HBO’s Flight of the Conchords is my new favorite show. There are a lot of ways to describe Bret McKenzie (one of the elves from Lord of the Rings) and Jermaine Clement (the dude from the Outback Steakhouse commercials), who bill themselves as “New Zealand’s fourth most-popular folk comedy duo.”
If you’re me, that means you’ve been telling people the Conchords are a self-deprecating version of Tenacious D. Or Spinal Tap meets Ricky Gervais’ Extras. Or similar to but kinda the opposite of Entourage. If you’re my friend Michael, then you’re saying the Conchords are like the Monkees crossed with Curb Your Enthusiasm. And if you’re Grant McCracken, you go straight to dissecting the (at least) nine different types of comedic subroutines (including three levels of splicing) that give the show its own blend of humor. Oh you crazy cultural anthropologists ;)
Here’s a scene from a recent episode:
One of my favorite moments in the song is when Jermaine shouts out “What’s wrong with the world today? Unnn say mmm mmm nah nay nay,” as if he’s singing someone else’s song and doesn’t know the rest of the verse. It’s phenomenal.
In interviews, Bret and Jermaine have said that they play exaggerated versions of themselves. I think the brilliance is in their frankness (or their Bretness and Jermainess, if you will). Ultimately, the Conchords speak and sing to us in our own language. They manage to find humor in the awkwardness that we all share.
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