A.V. Club Interview

by Sam Adams January 13, 2009

When Flight Of The Conchords debuted on HBO in 2007, the musical sitcom about a pair of unknown New Zealanders struggling for success felt as if it might be based, however faintly, in real life. But a Grammy, two Emmy nominations, and a platinum record later, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are hardly unknowns. Their sleepy deadpan delivery and scruffy charisma have made them low-key heartthrobs, and their low-tech music videos are tailor-made for the YouTube era. The show's second season, which premières Jan. 18, finds their fictional selves as downtrodden as ever, penning jingles for a women-only toothpaste and being neglected by their manager, Murray (Rhys Darby), who's preoccupied with million-selling novelty act Crazy Dogggz. During a break from filming in a Brooklyn warehouse, McKenzie and Clement sat down at Murray's desk with The A.V. Club, which resisted the urge to call the roll.

The A.V. Club: I remember seeing the first episode and thinking, "Wow, this is really funny. I'm glad they got a full season, because that's obviously going to be all there is." The next thing I know, you guys are selling out 3,000-seat theaters.

Bret McKenzie: It could have slipped by. There are a lot of good shows that don't get picked up. Like that Ben Stiller pilot, Heat Vision And Jack? That would have been a great show, but somehow it slipped by.

Jemaine Clement: That's even weirder than our show, really.

AVC: You'd already done a version of the show for BBC Radio, so you hit the ground running. Even the pilot is fully formed, in terms of visual sensibility and the characters' identities. Were there things you wanted to do differently in the second season?

JC: I think we made the same mistakes again.

BM: I think we learnt, but we probably didn't—

JC: Apply our learning.

BM: Apply our lessons, yeah. One thing we did learn was that the transition to song is a really crucial moment in the musical format. It's easier if the song somehow slips into the scene, rather than a hard cut to a music video. So we kind of played around with different ways of transitioning from the real world of the show into the surreal world of the music videos.

AVC: The first season is almost an encyclopedia of the New York alternative-comedy scene, with Kristen Schaal and Eugene Mirman in recurring roles, and guest appearances by Todd Barry and Demetri Martin. Was there a thought that that might be a good way to get the show to an American audience?

BM: No.

JC: It can go a long time with just New Zealanders, but we try to make sure there's American characters in it. I'm always aware when we're looking through the script that in the first few scenes, there should be an American character.

BM: We didn't cast them to try and break into a market or anything. We cast them mainly 'cause we knew them. And we didn't want to have people that were well-known.

JC: It really is like, "Who do we know?" Todd, Demetri, Arj [Barker], and Eugene are all the Americans we knew.

AVC: Every comedian who's ever opened a rock show, basically.

BM: Yeah, that's true, it's the same circuit. John Hodgman is another one. This season, we ran out of people we knew.

To read the rest of the interview, than please go here: A.V. Club interview with FotC