History Music / FlightOfTheConchords

** The series pokes fun of New Zealand, presenting it as a backwater filled with simpletons that is desperately clinging to its one claim to fame: being scenery in ''Film/LordOfTheRings''.

* SmallReferencePools: The show frequently references ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' due to the fact that just about the only thing most Americans know about New Zealand is that the movie adaptations were filmed there. One of the promotional posters in Murray's office is a shot of a grassy rock formation with the words "New Zealand ... Like Lord of the Rings."

* CelebrityParadox: In several episodes, Film/TheLordOfTheRings is referenced. Bret was in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' as an extra and accidentally became a cult character when one fan made a website about him calling him 'Figwit' - standing for, "Frodo is great, who is that?" A radio interview afterwards had the Conchords play their ''Lord of the Rings'' song, which featured in the series. It was such a popular thing that Bret was brought back and given lines for the extended cut of ''Return of the King'', and given his own trading card. Peter Jackson talks about it in the director's commentary.

--> '''Mel''': Those girls I don't trust them Bret. They have no interest in you as musicians. They just wanna...
--> '''Bret''': Just wanna what?
--> '''Mel''': They just wanna do it with you, Bret.
--> '''Bret''': Sex?
--> '''Mel''': Yes, and I know your policy on sexual relations with fans, Bret.
--> '''Bret''': I got to go to the bathroom.
--> '''Mel''': Bret, I know...
--> ''(Bret goes to bathroom)''
--> '''Mel''': ''(opens bathroom door while he's still going)'' It's just that Bret, I just hope that they respect your boundaries.

----> Eminem! Is not very good...
----> Fifty Cent! Is not very good...
----> ''But the Rhymenoceros is very very good!''

* EasyEvangelism: Parodied in "Albi The Racist Dragon." All it takes is a few words of wisdom from [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the badly-burnt Albanian boy]] and ."..just like that..." (snap) ."..he wasn't racist any more!"

* NegativeContinuity: The second season, where for instance the Conchords lose all their furniture in episode five and have it back without any mention of how in episode six, Bret dates an admittedly rather loony woman at the end of episode six who has vanished without a trace in episode seven, and Bret and Jemaine fall down to "strangers" on Murray's friendship graph in episode four with him even remarking that the next band meeting will be awkward because "you're strangers!," but in episode five communications between them and Murray are back to exactly how they were before. The first season at least had a couple of developing subplots and included {{Snap Back}}s to restore the status quo before the end of each episode.

* NoodleIncident: "Albi" is apparently "part 6" of a children's TV program, and it starts ."..[[PersonaNonGrata and so all the people of the village chased Albi the Racist Dragon into a very cold, very scary cave]]." The song also mentions "the badly-burnt Albanian boy from the day before," whom Albi tried to kill.

** The protest song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmLHOGT0v4c&feature=related "Think About It"]]. Again, the Aesops themselves are perfectly reasonable ("sweatshops are bad ...") but the song misses the point completely (.".. because they don't actually make their products cheaper").

* UnsettlingGenderReveal: In the second season song "Carol Brown," there's "[[TheUntwist Bruce]] turned out to be a man."..

* AffablyEvil: The two muggers that Bret and Jemaine encountered. The more vocal one is outraged at the thought of anyone [[EvenEvilHasStandards running out on a friend]] and befriends Jemaine when Bret does this to him. The quiet one returns Jemaine's camera phone, develops some of their pictures and on the whole seems like a very pleasant man...who just so happens to be a White Supremacist.
** In "Wingmen", the first mugger comes back to help Bret with a ''very'' ill-advised scheme to impress his date.

* AlienLunch: In "Bret Gives Up the Dream", Bret brings home a bag of food that he found on the street. Jemaine first goes to spit it out, then decides that he'll just eat it.
* AlliterativeName: Bret's the "'''p'''retty '''P'''rince of '''P'''arties".
* AlliterativeTitle: "'''F'''oux du '''F'''afa".

* AngryDance: In "The Third Conchord", this is how Bret expresses himself.

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Lampshaded in "Foux Du Fafa", where the title hook is described as a "Nonsensical French-sounding phrase".

* BritishBrevity: The TV series lasted all of two seasons, a total 22 episodes, and was ended by the actors.

* CasanovaWannabe: Both Jemaine and Murray insist that Jemaine is the ladies' man of the group, while Bret is shown to have much more frequent on-screen success romantically than he does.
** Even Mel seems to find Bret more attractive, at least in the episode "Bowie". Jemaine asks her to act like Bret's more attractive than him to build up his self-esteem. She manages to be too convincing, detailing almost every way Bret is more handsome than him.
* CatapultNightmare: In a deleted scene from "The Tough Brets", when Jemaine calls Bret's name to wake him up, Bret suddenly sits bolt upright in bed, hands ready to karate chop someone, screaming, "[[BrickJoke Please don't chop off my penis!]]"
* CelebrityParadox: The real Flight of the Conchords duo already had a cult following before the series premiered and can currently sell out massive venues within minutes. In the show, no one's ever heard of them and they struggle to get gigs larger than [[ItMakesSenseInContext the interior of an elevator]].
** In several episodes, Film/TheLordOfTheRings is referenced. Bret was in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' as an extra and accidentally became a cult character when one fan made a website about him calling him 'Figwit' - standing for, 'Frodo is great, who is that?' A radio interview afterwards had the Conchords play their Lord of the Rings song, which featured in the series. It was such a popular thing that Bret was brought back and given lines for the extended cut of ''Return of the King'', and given his own trading card. Peter Jackson talks about it in the director's commentary.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The entire main cast, as well as everyone from New Zealand, right up to Prime Minister Brian.

* TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight: In "Love is a Weapon of Choice", Bret, who is generally slightly more absent-minded and foolish than Jemaine, is convinced that the woman in the park they met was named "Brahbrah". Jemaine doesn't believe him, but the end of the episode reveals that Bret was right.

** And all of "Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)".

* DiscriminateAndSwitch: In "Drive-By", Bret and Jemaine are harassed by a racist greengrocer. The situation is resolved when they explain that [[spoiler:he's confusing New Zealand with Australia]].

* DisneyAcidSequence: Some of the song sequences.
** [[spoiler:Justified with the song they do after they have actually taken acid]].

** The Season 1 finale could apply. [[spoiler:"The Crazy Dogggz", a band formed by Todd and [[Creator/DemetriMartin Demetri]] (two musicians who quit the Conchords), has hit the big time with a song Bret and Jemaine refused to play. Murray, who also manages the Dogggz, has almost totally stopped managing them. And, possibly worst of all, their former LoonyFan, Mel, has lost all interest in them.]] However, as this ''is'' the Conchords we're talking about, it's all played for laughs.

* EasyEvangelism: Parodied in "Albi The Racist Dragon." All it takes is a few words of wisdom from [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the badly-burnt Albanian boy]] and "...just like that..." (snap) "...he wasn't racist any more!"
* EccentricMentor: Music/DavidBowie, at least in Bret's dreams. He appears in various costumes, each time explaining, "Hello, Bret, it's 1973 David Bowie, from [as one example] the Ziggy Stardust tour!" Bret points out that he "looks a lot like Jemaine", but Bowie denies they are one and the same. Bowie does cop to the dreams being dreams, hoping Bret finds them sufficiently freaky.

* {{Fanservice}}: Or FanDisservice - "Business Time".

* FriendsRentControl: Dealt with in "Evicted", when the landlord realizes that he's been receiving checks in New Zealand dollars, not US dollars.

* GenderFlip: In "Girlfriends", a girl [[BlackComedyRape coerces Bret into sex]] by saying she's going to ship out to Iraq, causing Bret to later [[HeroicBSOD curl up into a ball]] and [[ShowerOfAngst take a shower with all of his clothes on]]. Even the reason Bret didn't want to sleep with her too soon is a gender flip of MyGirlIsNotASlut.

* HammerSpace: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0 where Jemaine gets his instruments from, evidently.]] Since the show really blurs the lines of whether or not the musical numbers are really happening or not, instruments come and go fairly at random; the only time it's completely averted is at the beginning of "Boom", when Bret remarks that he needs his 1987 Casio electric guitar set to mandolin, and someone walking by hands it to him.

** Also "Hurt Feelings", a rap about some times when their feelings were hurt: Jemaine cooked a meal for his friends and none of them said anything nice about it; Bret was told he should try on a women's size scuba-suit...

* ListSong: "Carol Brown", being a PerspectiveFlip parody of "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover".

* ManlyTears: Bret and Jemaine both well up after watching their video of "Albi the Racist Dragon". They confess to it and get defensive about it.

** Also "Bret, you've got it going on"...

* MusicalWorldHypotheses: One of those musicals that are ''not'' Alternate Universe. Some of the songs are diegetic, such as "Robots," "If You're Into It" and "Albi the Racist Dragon"; some of the songs are All In Their Heads, like "Business Time" and "Prince of Parties", and some of the songs are musical adaptations of events that really do happen, such as "Foux da Fa Fa, "Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)," "I Told You I Was Freekie" and "Hurt Feelings." Sometimes, it's not really clear what happened. After the two spend a few minutes doing a ridiculous performance of ''Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros'' in front of two muggers, the only response they get is, "Were you guys dancing a little bit?"

* NegativeContinuity: The second season, where for instance the Conchords lose all their furniture in episode five and have it back without any mention of how in episode six, Bret dates an admittedly rather loony woman at the end of episode six who has vanished without a trace in episode seven, and Bret and Jemaine fall down to "strangers" on Murray's friendship graph in episode four with him even remarking that the next band meeting will be awkward because "you're strangers!", but in episode five communications between them and Murray are back to exactly how they were before. The first season at least had a couple of developing subplots and included {{Snap Back}}s to restore the status quo before the end of each episode.

* NoodleIncident: "Albi" is apparently "part 6" of a children's TV program, and it starts "...[[PersonaNonGrata and so all the people of the village chased Albi the Racist Dragon into a very cold, very scary cave]]". The song also mentions "the badly-burnt Albanian boy from the day before", whom Albi tried to kill.

** The band often introduces themselves in live performances as "formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo". (The third-most-popular is claimed to be "Like of the Conchords," a [=FotC=] tribute band.)

** In "The Tough Brets" they try to take the piss out of other rappers but the only thing they can say is that they're "not very good".

* RhymingWithItself: "Hurt Feelings", especially.

* SelfDeprecation: The entire plot is driven by how the main characters are unpopular, uncool, unlucky, unattractive to women, broke, meek, and failing to get anyone interested in their music; they're also from a country no one has ever heard of or cares about, and are frequently mistaken for Australians, whom they loathe. [[PlayedForLaughs And it's]] ''hilarious.''
** The series pokes fun of New Zealand's embarrassment over being seen as just scenery for ''Film/LordOfTheRings''.

* ShesGotLegs: The titular girl from the song "Leggy Blonde". Murray even mentions one of the things he likes about her is her legs before singing the song.
* ShoutOut: The episode where Jemaine becomes a prostitute includes several references to ''Film/MidnightCowboy''.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Dave thinks that he's a cool ladies man, but really he's a pawn shop owner who lives with his parents.

* SmallReferencePools: The show frequently references ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' due to the fact that just about the only thing most Americans know about New Zealand is that the movie adaptations were filmed there. One of the promotional posters in Murray's office is a shot of a grassy rock formation with the words "New Zealand ... Like Lord of the Rings".

** The protest song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmLHOGT0v4c&feature=related "Think About It"]]. Again, the Aesops themselves are perfectly reasonable ("sweatshops are bad ...") but the song misses the point completely ("... because they don't actually make their products cheaper").

* TrainingMontage: In "Drive By", when Dave attempts to train Bret and Jemaine in the art of extremely rude gestures. It takes a while.
* UnsettlingGenderReveal: In the second season song "Carol Brown", there's "[[TheUntwist Bruce]] turned out to be a man"...

** "Sugarlumps".

* WallpaperCamouflage: Suggested as a potential kink in the song "I Told You I Was Freaky".

* WimpFight: In "Love is a Weapon of Choice", the end of the titular song has Bret and Jemaine flailing at each other. The actual "duel" is a clumsy and childish brawl with Bret and Jemaine trying to hit each other with toilet rolls.

--> '''Jemaine''': No, it wasn't a real cough, I said "Yoko".

** The Season 2 ending is a subversion, perhaps a more [[BittersweetEnding]]: [[spoiler:After Bret and Jemaine sing in Murray's musical that they're illegal aliens in front of a full audience, including some New Zealand ambassadors, they are all deported and resume their former careers as shepherds, fearing that no one will ever again want to listen to their music. However, they seem just as happy to play their music in the sheep pastures of New Zealand as they are in their apartment or in empty clubs.]]

** The Season 2 ending is a subversion: [[spoiler:Murray, Bret and Jemaine are all deported and resume their careers as shepherds. However, they seem just as happy to play their music in the fields as in their apartment or in empty clubs.]]

* IdiotSavant: Bret and Jemaine are both bumbling halfwits with NoSocialSkills and [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} a strange perception of the world}}]], but they're very good at writing unique and excellent-sounding comedy songs. [[RealityEnsues Unfortunately]], their poor understanding of their talents and what audiences actually want causes them to consistently play only their [[StylisticSuck most banal and forgettable music]] when on stage, preventing them from ever actually making any ''use'' out of their skills.

* DreadfulMusician: Averted. Bret and Jemaine are not bad musicians, they're just too lame for anyone to care.
** Although to be honest, whenever they sound really good it generally seems like it's at least partially in their heads. When they're playing live (as in, not a real live concert by the real band, but a live performance by their in-show counterparts), e.g, Who Likes to Rock the Party, they're pretty bad.

* RobotWar: The setting of the song "[[KillAllHumans Robots]]." It [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters didn't end well]] for [[CaptainObvious humanity]].

* CelebrityParadox: The real Flight of the Conchords duo already had a cult following before the series premiered and can currently sell out massive venues within minutes. In the show, no one's ever heard of them and they struggle to get gigs larger than [[ItMakesSenseInContext the interior of an elevator]].
** In several episodes, Film/TheLordOfTheRings is referenced. Bret was in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' as an extra and accidentally became a cult character when one fan made a website about him calling him 'Figwit' - standing for, 'Frodo is great, who is that?' A radio interview afterwards had the Conchords play their Lord of the Rings song, which featured in the series. It was such a popular thing that Bret was brought back and given lines for the extended cut of ''Return of the King'', and given his own trading card. Peter Jackson talks about it in the director's commentary.

** In the season one finale, Bret (and later Jermaine) dance out their angst ala Ren in ''Film/Footloose''.

* ShoutOut: The episode where Jemaine becomes a prostitute includes several references to ''Film/MidnightCowboy''

* DeusExMachina: Parodied in "Albie The Racist Dragon." All it takes is a few words of wisdom from [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the badly-burnt Albanian boy]] and "...just like that..." (snap) "...he wasn't racist any more!"

* WimpFight: In "Love is a Weapon of Choice", the end of the titular song has Bret and Jemaine flailing at each other. The actual "duel" is a clumsy and childish brawl with Bret and Jemaine trying to hit each other with a toilet rolls.

* WimpFight: In "Love is a Weapon of Choice", the end of the titular song has Bret and Jemaine flailing at each other. The actual "duel" is a clumsy and childish brawl with Bret and Jemaine trying to hit each other with a glove and a toilet roll, respectively.

* WimpFight: In "Love is a Weapon of Choice", the end of the titular song has Bret and Jemaine flailing at each other. The actual "duel" is a Wimp Fight too, only they're flailing at each other with a glove and a toilet roll, respectively.

* WimpFight: Jemaine and Bret's "duel" in "Love is a Weapon of Choice" is actually them trying to hit each other with toilet rolls.