Cunk on Earth (2022) s01e02 Episode Script

1
In the first brilliant instalment
of this soon-to-be award-winning series,
I showed you, for the first time
and better than anyone else,
how humankind dragged itself
out of caveman times,
invented farming, thinking
and sand triangles,
and eventually founded
the brand-new city of ancient Rome.
But that wasn't
the end of the story, obviously,
because it was only episode one.
There was no denying
man had come an incredible distance.
But could he come even further?
Or was he spent and in need of a lie down?
To reach the next level,
humanoid kind would need to believe
in something bigger than man himself,
bigger even than elephant itself.
In this episode, I'll see
how humankind found religion,
and we'll settle an argument
that has raged for centuries.
Which is better,
the Bible or the "Korran"?
- The Koran.
- So that one.
It all happened right here,
on the only planet
still worth fighting for.
This is Cunk on Earth.
The time is half past Rome o'clock B.C.
The Romanite Empire
is at its most biggest.
But despite the fancy columns and mosaics,
there was an emptiness
at the heart of Roman culture.
Holding endless wine-fueled orgies
in cramped vomitoriums is all very well.
But eventually you need something more.
And also a mop.
Humans craved enlighteningment.
To find it, they'd need
a spiritual role model, an icon,
an almost Christ-like figure.
And as luck would have it,
someone fitting that bill
was about to arrive.
None other than Mr. Jesus Christ.
He was born in a humble stable,
which, ironically,
isn't a stable environment for a baby,
unless it's a baby donkey,
which, if records are to be believed,
Jesus wasn't.
In fact,
as this actual painting makes clear,
when Christ was born,
he had a magic flaming circle on his head
which would have set fire to
all the hay and pubes as he came out.
Don't worry, I'm doing Islam later.
Jesus was born Jewish,
but soon converted to carpentry
as he followed his dad into
the primitive chair-and-table industry.
What's ironic about Jesus Christ
becoming a carpenter
was he was actually named after
the two words you're most likely to shout
after hitting your thumb with a hammer.
Scholars believe
he was a real historical figure,
like Justin Timberlake or Garfield.
Whether or not they think he was
the actual son of God
who performed miracles
like walking on wine
or helping a deaf man see
they all agree he preached
tolerance and forgiveness,
a message so important
his most ardent followers
would eventually start killing
anyone who didn't want to hear it.
Little wonder this radicalized wood smith
scared the Roman authorities.
They considered Jesus so dangerous
they had him crucified.
And not just a little,
but all the way to death.
Just imagine Christ's conflicted emotions.
He'd been sent to Earth to save mankind,
and yet here he was,
enduring the physical agony
of being nailed to a cross,
while also knowing what a great logo
it would make for his long-term campaign.
Jesus was killed because people
didn't like what he was saying.
So could you call him the first
celebrity victim of cancel culture?
I think cancel culture
would sort of require
the idea that people
really saw Jesus as standing for something
and they were sure they knew what it was.
No, sorry. That wasn't a question.
I'm literally asking
if you could call him
the first celebrity victim
of cancel culture for our show.
Down that lens there.
Just, you know, it's for a credit sequence
with punchy soundbites in it.
Off you go. Down that lens.
- Okay, down this lens?
- Yeah.
You might even say Jesus was the first
celebrity victim of cancel culture.
Brilliant. Thank you.
But incredibly, just when it seemed
the life of Christ was over,
he respawned, danced up a hill
and leapt all the way up into heaven,
breaking all world records
for a standing jump in the process.
During his lifetime,
Jesus only had 12 followers,
fewer even than my Uncle Steve's
uninspiring Instagram account.
But that all changed
once his teachings began to spread
in the form of the written word.
After he died, Jesus came back to Earth
in the form of a book, didn't he?
Why do Christians call
that special book the "Bibbel"?
- The Bible?
- Is that how it's pronounced?
I've literally never heard anyone
say it before. How'd you say it?
- Bible.
- So why is it spelt "Bibbel"?
Because I've seen it written down.
B-I-B-L-E.
- Yeah, Bible.
- Bibbel.
Christ's message was spread
far and wide by the Apostles
almost 2,000 years before the release
of Belgian techno anthem
"Pump Up the Jam."
Pump up the jam, pump it up ♪
While your feet are stomping ♪
And the jam is pumping ♪
Look ahead, the crowd is jumping ♪
Pump it up a little more ♪
Get the party going
On the dance floor ♪
See, 'cause that's
Where the party's at ♪
And you'll find out if you do that ♪
I want a place to stay ♪
Get your booty
On the floor tonight ♪
Make my day ♪
I want a place to stay ♪
Get your booty on the floor ♪
But not everyone appreciated
the swinging sound of Christianity,
especially in Rome,
where Christians were persecuted,
which is Latin for "shat on."
And if you were a Christian back then,
perhaps the worst place to find yourself
was the Colosseum, an area
of misery on a par with Birmingham.
It was here the Romans
first threw Christians to the lions,
possibly to see if their pacifist message
would rub off on the beasts
and make them less angry and bitey.
If a Christian won, right, and ate a lion,
would they then go forward
to the next round?
You know, and would they
have to eat something else,
like a whole horse or something?
There's not a lot of evidence that they
threw very many Christians to the lions.
Just for this, can you pretend that loads
of Christians were thrown to the lions?
Really? But that's wrong.
Do you think the Christians
would forgive the lions for eating them
while it was happening?
They probably didn't blame the lions.
I mean, a lion was only doing
what lions naturally do.
Do we know how the lions felt about
only ever being given one thing to eat?
Can't have been fun, can it?
You know.
Imagine if every day your lunch
was just screaming and wouldn't stop.
That's going to have an impact
on your mental health.
- The mental health of lions.
- Yeah.
Hmm.
Incredibly, within a few hundred years,
the Romans had become
Christians themselves.
But why?
Tragically, none of the people involved
in ancient Rome are still alive today.
So to find out why that happened,
we have to sift through ancient texts,
like you do at the end of a relationship.
Thanks to the modern science of reading,
we now know
the Roman Emperor Constantine,
whose name means constant or unchanging,
one day unexpectedly changed
to Christianity.
Soon, all the Romans
had converted to Christianity,
and shortly after that,
they stopped throwing
Christians to the lions altogether.
No one knows why.
The Romans had found God
almost overnight.
What is it about religion
that can win us over so unexpectedly?
Why do humans need to believe
in something bigger than ourselves?
Is it so we don't feel quite so fat?
Well, I think the sense
of purpose and value
constitutes a very important element
of a happy life.
But it must help.
If you think how big the world is,
suddenly you feel a lot slimmer.
Quite possibly.
Some people have a sudden
religious conversion, don't they?
My mate Paul was driving to Winchester
when a lorry jack-knifed in front of him
and he was hurtling towards it
and everything went slo-mo.
And Paul, who's never been religious,
spoke to Jesus and said,
"I promise if I survive this,
I'll believe in you."
And he did survive, but he fractured
his skull and broke both his legs.
Why did Jesus do that to him?
Well, you've raised a very significant
question about the nature of providence.
- Have I?
- You have, indeed.
If we believe in a good God,
why is there so much evil in the world?
- Now, your friend
- Paul.
Paul, his accident,
uh, you know, to what extent
can one blame God for that?
See, Paul never forgave him.
He said, "If I ever see Christ again,
he's a dead man."
Right.
Rome had become
a beacon of Christian faith.
But disaster was just around the corner,
because the Romans
had converted to a religion of peace
just in time to have
their arse handed to them
by some people who mainly believed
in hammers and smashing.
They were the Vandals,
an ancient group notorious
for their appetite for destruction,
like Guns N' Roses.
Right now I'm standing on,
and also in, modern Rome,
which, by an incredible coincidence,
is on the same site as the ancient one.
And it's here the Vandals'
terrifying assault on the city took place.
The Vandal hordes
would have swept through there,
past the coffee shop with the rude staff,
all the way down here,
killing, looting and burning as they went.
We also know that traffic intersection
wouldn't have been there at that time,
so they could have safely ignored
any associated road signals
during their invasion.
Also, that pizza place
wouldn't have been open
because they think the rampage
happened on a Sunday.
And according to TripAdvisor,
it closes over the weekend
and isn't suitable
for large groups anyway.
But everything else you see around here
would have been completely destroyed.
By the time the Vandals rolled out
of this part of the city
and into the next one,
they'd left nothing but destruction
and horseshit in their wake.
Rome had been sacked, destroyed,
properly fucked to bits.
And once Rome fell,
the entire Roman Empire went kaput.
The grim period that followed
became known as the "Darkages."
Ow, shit!
"Darkages" sort of sounds
like a symptom, doesn't it?
You know, maybe like a plague thing.
- Do you mean the Dark Ages?
- Oh, right, is that what it is?
If you mean an old-fashioned term
for the early Middle Ages.
- Right.
- Except we don't use that term anymore.
Oh, do we not?
Well, it has very negative connotations
of being a dark and ignorant
and benighted time, and, um
- Which it was.
- Not really.
It had fantastic thinkers and historians
and artists and authors.
But it was a bit shit.
The Dark Ages was a depressing era
during which the whole of Europe
fumbled about in the dark,
banging its shins on stuff
and getting all diseases up its bum.
It must have properly
done people's heads in.
Whenever you see medieval times,
there's this sort of annoying
"hey nonny no" music playing constantly.
- Yeah, pretty much.
- You know, that music, that sort of
Yeah.
Yep. There's a lot of that.
Where's that sound coming from?
Couldn't they switch it off?
The Dark Ages were a tragedy
for human progress
that put back the rollout of 5G
by hundreds of years.
So we've had the Dark Ages.
Has there been a Light Ages?
Well, the claim was made
by people in the early modern period,
the so-called Renaissance,
that theirs was the age of light.
And then, of course,
we have a whole era later
that people called the Enlightenment.
Is that in this episode
or will that come up later?
Well, I'm guessing it will come up later.
Which episode are we in now?
Um, I
Probably something about the Middle Ages.
Yeah, but is it, like,
episode three or episode four?
- I'm afraid I'm not sure.
- We're both just lost here, aren't we?
This is fucking awful.
But luckily,
Europe wasn't the only country
having a history back then.
Boffins now believe other countries,
such as South America and Asia,
were having their own histories too.
And they were keeping civilization going
in their own funny, exotic,
foreign little ways.
This is the city of Chichen Itza,
built by the Mayan people
in what is now Mexico.
And this is its centerpiece,
the Temple of Kukulkan.
If you were brought here
a thousand years ago,
chances are you were about to be
sacrificed to appease Chaac,
the Mayan god of rain.
Today, you're perhaps more likely to be
dropping by as part of a pleasant day trip
out from the nearby
holiday resort of Tulum.
That's where I'm staying,
at the five-star
Casa de Lujo Hotel and Spa.
This all-inclusive resort,
nestling on the picture-perfect
Tulum coastline,
really is the last word in luxury.
All the rooms are en suite,
and with this stunning ocean view,
it's hard to think of a reason
to get out of bed.
Apart, of course, from the beautiful beach
and constant sunshine
right here on your doorstep.
If the sunny skies get too much,
there are three pools to cool off in,
including one for adults only.
There's plenty for the little ones too,
with the Turtle Club giving them
the holiday of their allegedly
important little lives so far.
And with five onsite restaurants
to choose from,
you'll never get bored of the food.
If all that wasn't enough,
the stunning Inspiration Spa
offers world-class wellness options,
from toenail filing to vigorous rubbing.
And when the sun goes down,
the nightlife begins.
With local spirits,
wines and beers all included,
there's no reason to hold back.
With sunshine all day and partying
all night, you won't want to go home.
Philomena stayed five nights
at the Casa de Lujo Hotel and Spa.
All-inclusive prices start
at £200 per person per night
based on two sharing.
VAT not included.
Terms and conditions apply.
While the Mayans
worshiped their gods,
thousands of miles away in Arabia,
a prophet named Muhammad
was founding another religion, Islam.
Apparently,
Islam can be a sensitive topic,
and the producers say
if I don't follow this script
to the letter,
there's a chance I'll cause
a serious international incident.
That's quite a blow, to be honest.
It's all right, I'll busk it.
So, what can we say about Islam?
Well, for one thing
I, for one, don't think any of that
is controversial at all.
Islam represented a radical break
from previous religions
because the buildings it happened inside
were a slightly different shape.
It expanded across the globe
almost as quickly as Fox News
thinks it still does today.
It was an apparently
irresistible spread, like Nutella.
The Koran says
accumulating knowledge is a worthy act.
So Islamic mega nerds created
the first universities and libraries
containing
all the world's knowledge,
which, at that point, could probably fit
into one pamphlet, to be fair.
Mm.
Because they needed more knowledge
to fill their libraries,
Muslim boffins got into maths.
Calculus, geometry, and of course
the most Islamic-sounding one, al-gebra.
Not to be outdone, Christianity was also
expanding, thanks to missionaries.
The missionaries were known
for their position,
which was that the big man, God,
was on top
and the rest of us
had to lie back and take it.
Sent by the Pope,
missionaries took the Bible and the cross
and set out from here, painstakingly
making their way right across the map.
And eventually ending up
all the way over here in Ireland,
where they spread the word
by reading aloud from the
Hold on, I forgot the book.
Travel in those days was
exceptionally perilous and grueling,
so the early missionaries wouldn't have
wanted to undertake their journey twice
any more than I do.
But once they arrived
at their destination,
what they brought
would change the world forever.
The Bible and the
Who moved the cross?
Christianity was the fidget spinner
of medieval times,
a huge craze that would last forever.
It led to a boom in religious iconography.
Images of Jesus were
everywhere you looked.
In medieval times,
there were lots of paintings of Jesus.
How did he find the time to pose
for the artists?
What was his availability like?
Well, he was everywhere, always
- Hmm.
- figuratively speaking.
So they're painting him from memory,
like someone describing an intruder
to a police sketch artist,
but an intruder who's the son of God.
In old paintings of Jesus,
he comes in two modes, doesn't he?
He's either a baby
or he's being crucified.
Are there any paintings where he is
being crucified as a baby?
No. No.
Right. They missed an opportunity there,
didn't they, to play the sympathy card.
Did Jesus ever paint himself?
Uh
I don't believe so.
Certainly there's no record
of that happening.
Can we be sure?
You know, he might not have signed it.
He was quite modest, wasn't he?
He Well, he was modest in parts.
He did also say he was the son of God.
- Yeah. He could have kept that quiet.
- Then he wouldn't have been killed.
Yeah. What an idiot.
Of course, Jesus wasn't
the only deity to inspire art.
There are lots of paintings
of Muhammad too.
But our producer had to sign a form,
promising not to show them.
By the 11th century, most European
countries had converted to Christianity,
but it didn't stop them constantly
going to war with each other.
Then in 1095, Pope Urban II
persuaded them to stop fighting,
come together in harmony
and attack the Muslims instead.
The European kings agreed and launched
a sort of armed charity drive
to forcibly provide the Islamic world
with crucifixes.
They called it "cruce-aid."
Soon, armies from Europe headed east,
hoping to dish out
a righteous international kicking.
So, during the Crusades, the crusaders
went all the way to Jerusalem in armor.
That sounds really uncomfortable.
Was it sponsored?
It was sponsored by the church,
you could say.
- Yeah.
- Um
Because these expeditions
had to be funded.
Yeah.
My mate Paul did a 30-mile sponsored
walk to Harrogate dressed as Spider-Man
for Help for Heroes.
And on the day he had terrible diarrhea,
but he soldiered on.
And it was one of the most noble
but disgusting things I've ever seen.
Eventually, the organizers
had to intervene,
but he raised £368.
You know, the Crusaders
never did that, did they?
No.
In 1099,
the Christians captured Jerusalem,
but then they made a tactical mistake.
They went home without it.
So the Muslims,
under their leader Saladin,
crusaded right back,
retaking Jerusalem in the process.
By now, everyone was
really into the Crusades.
So they started holding them regularly,
fighting back and forth
to see which side
would win Jerusalem this year.
The Crusades sound very violent.
Why can't the religions all learn to live
together in peace like they do in Ireland?
I think if you find someone
who knows the answer to that question,
then you should definitely, um,
publicize it as soon as possible.
Right, yeah. Okay.
But while Christians and Muslims
came to blows,
one man miles away decided he'd show them
what proper warmongering looked like.
That man was the leader
of the Mongols, Genghis Khan.
In Mongol, "khan" means king,
and "Genghis" means something else.
These days, Genghis Khan
comes up in conversation
less often than Dennis Quaid,
but back then
he was the most feared man on Earth.
Genghis and his Mongols
went Mongoling free
across much of Europe and Asia.
Millions of thousands of people
were mercilessly slaughtered.
Many of them got their heads chopped off.
Others had their legs hacked off first,
then an arm or something.
Then maybe their face, which was probably
still screaming as it flew across the hut,
or wherever they lived.
Then the invaders might have taken
the carcasses and hacked them up
and boiled them into soup
and carved all the discarded pelvis bones
into big ladles to drink it with,
and then sat around the fireplace
slurping their gory soup
and laughing and blowing off.
Honestly, it was seriously out of order.
How much blood in terms of pints
was spilt because of Genghis Khan?
Well, you'd have to somehow
know the number of people killed.
Right.
There were stories of
a few hundred Mongol soldiers
dispatching perhaps
up to a million people.
How many pints are in a person?
- I think eight.
- So minimum eight million pints.
Yes.
And they didn't have blood banks
back then, did they?
What a waste.
With all that going on on the doorstep,
is it any wonder people in Europe
took to building fortified homes?
The answer is no.
Standing here now
in whatever castle this is,
I can't help but wonder what life
must have been like in medieval times.
Because medieval times aren't happening
anymore, so wondering is my only option.
But just imagine it.
Here in the central atrium,
the table's laid out for a feast.
People are bashing tankards together
and laughing.
The table is bedecked
with haunches of venison, blackbird pie,
roast goose inside a pig,
the full works,
little bowl of plums there.
Think that's a side dish.
Over here, peasants
are toing and froing in their finery.
A knight clanking by in his armor.
In this corner,
someone's playing medieval flute music.
And in front of that, a jester jumping
up and down in his little bells.
There's a big
sort of ogre thing watching
enjoying the sight of that.
Then up at this end, the king
sitting on his throne next to the queen,
a bishop and a rook.
They're watching Merlin
getting his head chopped off,
which rolls all the way across
the floor to there,
where some wild boar gobble it up.
Oh! Eww!
That is disgusting.
You're lucky you can't see that.
Suddenly the gaiety is interrupted
when the glass in a window shatters
and an arrow flies into the room.
It thuds into this wall,
right in the middle
of the Bayeux Tapestry.
Gasps ring out and give way to whispers,
as Thomas à Becket, that's me,
pulls the arrow from the wall.
Hold on.
Christ.
The arrow has a message on it.
Thomas carefully takes
the message off, discards the arrow
- Oh, fuck!
- Sorry.
unfurls the message and reads it aloud.
It's from Robin Hood.
Threatening revenge on the entire
Round Table for what they did to Gandalf.
Another gasp. The jester faints.
Worried murmurs fill the air
and get louder and turn to screams.
It's chaos.
The flute goes mental.
A dancing bear howls in anguish.
Someone starts loading pigs
into a catapult.
A space invader floats across the room
shitting a harpsichord
made of glass horses onto the floor.
Finally, up at this end,
the king stands up, bashing his gavel.
He shouts, "Order! Order!"
But in a deep man's voice
with a medieval accent.
The castle falls silent.
You can hear a pin drop
but not literally.
"Off with his head!" shouts the king.
And that breaks the ice.
Everything's okay again.
The jester's back up on his feet.
The music's up and running.
Everyone's merrily knocking back the mead.
Life in the castle is back to normal.
Just in time for everyone
to suddenly drop dead from plague.
Anyway, that's what life was like
in my castle.
Have you ever really thought about yours?
But humans couldn't simply
cower behind thick walls
while holy wars waged outside forever.
Religion was supposed to unite humankind
in harmony and bland smiling.
But it had mainly succeeded in tearing it
apart like a bear in a maternity ward.
But little did this church
and others like it know that a challenger
was just around the corner.
Next time, we'll see how a new generation
of artists and brainiacs arose
and challenged God to a fight
during what historians
are already calling the Renaissance.
So is this painting actually good
or is it one of those things
that we only think is good
because we're told it's good,
like seafood?