Shout Out / Flight of the Conchords

The series and the songs within it are both chock-full of homages and references.

"Sally"

• Murray and Bret have a conversation about Fleetwood Mac and their album "Rumours".
• When faced with Murray's hand-crafted robots suits, Bret and Jemaine say they wanted something like Daft Punk.
• "The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)" is done in the style of Barry White, and the title is a reference to Prince's hit "Most Beautiful Girl in the World."
• The accompanying video for "Not Crying" borrows its slow dissolve between faces from the 1985 music video for the song "Cry" by Godley & Creme(former members of 10cc). The video's chain link fence scene is a reference to the t.A.T.u. video for "All The Things She Said".

"Bret Gives Up the Dream"

• "Inner City Pressure" is a riff on "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys, down to the style of the music video.
• Coco tell Bret that her friend visited New Zealand because she's a huge The Lord of the Rings fan.
• The animated backgrounds in the music video for "Boom!" resemble those from the Black Eyed Peas music video for "Hey Mama".

"Mugged"

• After being told to get a haircut, Bret mentions Led Zeppelin as an example of successful musicians with long hair.
• The scene of the mugging parodies the "that's not a knife" scene from "Crocodile" Dundee.
• When describing his friend, one of the muggers says that he's "... a psycho killer. Qu'est-ce que c'est?" This is a quote from the Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer".
• Murray unknowingly quotes the most famous line from Midnight Cowboy ("hey, I'm walking here"), claiming it's something New Yorkers say.
• Jemaine remembers the time he and Bret were supposed to see March of the Penguins together, but Bret bailed out on him.
• Bret says Jemaine is hassling him, and calls him David Hassle-hoff.

"Yoko" / "Sally Returns"

• Jemaine believes Coco is the Yoko Ono of the band.
• The long coda for "Sellotape" is done in the style of "Hey Jude", and the song's official title ("Pencils in the Wind") is a nod to "Candle in the Wind".
• "Business Time" is done in the style of Barry White.

"Bowie"

The episode is an extended homage to (who else?) David Bowie and his body of work.

• Jemaine!Bowie visits Bret in his dreams, each time in a different stage persona: as Ziggy Stardust, as the clown from the "Ashes to Ashes" music video and as Jareth from Labyrinth.
• Dream Bowie suggests that Bret try wearing an Eyepatch of Power to look cooler. Bowie had worn an eyepatch in promo videos for "Rebel Rebel" and "Little Wonder", and as part of his Halloween Jack stage persona.
• "Bowie" (a.k.a. "Bowies in Space")
  • It musically mimics "Space Oddity", "John, I'm Only Dancing", "Let's Dance" and "Sound and Vision", and lyrically references "Changes" and "Life on Mars".
  • The accompanying music video includes imagery from many aspects of David Bowie's career, including his interest in mime and sci-fi, visuals from his original video for "Space Oddity" and his costume from his 1974 appearance on AVRO's TopPop performing "Rebel Rebel". The extreme close-ups and profile images of Bret and Jemaine's faces against black backgrounds are similar to those of David Bowie and Candy Clark in The Man Who Fell to Earth.
  • Bret is dressed like Halloween Jack in one of the video's segments.
  • During The Stinger, a reprise of the song plays featuring a short clip mimicking the music video to "Let's Dance".
• The space-helmet-wearing band that appears during the bridge of "Bowie" is a reference to the 1977 video for "Magic Fly" by the French electronic music band Space.
• Bowie!Bret sings that he's "jamming out with the Mick Jaggernauts".
• Bret is seen reading a magazine called "Novelty Music Scene", with Weird Al on the cover. The Conchords photo is also featured in the magazine with the caption "New Zealand Novelty Duo: Tenacious Dundee?", in a double-whammy reference to Tenacious D and "Crocodile" Dundee.
• The robot on the "Happy 80th Birthday, son" card is the titular monster from the Doctor Who serial "Robot".

"Drive-By"

• Dave references Escape from Alcatraz.
• In the ad for New Zealand's Library telephone service a man asks to reserve the new Gipsy Kings album.

"Girlfriends"

• The video for "K.I.S.S.I.N.G." ("A Kiss Is Not A Contract") mimics the style of the video for the Serge Gainsbourg song "Ballade De Melody Nelson".
• Bret's favorite film is Top Gun, and the Conchords discuss the concept of a wingman in relation to this.
• Murray thinks he's met the brother of Quincy Jones; when he asks for examples of records the man produced, Bret mentions Michael Jackson 's "Off the Wall", which Murray mistakes as a comment about Michael Jackson's personality.

"What Goes on Tour" / "New Fans" / "The Actor"

• When blaming Jemaine for dropping the TV out the window, Murray likens him to first to Rod Stewart and then to Keith Moon, drummer for The Who and notorious destroyer of hotel rooms.
• Bret accidentally driving a car into the pool is a reference to another famous (and possible apocryphal) Keith Moon story.
• Jemaine wants his clothes to give him the look of a "casual Prince".
• "The Prince of Parties" and its accompanying video is reminiscent of later Beatles work, specifically "Rain". Ravi Shankar gets name-dropped in the song.
• "Frodo, Don't Wear the Ring" summarizes the story from the first The Lord of the Rings film and the end of the third film; Bret plays Frodo and Legolas, Jemaine plays Sam and Gimli, Murray plays Gandalf, Mel plays Arwen, Eugene plays Saruman and Dave plays Aragorn.

"The Third Conchord"

• The title is a reference to the Fifth Beatle.
• Bret's Angry Dance mimics Kevin Bacon's angry dance in Footloose.
• Jemaine and Todd arrive at Murray's office wearing leather jackets, upon which Murray remarks that "the Fonzies have arrived".
• The music video for "Doggy Bounce" resembles the "Macarena" music video by Los del Rio.

"The New Cup"

• This episode, which sees Bret and Jemaine try their hand at prostitution, is full of references to Midnight Cowboy:
  • Bret quotes the movie's most famous line, "I'm walking here, I'm walking."
  • Jemaine suggests that Bret should wear a cowboy hat to be more attractive.
  • In the video for "You Don't Have to be A Prostitute", Jemaine wears a leather cowboy waistcoat and cowboy shorts. He also wears a cowboy hat during the credits.
• Boyz II Men, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Bobby McFerrin and Luciano Pavarotti are given as examples of successful musicians with no instruments.
• Jemaine retells the plot of Pretty Woman to Bret, incorrectly stating that Richard Gere was the prostitute in the film.
• "Sugarlumps" is a male version of Fergie's "My Humps".
• Dave's rap is done in the style of the opening theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
• "You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute" is inspired by The Police hit "Roxanne".

"The Tough Brets"

• A number of famous rappers are name-dropped in Bret's diss rap that opens the episode, among them Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Queen Latifah.
• Bret is afraid of Missy Elliott coming to his apartment to kill him.
• Bret and Jemaine are dressed as Mozart in a scene of the music video for "Hurt Feelings".
• Bret mentions his friends going to see Maid in Manhattan without him.
• In lyrics and choreography, "Stay Cool" mimics the performance of "Cool" from West Side Story as Bret, Murray and their respective "gangs" confront their tormentors, dance style.

"Murray Takes It to the Next Level"

• Murray is revealed as a fan of The World's Fastest Indian.
• Murray tries to assign Friends roles to the people around him, with Jemaine as Ross (because he's sulky), Bret as "naive" Joey, Murray as Chandler, Mel as "the weird female" (Phoebe), and Murray's friend Jim as Monica.
• The ending of the episode shows the New York skyline shot in the style of Friends.
• The B-plot of the episode, where Mel wants Bret to apologize to her for what he did in her dream, if lifted from an episode of Friends, where Phoebe and Ross had a similar misunderstanding.

"Unnatural Love"

• Jemaine's new girlfriend Keitha has him dress as Steve Irwin.
• Keitha has a poster of Men at Work in her apartment.
• The bouncer at the night club who leads the conga line during "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor" is Randy Jones, the original cowboy from the disco group Village People.
• Bret claims the vest top his mom gave him made him look like Bruce Willis.
• Keitha's mother supposedly thinks that Keitha sounds like Marilyn Monroe. (She really, really doesn't).
• Bret is seen reading famed Kiwi book Native Animals of New Zealand.
• "Carol Brown" is a Perspective Flip of Paul Simon 's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover".

"Love is a Weapon of Choice"

• "Sexy Lady" is a parody of two separate songs: "Same Girl" by R. Kelly; and "The Girl Is Mine", a duet by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney.
• The imagery in video sequence accompanying "Love is a Weapon of Choice" is similar to those in the video for Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

"Prime Minister"

• The episode revolves around celebrity impersonators, among them those for Bono, Elton John, and Barack Obama. The Conchords themselves impersonate Simon & Garfunkel, despite looking nothing like them.
• New Zealand's Prime Minister is a fan of The Matrix (to the point of believing in the Matrix) and Pixar's Cars.
• "Demon Woman" is a spoof of the song "Devil Woman" by Cliff Richard, and the accompanying music video is done in the style of Judas Priest.

"New Zealand Town"

• "Forget it, Brian. It's New Zealand Town".
• The song "Fashion is Danger" is a parody of "Fame" and "Fashion" by David Bowie, and the musical number is a parody of "Fade to Grey" by Visage.
• Bret and Jemaine wear costumes from Babylon 5.

"Wingmen" / "Evicted"

• The opening number, the faux-French ballad "Rambling through the Avenues of Time", is a parody of Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" and Billy Joel's "Piano Man".
• Bret's fascination with Top Gun, as well as the concept of wingmen, comes up again in a nod to season 1's "Girlfriends".
• John the mugger says Jemaine's mugging getup reminds him of Hamburglar.
• Dave mistakes New Zealand for NeverNeverLand.
• The "everyday music" montages that open and close "Evicted" are reminiscent of Stomp.