History Music / FlightOfTheConchords

* NiceHat: In episode one, Bret is working on a helmet that looks like his hair. He wears it on several occasions.

* FilkSong: ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Frodo]] Don't Wear the Ring''

* LoonyFan: Mel.

* WidgetSeries: The STANZA variety.

* 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.

* NotSoStoic: One episode reveals that Bret will spontaneously break into dance when he's angry enough. Murray also thinks he's a bit of a diva [[NeverLiveItDown because he briefly quit the 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."

** Murray also delusionally believes himself to be a competent manager, when in reality he has absolutely no knowledge of what a manager is even supposed to do.

* SpinningPaper: Used in the [[ShowWithinAShow musical-within-a-show]] Bret and Jemaine perform in the last episode. To get this effect in real time, they just have Dave walk slowly to the front of the stage while spinning a newspaper around.
* SpoofAesop: Happens very often in the show. At the least, a serious issue will get gender or race flipped for laughs.

Fran, ran, Bruce turned out to be a man\\

* TakeThat: Parodied with Bret's 'Diss track'
--> 'Eminem is not very good'
--> 'Jay-Z is not very good'
--> 'Snoop Doggy Dogg is not very good'
--> 'Dr. Dre is not very good'

* TechnologyMarchesOn: [[invoked]] New Zealand is shown to be completely behind the times, including their technology. Bret gets VHS cassette tapes of TV shows sent to him from his family. Brian the Prime Minister buys a VHS version of ''Film/TheMatrix''. According to a commercial on Bret's tape, New Zealand is still in the process of adopting the telephone.

* EyepatchOfPower: Bret decides to use one because of Bowie's advice. He feels cooler, but it backfires soon, as he [[AwesomeButImpractical loses the sense of depth and stumbles into things.]]

* {{Glurge}}: Invoked and parodied with "Albi the Racist Dragon". After maiming a little Albanian boy with dragon-fire while trying to kill him, Albi realizes they're not so different, cries a single jellybean tear that turns "all the colors of the rainbow", [[EasyEvangelism and stops being racist]]; afterwards, he becomes friends with the boy (who's still stuck in the cave because he's so disfigured that everyone hates him), and they enjoy bubblegum pie together. In live performances, Jermaine's line of "because we're ''different"'' is usually followed by both Conchords [[CluelessAesop stopping and staring gravely at the audience for several seconds]].

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

* StarvingArtist: The Conchords.

* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: One episode features the duo getting a gig playing in an ''office elevator'', and it's just as cramped as awkward as you'd think. Amusingly, they actually get a couple to slow-dance in a later scene of this job.

* WhatTheHellHero: Bret left Jemaine behind with the muggers to save himself. Everyone calls him out on this, even one of the muggers.

* {{Zeerust}}: Their "The Humans Are Dead" takes place in the distant future of 2000. They wrote the song in the 90s, but kept the line intact in the 21st century because it provided an easy parody of IWantMyJetpack.

* AffectionateParody: "Bowie" is an over-the-top, yet still somehow spot-on parody of Music/DavidBowie; "Inner City Pressure" takes on the Music/PetShopBoys; "Fashion Is Danger" - the entire [[TheEighties New Romantic]] genre; "You Don't Have to be a Prostitute" - "Roxanne" by Music/ThePolice; "I'm Not Crying" - "I'm Not In Love" by 10CC; "Hurt Feelings (Reprise)" is a dead-on take of the "Wise Up" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimee_Mann Aimee Mann]] montage in ''Film/{{Magnolia}}''.

* {{Zeerust}}: Their "The Humans Are Dead" takes place in the distant future of 2000. They wrote the song in the 90s, but kept the line intact in the 21st century because it provided an easy parody of ExtyYearsFromNow and IWantMyJetpack.

* CelebrityParadox: In several episodes, ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' is referenced. Bret was in ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing 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 ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing The Return of the King]]'', and given his own trading card. Peter Jackson talks about it in the director's commentary.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Mocked in "Robots," in which robots kill all the humans for making them work unreasonable hours. However, [[NotSoDifferent one line suggests that, by killing the humans, the robots are becoming like the humans.]]

* 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.

--> '''Murray:''' The ''per diem'' [[CompletelyMissingThePoint I gave you was for the week!]]\\

* SubvertedKidsShow: "Albi the Racist Dragon" is supposed to be the sixth episode of a children's TV show which takes place in a literal SugarBowl world, while also featuring a racist protgonist who badly disfigured an innocent Albanian boy in a failed attempt to kill him.

* 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!"

* SubvertedKidsShow: ''Albi, the Racist Dragon''.

* All Girls Want Bad Boys: [[GenderFlip Gender-flipped]]: Jemaine points out that Bret tends to be attracted to "bastard girls" who mistreat him.

Flight of the Conchords are [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo]], trying to make it big in America. The group is made up of Jemaine Clement and Bret [=McKenzie=]. They have had a [[Creator/TheBBC BBC radio]] series and an {{Creator/HBO}} TV series.

--> 'Dr Dre is not very good'

* PoorMansSubstitute: In-Universe. at one point, Bret and Jemaine got a gig as replacement Music/SimonAndGarfunkel lookalikes. They look nothing like Simon and Garfunkel, but Murray claims they're practically identical to the Simon and Garfunkel lookalikes they were sitting in for.

* 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?"

--> '''Mel''': Those girls I don't trust them Bret. They have no interest in you as musicians. They just wanna...\\

'''Mel''': ''(opens bathroom door while he's still going)'' It's just that Bret, I just hope that they respect your boundaries.

* EpicRocking: Often parodied. For example, when the duo tries writing a jingle for a thirty-second commercial for Femident Toothpaste, they come up with an eighteen-minute long song. Another notable example is when Bret initially writes "Song For Coco" (which Jemaine helps him rewrite to "If You're Into It"), the song is ''two hours'' long.

* BritishBrevity: The TV series lasted two seasons, a total 22 episodes. The actors had too much difficulty writing songs to keep up with the pace of the series and ended it voluntarily.

--> '''Bret''' (singing): She was comparable to Cleopatra...\\
'''Jemaine''' (talking): Quite old?
--> '''Bret''' (singing): She was like Shakespeare's Juliet...
--> '''Jemaine''' (talking): What, thirteen?

--> '''Murray:''' I can't go back there. I'm ''persona non regatta''. You know what that means?\\

-->'''Jemaine:''' "We're poor and we've got no gigs."
-->'''Bret:''' "We're slightly poorer."
-->'''Murray:'''"Are you really?"
-->'''Jemaine:''' "Yeah, Bret's only got one shoe."

* CassandraTuth: After screwing them up so badly in "The Actor", Ben (Creator/WillForte), a wannabe actor/dry cleaner, tells the boys he got a part in a movie. They dismiss it as acting. During the credits roll, we see a clip from said movie.