When I got the Flight of the Conchords DVD, I was slightly disappointed to see that there aren't any fun special features. I spent about ten minutes watching Bret and Jemaine dance through the title menu before I finally accepted that the two-disc set consisted only of the 12-episode season. Again, my disappointment was only slight, because the overall awesomeness of the series is enough to keep anyone happy. Little did I know there would be a sneaky surprise waiting for me in plain sight. This is an appropriate time to use "tee hee".After watching about three marathon-runs of the DVD, I poked around the menus a bit more and saw that there was a language setting for Spanish. I usually like trying out foreign language dubbings on my DVDs at least once so that I can hear how much the voice actors sound like the on-screen people. Yes, I'm one of those types. Easily amused. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the guy playing Jemaine had a very similar deep voice, although Bret's guy was a little off-mark. Then the musical numbers rolled around and I almost fell out of my chair. They actually went through and re-recorded all the songs in Spanish?
So, I went through yet another marathon-run of the series, this time totally en español. First of all, it is insanely difficult to do a binary solo in Spanish. It just is. "Zero, zero, zero, one" becomes "zero, zero, zero, uno" and that extra syllable provides a world of complications, especially when one also has to maintain a weird robot voice. Also, for some reason, they re-did the French "Foux Da Fa Fa" song in Spanish. "Bonjour, monsieur" somehow became the bizarre "Bonjour, señor", but "baguette" remained the same. I quietly complained about how that destroyed the entire purpose and then proceeded to watch the music clip five more times. Plus, it's fun to see how certain phrases are translated, like "ginger balls" or "doggy bounce". I won't ruin it for you.
I never learned Spanish in school (three years of French, baby), so I don't have an ear for variations in Spanish accents. I was wondering if Bret and Jemaine had a sort of, I don't know, New Zealand flavor to their Spanish? There are a lot of jokes about their accents ("Bret." "B-Brit?" "Bret." "Brit? Like... Britney?"), so how do those translate? Come on, there has to be at least one person out there who speaks Spanish with a Kiwi accent.
And on a final note, I must applaud the Spanish voice actors/singers for maintaining Bret and Jemaine's spontaneous falsettos. Bravo, boys.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-23-2007 @ 4:40PM
Usama said...
Wait, 13-episode season? I thought I saw them all, and I only saw 12. Is this wrong: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0863046/episodes ?
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11-23-2007 @ 4:56PM
Annie Wu said...
Usama: Wait, wait. You're right. I only typed in 13 because my friend once told me that there were 13 episodes. I even corrected her and told her it was really 12. Her words have poisoned my mind.
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11-23-2007 @ 6:00PM
Jim said...
> I usually like trying out foreign language dubbings on my DVDs at least once so that I can hear how much the voice actors sound like the on-screen people.
If that's the kind of thing that you're into ...
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11-23-2007 @ 6:15PM
Annie Wu said...
It is, Jim. That's why I said, "Yes, I'm one of THOSE types".
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11-23-2007 @ 7:53PM
Joe said...
Jim's comment was a reference to the 'Yoko' episode. Does the DVD have the actual production order of episodes? It was a little weird to see Murray's computer change every week and I prefer production orders, as they let me see the true vision of the creators, as wanky as that sounds.
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11-23-2007 @ 8:04PM
Usama said...
Thanks for clearing that up Annie. Looks like your friend was just looking for an excuse to be given the DVD set as a present :-)
Nice one Jim! And I do believe the remixed songs are worth getting excited about.
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11-23-2007 @ 8:29PM
Annie Wu said...
Oh, man. If that was a reference, I totally missed it. Epic fail.
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11-23-2007 @ 8:34PM
Jim said...
No worries, Annie. I'm not cryn' -- it's just been rainin' on my face.
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11-23-2007 @ 10:18PM
Usama said...
I'd like to say someone should stop Jim but.. wait, why the hell would I say that? I need to rewatch these episodes like, now.
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11-24-2007 @ 8:05AM
Jim said...
Aww ... you know what time it is, Usama?
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11-24-2007 @ 12:08PM
Alistair Gellan said...
It's business; it's business tiiime!
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12-13-2007 @ 2:33PM
Quinlan said...
Well, about your spanish experiment just a note: Its never been aired in Spain. So that must be a latinamerican voice over.
And yes, in my country they even used to do voice over all the musical movies like "Sound of music" or Singing in the rain".
The horror! The horror! XD
Saludos.
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12-29-2007 @ 4:54AM
danielgreenb said...
Great news!! Love the Concords.
this blog chose them as best EP of 2007!
I personally think it should be Black kids, but the concords are just as awesome.
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