Birds of parodies

New Zealand musicians Bret (Bret McKenzie, left) and Jemaine (Jemaine Clement) look for their big break in Flight of the Conchords. (HBO/Astral/TMN)

The European Concord may have been grounded in 2003, but New Zealand’s Conchords are flying high this summer. Flight of the Conchords, the Wellington-spawned musical duo of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, is currently achieving new altitudes of nuttiness with one of the freshest television comedies to cruise the airwaves in ages.

The pair’s self-titled HBO show, which has been building a buzz since its June debut, is a hilariously inspired riff on the “struggling musicians” premise, splicing together the goofy appeal of The Monkees and the deadpan humour of The Office with some of the wittiest pop-music parodies since Spinal Tap and The Rutles.

In the 12-part series, seen in Canada on The Movie Network and Movie Central, McKenzie and Clement portray fictional alter egos Bret and Jemaine, a couple of talented but luckless New Zealand musicians waiting for the big break in New York City. Handicapping their rise to fame are their part-time manager Murray (Rhys Darby), who can only get the band gigs at trade expos and aquariums (“There was a typo in the ad,” he apologizes. “It was sand they wanted”), and a “fan base” consisting of just one rabid groupie, Mel (Kristen Schaal), a married psychology professor who stalks the guys while her husband waits in his mini-van.

Bret and Jemaine bear these burdens — as well as various romantic setbacks (caused partly by their habit of tagging along on one another’s dates) — in typically taciturn New Zealander style. But when it all becomes too much, they’ll suddenly erupt into a song: maybe a dramatic R&B weeper, or some old-school rap, or a breathy, James Blunt-style love ballad with similes to make John Mayer blush (“You’re so beautiful, like a tree… or a high-class prostitute”). Then there’s Inner City Pressure, a sombre synth-pop plaint spoofing Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls, in which the Conchords’ recite the woes of the hungry artist: “Counting coins on the counter of the 7-Eleven, / From a quarter past six till a quarter to seven. / The manager, Bevan, starts to abuse me. / Hey man, I just want some muesli.”

Bret parodies a Bowie video in Flight of the Conchords. (HBO/Astral/TMN)

Like the best parodies, their songs are just one remove from the real thing, and they deliver them in mock music videos that play on all the cheesy gimmicks and histrionics of the form. Between tunes, the two make for a charmingly clueless comedy team. Bearded Bret, soulful-eyed and grungy, is the innocent who gets the girls. Jemaine, sporting Elvis Presley sideburns and Elvis Costello specs, is the moody one who seems bent on proving that “funky” and “geeky” need not be contradictory adjectives.

“They’re both quite sensitive, but they’re slightly shy and humble,” says James Bobin, the show’s co-creator, putting his finger on their low-key appeal. “So when they break into song to express their inner feelings, you like them for it.”

The series grew out of Clement and McKenzie’s touring musical act, which they actually launched in Canada (at the 2000 Calgary fringe festival) and which has since won them comedy awards and a following in North America, the U.K. and Australia. After the pair taped an HBO One Night Stand program in 2005, the U.S. cable giant hooked them up with British writer-director Bobin to create a half-hour sitcom based on their live performances.

Bobin, who’d written and directed Sacha Baron Cohen’s Da Ali G Show for HBO, says he’d been waiting for the chance to work with the duo. “I first met them at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in 2002,” he recalls in a telephone interview from London. “I went and saw these two guys performing in this cave, with a very good crowd. I was blown away — not just by their songs, but by their banter on stage.” They kept in touch over the years, and when HBO came to Bobin and proposed the show, he immediately signed on.

The challenge was to turn those songs and banter into an ongoing storyline. “We thought we could use a bunch of their best songs and build a story around them,” Bobin says. “I wanted the songs to be organic to the stories and have them grow naturally out of the narrative, as opposed to a musical, where everybody suddenly stops and breaks into song.”

Oddly enough, Bobin says one of the show’s main influences was Cop Rock. Steven Bochco’s short-lived 1990 series, which embedded musical numbers in a police procedural, was slammed by critics and ignored by viewers when it first aired. Today, however, defenders like Bobin regard it as one of network TV’s gutsier experiments. “We dug up a few copies of it and looked at it and used it for inspiration,” he says.

When Bret (Bret McKenzie, left) leaves the band to take a real job, Jemaine (Jemaine Clement, centre) and manager Murray (Rhys Darby) are forced to seek his replacement. (HBO/Astral/TMN)

The show also borrows some elements — and one actor — from the Conchords’ 2005 BBC Radio series. Stand-up comedian Darby, another expat New Zealander, originated the role of the band’s manager on the radio program and has fleshed it out to delightful effect for TV. His lovably square Murray acts as a kind of nerdy older brother to the guys, attempting to manage them while also holding down a desk job as a New Zealand cultural attaché — a role that involves convincing Americans that his country is more than just the backdrop for The Lord of the Rings. (Apparently, it also has a toothbrush fence.) Anal when it comes to organizing band meetings, he’s not so scrupulous on the follow-through — his none-too-brilliant schemes include shooting a Daft Punk-type robot video using cardboard costumes and a camera phone. “Murray’s a more traditional New Zealander, he’s slightly backward technologically and seems stuck in the ’70s,” says Bobin. “So it’s really a ‘blind leading the blind’ situation with him.”

Mel, the lone fan, also ups the show’s quirky quotient. Deftly played by U.S. standup Schaal, she comes off as a disarming amalgamation of giddy schoolgirl and creepy obsessive. “The crazy fan is a staple of rock comedy, so we decided to make her more human,” Bobin says. “That’s why we gave her a husband and a job.” Rounding out the recurring characters is the guys’ American pal, Dave (Arj Barker), a paintball-gun-toting pawnbroker in their Lower East Side neighbourhood, whose dim grasp of most situations doesn’t stop him from dispensing advice.

The series was shot on location in New York between February and June of this year. After it wrapped, Clement and McKenzie hit the road for more touring, and they’ve signed to cut an album for the legendary Sub Pop label. (Clement also has a side career in film, recently starring in the Taika Waititi-directed Eagle vs. Shark.) But Bobin thinks there’s a good chance Flight of the Conchords will get a second season. “HBO seems pretty pleased so far,” he says, “and we’ve got a lot more songs and stories to tell, so we’re hopeful.”

Meantime, Bobin continues his association with Baron Cohen, but given the Borat star’s mockumentary style of comedy, which depends on interviewing subjects under false pretences, he can’t talk about their latest project. “We can’t let people know what we’re doing, it would be counterproductive,” he says. The rude, uncomfortable satire of Borat and Ali G would seem to have little in common with Flight of the Conchords’ blissfully daffy sensibility. Bobin agrees. “Sacha is a great improviser, and Bret and Jemaine are also exceptional, so they share a gift for comedy, but otherwise they’re completely different.”

Flight of the Conchords is currently airing on Movie Central and The Movie Network.

Martin Morrow writes for CBCNews.ca Arts.

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