TVSquad

My absolute, hands-down favorite new show of this summer is HBO's Flight of the Conchords. The show stars Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement as stranger versions of themselves, musicians from New Zealand trying to make it in big, bag America, with little to no help from their pathetic manager, Murray (the extremely funny Kiwi comic Rhys Darby). But did you know that before the Flight of the Conchords show, there was a Flight of the Conchords band? Well, you probably already knew that, but I wanted to take a moment and marvel at the comedic beauty that is the Bret and Jemaine duo.

Bret, the smaller one with the beard, is probably best known as Figwit from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He was supposed to play a nameless elf but, for some reason, fangirls everywhere fell in love with him and began calling the mysterious elven fellow Figwit ("Frodo Is Great -- Who Is That?!"). His role has gained a strange Internet following, which you can read more about here.

As for Jemaine, the one with glasses and mad sideburns, I remember him from those short-lived Outback Steakhouse commercials. Yes, Outback is supposed to be Australia-themed, so New Zealander Jemaine used an exaggerated Australian accent for the TV spots. Apart from his smarmy Australian voice though, the ads were fairly unremarkable. Jemaine has since moved on from the ads and has a new film out, Eagle vs. Shark. It looks like another indie flick with the awkward Napoleon Dynamite aesthetic, complete with overenthusiastic lightning bolts and nunchucks.

Together, Bret and Jemaine play off each other beautifully, both onstage and onscreen. Neither one is the stand-out star of the series, as they both share the limelight equally and complement each other's best qualities. As for their songwriting, the music is absolutely ridiculous and hilarious, but tremendously catchy at the same time. I often find myself muttering Bret's "The Humans Are Dead" binary solo under my breath. A lot of their songs became solid fan favorites long before the show was even conceived so it's interesting to watch the music being pulled and twisted into newer -- sometimes even weirder -- forms to fit the television program.

This is a clip of one of the boys' stage performances, before they got their own series. This song, "The Humans Are Dead", would later appear on the Flight of the Conchords pilot. I actually like this live version better, if only for the extra laser noises.



And here's a sample of their HBO program's quiet brilliance, from the most recent episode, "Bowie"...



If you love their show, don't forget to give some of their old stuff a listen! You may actually like it better.