Flight of the Conchords: Less Is More For New Zealand's 4th Most Popular Folk Parody Duo

When my crack research team and I first began to watch HBO's Flight of the Conchords, the first thing that caught our attention was it's infectious theme song. The song is just simple bass, guitar and drums set over a  rhythm of synthesized bleeps and bloops and probably wouldn't get much notice if not heard again and again  throughout a television series. But what I discovered was that as we got into Season One, I was quietly becoming more and more mesmerized by the catchy steel string acoustic guitar part of the theme song. But by the time we had begun the second season, the theme had become showcase for the bass line as the layer grabbed at my ear, transforming the theme into something that it had not been before, and all without ever having changed a note.

That basically sums up the entire program. There are funny little layers that you may not notice right away but suddenly become something to watch for and enjoy like trying to find the bug in Richard Scarry's children's books. Flight of the Conchords documents the fictional and maybe not so fictional daily lives of New Zealanders Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, who play a sorely underemployed musical duo trying to make it big in New York. The pair of musicians are ably underrepresented by their manager, Murray Hewitt, played by fellow New Zealander Rhys Darby, who manages them out of a small, poorly decorated office, inside a frumpy building near the freeway. The Conchords do their darnedest to endure their shabby existence, living on a shoestring budget of sofa change and dumb luck. They constantly struggle to book good gigs, only manage to eke out bad gigs and suffer painfully low turnout at the gigs that Murray does manage to get. 

While watching the series, I noticed that neither of the guys do a whole lot of smiling, and that Bret has a penchant for shirts and sweaters with animals on them. It also began to dawn on me that nearly every indoor sequence takes place in a cramped space, which gives the series a certain claustrophobic feel to it and adds a sort of third dimension in a similar sense that Ricky Gervais' David Brent created for the British series The Office; an overwhelming discomfort to serve as the backdrop, a veritable wall of sound, if you will, and share it with the audience. The constant cramped feel of the apartment, Murray's office, and even when they take the stage let you breath a sort of sigh of relief when the boys are out riding their bikes through the neighborhood. 

The series is short, running only two seasons before the Conchords opted out of continuing. But like many recently great television runs, sometimes less is more. Flight of The Conchords, with it's music and depth, stands up to repeat views, and is compact enough that it can be enjoyed as both a single piece of work or a full gallery and easily serves as a complete introduction to New Zealand's 4th most popular comedy folk duo.