Trends and Entertainment

The Down-and-Out Show for Our Times

Forget the movies. If you want some good old recession-era fare, you better have kept your HBO. Flight of the Conchords is the only place to find company in the misery, set to  escapist “smile on your brother” sing-a-longs like Too Many Dicks (On the Dance Floor).

When it first aired in 2007, FOTC seemed like the pinnacle of Williamsburg Brooklyn writ large: fake New Zealand rock stars, unlucky in love, parodying musical genres in nerdy glasses—with a creepy stalker to boot. Funny at times, yes, but also grating in its hipster smugness, more or less the pay-channel equivalent of a night out in Williamsburg.

That, however, was a short-sighted, knee-jerk reactionary view caused by an allergic reaction to ironic tee shirts.

This is what the FOTC is really all about: being broke in the big city. It’s a 21st-century Dickensian tale of poverty, only instead of begging and pick-pocketing, the urchins wear thrift-store short-shorts while jogging and steal cushions from the local library.

Bret and Jemaine’s penniless existence isn’t of the “I-lost-a-job-with-two-kids-and-a-mortgage” variety, because that scenario is hard to mine for comedy. The FOTC duo live in the “I-don’t-have-much-work-and-I-just-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-myself” universe, which is still funny. Right up until it’s not. (That would be the day one pawns their Wii for bus fare home to “regroup.” )

This season, FOTC has repeatedly hit three major notes. All are recognizable to the un-and-underemployed among us.

Losing a Steady Income: In the season opener, “A Good Opportunity,” Bret only had one shoe. His clothing choices aren’t as ironic as they at first appear. He doesn’t sport the tees of the Ithaca is Gorges set; he wears the cheapest, crappiest collection of smelly, ill-fitting duds a man can buy. This isn’t “vintage” apparel; this is straight-up Salvation Army hand-me-down-and-down-agains. And Jemaine seems to have the same denim stuff on all the time, but it isn’t just their wardrobes that seem dictated by their zero bank account balances. Only the truly broke-ass could end up having their electricity turned off over the purchase of a $2.79 coffee mug…It’s unfair Bret had to share a single cup with Jemaine, and it would be nice if they could enjoy tea simultaneously, but in their current fiscal state, the mug was an inexcusably extravagant indulgence.

Name another recent show that found one of its main characters losing their job and sleeping in their car. That was the breaks for beleaguered FOTC manager Murray, with the added insult that unlike Tracy Chapman, he was living in a slow-moving vehicle and had to rouse himself every couple of hours to move forward in avoidance of lower Manhattan parking tickets. Sorry guys, but them’s the breaks when the bucks stop rolling in, the results of the ugly downward spiral that always happens to people who don’t know when to expect another paycheck.

Important cutbacks have to be made, so say goodbye to new shirts, matching shoes and standard sleeping quarters.

Scheming for Additional Ways to Make Money: So far this season, FOTC have tried their hand at selling “Super Straws” on a profit-losing margin, being pitchmen for Femident Ladies Toothpaste, playing a gig at the library/scene of the cushion crime and Jemaine himself did a bit of gigolo-ing after heeding the self-help advice of the “normal” book How to Get It Done.

Scheming for a richer life has been a sitcom staple since The Honeymooners, but unlike Ralph Kramden, Bret and Jemaine are part of the “freelance nation” and don’t have the solid pension and healthcare plan that a municipal bus driver enjoys.

Resolving Oneself to a Life of Poverty (For Now): Clearly, volunteerism is the last stop on the train to total insolvency, but Bret and Jemaine both fell victim to it in last week’s “Love is a Weapon of Choice” as they staged a charity benefit for epileptic dogs.

It’s just one example of the numerous times in season two that FOTC have resigned themselves to their fate: lonely, bankrupt, rapidly-approaching-middle-aged men sharing an apartment in Chinatown…an apartment that recently got robbed to boot. Even the ditties they sing to liven up the joint have the melancholic words of the defeated in 2009. This year’s songs have included I’ve Got Hurt Feelings, Rejected, You Don’t Have to Be A Prostitute and Carol Brown, which details all the ways women have dumped Jemaine, including Ms. Brown herself, who simply got on a bus and left town.
Hopefully, the Flight of the Conchords won’t be forced to do the same — because it’s rough out there, fellas. Keep fighting the good fight. We know how you feel.

The Flight of the Conchords are bowing out gracefully after this 10-episode season. Good for Bret and Jemaine for going out on top in an economy that’s a lot like their biggest fan Mel: an unpredictable, uncomfortable, kind of creepy reality that isn’t going away until it gets its pound of flesh.

In a few short weeks, they will simply be a couple more thirty-something dudes in need of a job.

A contributing editor at Inc. and a senior editor at TheDailyTube.com, Sauer has also written for the maagzines Fast Company, Details, and Popular Science and the websites Jewcy, Smith, Portfolio, ESPN and the Huffington Post’s 23/6 comedy section. He is the author of Court TV Presents: You Be the Judge and the Complete Idiot’s Guide to the American Presidents. A native of Billings, Montana (AKA “The Magic City”), Sauer now lives in New York City. For more merriment, check out patrickjsauer.com or email Patrick at patrickjsauer@mac.com.

Tags: Flight of the Conchords, media, Trends and Entertainment