Flight of the Conchords: New Zealand's Deadpan Folk-Parody Duo

Flight of the Conchords are Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, a two-man folk-parody band from Wellington, New Zealand, who sing immaculately crafted pastiches of pop genres with completely straight faces. They won a Grammy, made two seasons of an HBO sitcom about themselves, and launched two of the most interesting comedy careers of the last twenty years. If you searched for "the Flight of the Conchords star" Clement, he is the taller one with the deep voice and the glasses; McKenzie is the one with the higher voice who later won an Oscar.

Their whole act rests on a single rule: never let the audience see you think the song is funny. The music is real, the playing is good, the harmonies are tight, and the lyrics are absurd. That gap between craft and content is where the comedy lives.

From Wellington flatmates to the Fringe

Clement and McKenzie met at Victoria University of Wellington and were flatmates when they formed the duo in 1998. Before that, they had performed together in a five-man comedy group called So You're a Man, which also included Taika Waititi, debuting at Wellington's BATS Theatre. Wellington's small, close-knit theatre scene gave them a place to develop the act slowly.

They took it abroad in the early 2000s. They played the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2002, 2003 and 2004, and their 2003 show was nominated for the Perrier Award. They won Best Newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Then came a six-part BBC Radio 2 series in 2005, a fictionalised version of the band trying to make it in London, with Rhys Darby as their hopeless manager. It won a Sony Radio Academy bronze award and is the direct prototype of the HBO show.

Their 2005 half-hour on HBO's One Night Stand stand-up series and their 2006 appearances at South by Southwest made them a cult name in the US, and HBO commissioned a series.

The HBO series (2007–2009)

Flight of the Conchords premiered on HBO in June 2007. Co-created by Clement, McKenzie and James Bobin, it follows fictional versions of the pair as a struggling New Zealand folk duo in New York. They share a tiny apartment, have almost no gigs and only one fan. Each episode includes two or three music videos that grow out of the plot, shot in a deliberately cheap style that parodies the genre they are singing in.

The supporting cast is part of the legend:

• Rhys Darby as Murray Hewitt, their manager, who also works at the New Zealand consulate and runs band meetings with a strict roll call. The best-loved character on the show.
• Kristen Schaal as Mel, their only fan, whose devotion slides cheerfully into stalking.
• Arj Barker as Dave, the pawnshop owner who gives terrible advice with total confidence.
• Eugene Mirman as Eugene, the landlord, one of several 2000s New York alt comedians in the show's orbit.

The first season (12 episodes) used songs the duo had been performing for years. The second (10 episodes, 2009) needed new ones written at speed, which the pair later said was exhausting. In December 2009 they announced there would be no third season. The show was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series, and the band received a run of other Emmy nominations, largely for the songs.

The songs and how they work

Every Conchords song is a genre exercise. They pick a style (1970s soft rock, Bowie-era glam, French pop, early-90s hip-hop, synth-pop) and nail its sound, then fill it with lyrics that are hopelessly literal, awkward or small-scale. The joke is never "this genre is stupid." It is "these two polite men from Wellington are doing this genre with total sincerity, and it doesn't fit them at all."

A few essentials, described rather than quoted:

• "Business Time." A slow-jam seduction song in the Barry White mould, about a married couple's very ordinary Wednesday-night routine. The more breathy and grand the music gets, the more mundane the details become.
• "The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)." A romantic ballad whose compliments are hedged into near-insults, the sound of a shy man trying to flirt.
• "Inner City Pressure." A precise pastiche of the Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls," applying grim urban-alienation imagery to the problems of two broke musicians.
• "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros." A rap battle between two gentle men adopting fearsome personas, full of boasts that fall apart on inspection.
• "The Humans Are Dead" (also known as "Robots"). A robotic synth number narrated from a future after machines have wiped out humanity, delivered with tidy, deadpan cheerfulness.
• "Bowie." A tribute to David Bowie's space-age phase that turns into a set of increasingly silly questions about life in orbit.

Musical comedy often signals the joke with mugging or a funny voice. The Conchords barely move their faces. That restraint is what links them to the wider alt comedy tradition of underplaying, and it is why the songs still hold up on repeat listens: you can enjoy them as songs.

Albums, the Grammy and live shows

Their EP The Distant Future (2007) won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 2008. They signed to the indie label Sub Pop, which released the self-titled album Flight of the Conchords (2008) and I Told You I Was Freaky (2009); both were nominated for the same Grammy. Their earlier live album, Folk the World Tour (2002), documents the act before television.

After the series they toured on and off, including a 2016 North American tour and the 2018 UK and Ireland tour that produced the HBO special Live in London. The duo has never formally split; they reunite when both are free, which in practice is not often.

Jemaine Clement after the Conchords

Clement's biggest project is What We Do in the Shadows (2014), a mockumentary about vampire flatmates in Wellington that he co-wrote, co-directed and starred in with Taika Waititi. It spun off the New Zealand police comedy Wellington Paranormal and the long-running FX series What We Do in the Shadows (2019–2024), which Clement developed for television; Kristen Schaal turns up in it as the Guide.

His deep, mournful voice has made him a natural for animation: Nigel the villainous cockatoo in Rio (2011) and Tamatoa, the treasure-hoarding giant crab who gets a glam-rock number in Disney's Moana (2016). In live action he played Boris the Animal in Men in Black 3 (2012), Oliver Bird in the FX series Legion, and a scientist in Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). For alt comedy fans, his early film Eagle vs Shark (2007) and Jared Hess's Gentlemen Broncos (2009) are worth tracking down.

Bret McKenzie after the Conchords

McKenzie moved towards songwriting. He was music supervisor on The Muppets (2011) and wrote "Man or Muppet," which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, a rare case of a comedy songwriter taking that prize. He returned to write songs for Muppets Most Wanted (2014) and has continued to write for film and stage.

Long before any of this, he had a famous blink-and-you'll-miss-it role as an elf in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, who fans nicknamed "Figwit." In 2022 Sub Pop released his solo album Songs Without Jokes, whose title is honest: it's a set of sincere, 1970s-flavoured piano-pop songs, and a reminder that the musicianship in the Conchords was never fake.

Why Flight of the Conchords matter

The Conchords proved that musical comedy, then seen as a slightly embarrassing subgenre, could be genuinely cool. Their influence shows up in the self-aware songwriting of Bo Burnham, the looping improvisations of Reggie Watts, and in a whole wave of comedians who use real musicianship rather than novelty. They also showed that a deadpan, small-scale sensibility from a city of a few hundred thousand people could travel worldwide.

For more records to explore, see our list of essential alt comedy albums, and for the scene they collided with in New York, read about alt comedy in the 2000s.

Frequently asked questions

Who are the members of Flight of the Conchords?

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, two New Zealanders who met as students at Victoria University of Wellington and formed the duo in 1998.

What else has Jemaine Clement been in?

Clement co-wrote, co-directed and starred in the vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows (2014) with Taika Waititi. He also voiced Tamatoa in Moana and Nigel in Rio, played Boris the Animal in Men in Black 3, and appeared in Legion and Avatar: The Way of Water.

Did Bret McKenzie win an Oscar?

Yes. McKenzie won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 'Man or Muppet' from The Muppets (2011), a film for which he was music supervisor.

Why did Flight of the Conchords end?

The HBO series ended after two seasons in 2009 because Clement and McKenzie said writing an album's worth of songs plus a season of scripts was exhausting. The duo itself never split; they have toured and reunited periodically since.

Where can I watch Flight of the Conchords?

The HBO series and the Live in London special are on HBO's streaming service (Max) in the US and with HBO partners elsewhere; availability varies by country.