, nobody had to study Shakespeare.
** PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: She believes ''Romeo and Juliet'' to be a romantic comedy until she discovers halfway through an interview with Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells that both Romeo and Juliet die at the end.