Cunk on Earth

I have recommended Cunk on Earth a lot to friends over the past week, which was exactly how long it took for Haley and I to devour the five-episode miniseries, a writer's-room sendup of David Attenborough-style documentaries that averages a joke a second and a laugh a minute.

I complain often of modern comedies being unwilling to stick to their lane, so to speak: most critically acclaimed comedies of the past ten years have great writing but also, like, plots about the long-term effects of parental trauma (Bojack Horseman ↗) or debilitating mental illness (You're the Worst). There is nothing wrong with this: I love those shows.

But also I admire a comedy that steers all elements in service of making you laugh, and there is a reason that my two favorite comedies of all time are 30 Rock ↗ and Happy Endings ↗ — they are vehicles for getting you to laugh as much as possible, and everything they do is in service of that goal. Cunk on Earth is a comedy in this vein: it is deeply stupid, and hits the same six or seven genres of joke over and over again, and if that is what you are looking for — if you are tuned into its frequency, so to speak — you will have a great time.