Music / Garfunkel and Oates

Kate Micucci (left) and Riki Lindhome (right)

Garfunkel and Oates is a comedy pop duo consisting of Riki "Garfunkel" Lindhome and Kate "Oates" Micucci. The two began working together in 2007 after meeting at the Upright Theatre in Los Angeles, naming their band after "pop's most famous second bananas" (Art Garfunkel of Simon & Garfunkel and John Oates of Daryl Hall & John Oates).

Their music is usually defined by its fast pace and combination of sweet-sounding melodies and vocals with raunchy comedy. Song titles include "This Party Just Took a Turn for the Douche" and "Fuck You" (which featured on Scrubs bowdlerized as "Screw You"). They also comment on the current events of time, such as "Sex with Ducks" (a reply to Pat Robertson's comment that if same-sex marriage were permitted, why not bestiality) and "Why Isn't There More Fucking on This Island?" (a reference to Lost). They've even parodied one of their own songs with "I Would Never Dissect a Ewe" (as Simon & Hall!), a take-off of "I Would Never Have Sex with You."

They had their own comedy series on IFC that aired from late summer to fall 2014 for only eight episodes before being officially canceled in 2015. The series eventually became available on Netflix, as well as their special, Trying to Be Special, which was released in December 2016.

While the two women have separate careers, both have appeared in the same work periodically. They both had comic roles on The Big Bang Theory, Kate playing Raj's cripplingly shy girlfriend Lucy, and Riki playing Sheldon's obsessive grad assistant Ramona Nowitzki. Both also appeared in DuckTales (2017), Kate voicing one of the main characters Webby Vanderquack, and Riki voicing May in the series finale.

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Discography:

• Music Songs (2009)
• Present Face EP (2009)
• Mix Tape #1 (2010)
• All Over Your Face (2011)
• Slippery When Moist (2012)
• Secretions (2015)

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Garfunkel & Tropes:

• All Women Are Lustful/All Women Are Prudes: The difficulty of women caught between these two extremes is a common theme in their songs.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: 29/31.
  ''"Everything happens for a reason"
  "What about the Haitian earthquake, or cellulite on skinny women"
• Artistic License – Religion: Used to illustrate just how ignorant the Holier Than Thou protagonists of "The Loophole" are of their own religion:
  • "God's OK with sodomy but only if you're straight."
  • "Everyone knows (anal sex is) the sex that God can't see."
  • "Whatever you do, don't touch my clitoris. If you ring Satan's Doorbell God can't ignore this!"
  • "No prophylactics when you put it in, 'cause birth control's for sluts and it's a sin." (While there is debate within and between Christian denominations as to whether birth control is sinful, all would agree that premarital sex is the real sin in this situation, regardless of orifice.)
• Bowdlerize: On their show, they cut every Precision F-Strike from their songs. "Shockingly cunty" in "I Don't Know Who You Are" becomes "shockingly bitchy". They also change "You're staring at me like I governed Alaska" into the arguably worse "like I just dropkicked a baby".
• Break-Up Song: “My Apartment’s Very Clean Without You” is one of the pair’s more sincere — and downright plaintive — numbers.
• Cluster F-Bomb: They're usually more prone to the Precision F-Strike, but then there's the Trying To Be Special... uh, special. Prior to the girls taking the stage, they do a Battle Chant/Survival Mantra that's one of the oddest, most strangely elaborate, swear-filled mantras ever.
  Riki: You ready?
  Kate: Yeah.
  Kate and Riki: Fuck them. Fuck those stupid motherfuckers. Who gives a fuck what they think? They can go fuck themselves in their stupid stupid audience faces, so fuck them. Fuck them forever. [fist bump, then twirling] Radiate sunshine! [Hugs.] Geeeet weird. Spit in the mouth of the wolf. [spit!!!] [they walk on stage]
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: On the show, Timmy the little boy who's dying (and in a wheelchair), notes he can get away with practically anything because of it. Kate and Riki admit they can't call him on it due to this.
• Double Standard: In "The Loophole", they say that God is OK with anal sex, but only if you’re straight (parodying some evangelical Christians who use this to remain technical virgins).
• Drugs Are Good: In "Weed Card", where they're ecstatic about getting government-grade pot.
• Experimented in College: "The College Try". It doesn't go so well. (Though the only reference to college as such is in the title.)
• Fan of Underdog: "Loser" is an ode to someone who tried and failed miserably, because the narrator believes "you deserve a cheering section too".
• Female Misogynist: They feel the need to insist that they're not this after their...excessive...reaction to encountering a vagina that isn't their own or the one they were born from in "The College Try". Vaginas are wonderful of course and they're really, really glad that other people like them, but it's just not for them. Really, really, really not.
  • The characters in "The Loophole" call other girls "sluts" and "godless whores" (despite being students at the same religious school as themselves and showing no sign of being even as sexually active as the narrators themselves) and all but accuse them of trying to use their feminine wiles to steal the narrators' boyfriends.
• Flat "What": In "One Night Stand":
  "Wait, what—you think we're dating?!"
• Forced Orgasm: An allegedly true story related in "Go Kart Racing (Accidentally Masturbating)": Riki has very sensitive genitals, and the vibrations from her very first Go Kart race managed to focus directly on them. Unfortunately, she realized this in the middle of the course, and had an orgasm before she could make it back to the starting line and get out. Fortunately, she was able to keep it quiet enough so no one would have known anything was wrong...if she hadn't promptly started going as slow as possible to avoid having another one.
• Foreshadowing: Riki mentions at the beginning of one episode that she has a horrible gag reflex. She later throws up while going down on a guy.
• Genki Girl: Very cute and upbeat... no matter how dark the subject matter of their songs gets (and yes, it can get pretty dark).
• Gratuitous Spanish: Parodied in the opening theme to the show, one of the lines to which is "No hablo español."
• Googling the New Acquaintance: Google references this trope.
  Everybody Googles each other
  Everybody does their Facebook research
  It's how we get to know one another
  To make sure that we don't get raped
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Invoked in "Sports Go Sports".
• Growing Up Sucks: Both Riki and Kate experience this feeling in the show; you Kate worries about having "Peter Pan syndrome" and Riki is trying to have her eggs frozen and is concerned that she may never have kids.
• Holier Than Thou: The narrator in "The Loophole" is haughty about how "pure" and "moral" she is because follows God's rules, even though she freely disregards the ones she finds inconvenient, and is happy to use Loophole Abuse to get around them. In particular, she's happy to engage in Slut-Shaming despite only being a Technical Virgin.
• Hypocrite: "The Loophole" is about Christian teen girls who claim the moral high ground for their sexual purity — while being technical virgins.
• Hypocritical Humor: When the duo meet "Weird Al" Yankovic once in the show, they gush over how they idolize him. He cheerfully asks them what their name is, and upon hearing it chews them out over mocking hard-working musicians that are just doing the best they can (which, of course, compromises at least half his songs).
• I Hate Past Me/Future Me Scares Me: In "29/31".
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: From "The Loophole":
  Cause The Bible says premarital sex is wrong
  But Jason says that guys can't wait that long.
• In Da Club: Parodied in "This Party Just Took a Turn for the Douche", where the narrators end up in a party full of jerks.
• Informed Flaw: The narrators in "The Loophole" accuse the other girls in their school of being "sluts" and "godless whores" who will use sex to steal their boyfriends. The other girls just roll their eyes and make no such attempt.
• Inner Monologue: "The BJ Song" is a stream-of-consciousness set to music, set five or six minutes into giving someone oral sex.
• Intercourse with You: Zigzagged in their original hit, which appeared on Scrubs:
  Both: Like can lead to like-like; and like-like can lead to loooove...
  Sure as the stars above, I'd really like to—
  (simultaneously)
  Kate: Kiss you.
  Rikki: Fuck you.
  Kate: ...Oh.
  Rikki: ...Oh...
• Internet Stalking: The subject of the song "Google".
  "Everybody Googles each other
  Everybody does their Facebook research
  It's how we get to know one another
  To make sure that we don't get raped."
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The singer in "Gay Boyfriend" is well aware that her titular boyfriend will inevitably wind up coming out of the closet and leaving her for a guy, but doesn't mind all that much because he at least treated her right while it lasted.
  Someday he'll come out
  And I'll be happy for him when he does
  And I know that I'll be sad
  And I'll be thinking of what was
• Jerks Use Body Spray: "This Party Just Took a Turn For the Douche" gives this as one of the signs that the party they just walked into has...well...:
  The techno music starts to play
  And the room smells like Axe body spray
  I'm like Golda Meir with no gold in my ear
  Please tell me what the hell happened here
• Just Friends: The aptly titled "I Will Never have Sex with You".
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: In Trying To Be Special, Kate not only gets mistaken for male, but a teenager.
• Lie Back and Think of England: Or rather, Bend Over And Think Of Jesus. While the song itself makes it sound like the Technical Virgin in "The Loophole" enjoys the anal sex she has with her boyfriend in order to retain both him and her technical virginity (despite briefly acknowledging that "Of all my holes, this one's the driest"), the characters in the video are clearly not having a good time.
• Loophole Abuse: "The Loophole," parodying Evangelical schoolgirls who practice anal sex to stay ‘technical virgins’ and still keep their boyfriends. Subverted, as they point out later on that this mindset deploys Exact Words about virginity but freely ignores a host of other injunctions.
  So let's not talk about how the Good Book bans shellfish, polyester, and divorce
  And how it condones slavery and killing gays, 'cause those parts don't count of course.
  Let's cherry-pick the part about losing my cherry and mine it for ambiguities and omissions
  To circumvent any real sacrifice but still feel pious in my arbitrary parroted positions.
  And don't you dare question my convictions!
• Lyrical Dissonance: They write extremely raunchy, dark lyrics with bouncy indie pop instrumentation.
• Miniscule Rocking: “The Ex-Boyfriend Song” lasts six seconds, which is evidently enough to express the singer’s opinion of the ex-boyfriend in question.
  One, two, three
  I fuckin’ hate you
  You fuckin’ liar.
• Mistaken for Gay: While at the fertility clinic, a nurse gets the idea that Riki and Kate are a couple.
• Mood Whiplash: In the second verse of "The Loophole", there are three explicit lines like "So take your cock out", followed by a "whoops!" and talk about "flying with the wings of God".
• Motor Mouth: Some of their singing can get very fast, particularly in "Weed Card".
• My New Gift Is Lame: "Present Face" is about the awkward facial expressions people make while pretending to like a gift that they actually hate. One of the gifts shown in the video appears to be a Home Made Sweater From Hell.
• Old Maid: Played with in "29/31." The subject of the song at 29:
  I've got so much charisma and so many options
  It's nice to always have my pick
  • That same woman at 31:
    There's nobody leeeeeeeeeeefffft
    I'm all aloooooooooooone!
• Parallel Porn Titles: In one episode of the show, Riki and Kate discover that a porn movie of their band exists, called "Garfinger and Butts". They even meet the respective actresses of the film, Chevrolet and Epiphany, who proceed to form a musical comedy duo of their own and immediately attain much more success in a few weeks than Garfunkel and Oates have over a few years.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • In "The Fade Away"
    We pretend to ourselves it's the nice thing to do
    To let you down gently by just NOT FUCKING TELLING YOU
  • In "Save The Rich":
    There's loopholes and exemptions
    And children to exploit
    So give them special tax breaks
    Go fuck yourself, Detroit!
  • In "Me, You and Steve"
    I could've wished a thousand wishes, for Steve to disappear
    What the fuck's your fucking problem
    Why's he always here?
  • “The Ex-Boyfriend Song” lasts just six seconds, which is evidently enough to express the singer’s precise opinion of the ex-boyfriend in question.
  One, two, three
  I fuckin’ hate you
  You fuckin’ liar.
• Protest Song: Of the silly kind, true, but unmistakably so in "Sex with Ducks" and "Save The Rich".

• Rape as Comedy: One of Kate's dates laments that she made him an accidental rapist by falling asleep in the middle of sex with him. Now he feels like he has to go out and prevent a rape from happening to even things up.
• Really Gets Around: Riki lists "inordinately high sex drive" as one of her symptoms when applying for a weed card. Natasha Leggero's character Vivian also fits this trope.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "Sports Go Sports" starts out as a riff on girlfriends unfamiliar with their boyfriends' sports fandom, and winds up cutting right to the underlying jealousy and inferiority of many of the fans themselves.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Riki is the Red Oni, while Kate is the Blue Oni.
• Rule of Three: invariously, and hilariously. From Pregnant Women are Smug:
  "So, is it a boy or a girl?"
  "Oh, we know, but we're not telling!"
  "What are you gonna name it?!"
  "Oh, we know, but we're not telling!"
  "Who's the father?"
  "Oh, we know... but we're not... telling..."
• Rule 34: The subject and title of episode two in the series.
• Self-Deprecation: In "The Fadeaway".
  And women are hypocrites, especially ones in comedy bands...
• Sex Is Evil: The characters seem to consider female sexual pleasure in general to be extra sinful: "Whatever you do, don't touch my clitoris. If you ring Satan's Doorbell God can't ignore this."
• Slut-Shaming: The Holier Than Thou narrator in "The Loophole" describes other women as "sluts" and "godless whores" even though she's just a Technical Virgin.
• Song Parody: They are mainly known for their comedic songs.
• Technical Virgin: The premise of "The Loophole" is that a Christian girl wants to have sex with her boyfriend while remaining pure, so she decides that butt stuff doesn't count.
• Third Wheel: In "Me, You, and Steve", Steve always tags along with the singer and her love interest, to her annoyance.
• Too Much Information: From "Year End Letter":
  A form letter is the perfect place to announce your divorce
  (Sorry Charlie left you)
  Do I want a detailed description of you passing kidney stones, well of course!
  (I'm gonna go throw up now)
• Unusual Euphemism: The penultimate line in the chorus of "The Loophole" is a euphemism for a penis that changes each time the chorus comes around.
  Chorus 1: Gimme that sweet sensation of a throbbing rationalization.
  Chorus 2: Gimme that sweet sensation of a rock hard rationalization.
  Chorus 3: Gimme that sweet sensation of an irrational rationalization.
  • The same song refers to the clitoris as "Satan's Doorbell", since touching it apparently notifies God that sex is going on.
• Transparent Closet: "Gay Boyfriend".
• Vulgar Humor: They're most famous for this style of comedy, e.g. "The Loophole" (which is about a Technical Virgin) and "Sex With Ducks".
• Who's Your Daddy?: "Pregnant Women Are Smug" features a hilarious lyric about just this.

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THERE'S NOBODY LEEEEEEEFT, I'M ALL ALOOOOOOOONE

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