If you’re the sort of person who wakes up at the same time as a rooster, you might be acquainted with the comedy shows ABC Radio National puts on at 5.30am.
These programs are usually ancient English efforts featuring members of The Goodies (I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again) or the late Kenneth Williams (Just a Minute*).
Other shows respectively feature experts on language and classical music, the latter group finding music by The Beatles and other ruffians beyond the pale.
Every so often, the ABC presents a program at 5.30am that’s actually - shock horror - pretty new.
Many Australians might’ve first become familiar with Flight of the Conchords, a cracking comedy about a couple of musicians from New Zealand, while listening to Radio National.
Befitting a show about a couple of musicians from New Zealand, the main characters are pretty dim and not necessarily talented, although they’re surprisingly good looking.
Anyway, Flight of the Conchords can now be seen on TV at the wonderfully work-friendly hour of 10.10pm on a Sunday night on Channel 10.
At this point, I’d like to say thank you to Channel 10 for putting the American version of The Office on whenever and at whatever time.
As a Big Brother contestant might say, “You’re way lame, Channel 10”.
By the way, comedian Kristen Schaal does a glorious turn on the TV as the biggest (read only) fan of the lads.
Yikes, can that girl do weird or what?
If you own an iPod, you can download lots of little videos about Flight of the Conchords from the iTunes Store for free.
The clip in which Schaal dresses up like Arwen from Lord of the Rings under the deluded belief she’s going to star in a clip by the band is a hoot.
Here are the lyrics to a song by the “Chords”:
Think About It
There’s children on the street using guns and knives
Taking drugs and each other’s lives
Killing each other with knives and forks
Calling each other names like ‘dork’
There’s people on the street getting diseases from monkeys
Yeah, that’s what I said - they’re getting diseases from monkeys
Now there’s junkies with monkey disease
Who’s touching these monkeys, please
Leave these poor sick monkeys alone
They’ve got problems enough as it is.
Man’s lying on the street
Some punk’s chopped off his head
I’m the only one who stops
To see if he’s dead
Mmm…
Turns out he’s dead.
And that’s why I’m singing
What…what is wrong with the world today?
What is wrong with the world today?
(Jemaine mumbles)
What…what is wrong with the world today?
You gotta think about it
Think think about it.
Good cops been framed and put into a can.
All the money that we’re making is going to the man.
What man?
Which man?
Who’s the man?
When’s a man a man?
What makes a man a man?
Am I a man?
Yes. Technically I am.
They’re turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers.
But what’s the real cost?
‘Cause the sneakers don’t seem that much cheaper.
Why are we still paying so much for sneakers
When you got them made by little slave kids
What are your overheads?
Well, at the end of your life, you’re lucky if die,
Sometimes I wonder why we even try.
I saw a man lying on the street half dead
With knives and forks sticking out of his leg.
And he said,
“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow
Can somebody get that knife and fork out of my leg, please?
Can somebody please remove these cutleries from my knees?”
And then we break it down.
This is where we break it down
*Just a Minute is still going and continues to feature Clement Freud as a panellist and Nicholas Parsons as host. Parsons comes across a nice guy, but his style of adjudication must be the most ad hoc in the history of quiz shows.
They’re legends. I’m dead keen to hear the radio series, but I’m ideologically opposed to iTunes, and I’ve converted my iPod into a non-iTunes device
So I’ll have to find them for free another way!
Yes Darlene I recall listening to the Conchords on ABC Radio National on Sunday morning, probably after the sophistication of Singers of Reknown with the late John Cargher. It is very much in the Bazza Mckenzie mould of innocents abroad without resort to a slab of Fosters in this case. It is a timeless formula pehaps going back to Gulliver’s Travels or Cervantes Don Quixote. Fortunately no sheep jokes but plenty of wincing moments like the plea for help calls put through long distance to fellow kiwi celebrity soul mates like Neil Finn. I wonder how they will do that in the TV version.
I commented some time ago that those 5.30am on RN seem to consist almost entirely of deceased persons and equally dead/redundant concepts like erudition & wit.
“Just a Minute” is new (relatively), featuring some of the new guns of britland comedy but “My Word” warms the cockles of my stone cold heart - a game entirely about “words”. O tempora O mores.
With the Humph now gone, who will ever be able to fully grasp the complexities of Mornington Crescent?
These guys crack me up. I was lucky enough to accidentally see their show Sunday night. Lamearse time slot!
You got to hand it to the Kiwis - they punch above their weight culturally. After the magnificent ‘7 periods with Mr Gormsby’ I’ve taken a lot more interest in their comedy offerings.
FOTC is so endearing!
More so, I have to say, than my actual Kiwi rels. And Lifty, it’s the Mugnificint Sivin to you mate.
Oh, shut.
FoTC songs are so singable and appropriate for a surprisingly wide variety of opinions. Think about it, think think about it.
A post from two days ago on Australia’s most criminally underread blog, all about Just A Minute: http://lorrainecrescent.blogspot.com/2008/05/just-minute.html
Peter, the thing that I like most about iTunes is downloading the overseas shows one wouldn’t get otherwise (and for free). And also the Radio National shows one misses. I rarely pay for the stuff I download. You can buy the DVD, but obviously that’s not free. If anyone knows how Peter can download FoTC songs for free, please advise. Of course, the FoTC is on the TV now. Love your avatar, by the way.
Ahh yes, Pablo, Singers of Renown. A listener could always learn something from that show. RIP. The innocent abroad is a persistent theme. I enjoyed the Barry McKenzie films, and Bazza did have a certain naive sweetness. The FoTC boys are certainly less crude. Not sure they say anything about being able to screw the leg off a table. Obviously, NZers are much more refined than Aussies.
Amphibious, yes those old shows did depend on erudition and wit, even Just a Minute. When Kenneth Williams was in a bad mood (usually because he was being upstaged) he’d stop trying to be funny and become terribly erudite about a range of subjects. Just a Minute has been broadcast (on and off) since December 1967. Of late, it’s featured people like Stephen Fry and Graham Norton, but I think I’ve only heard them on the BBC World Service and not the ABC . The person that stands out in the My Word team for me is Denis Norden. According to Wikipedia, My Word went from 1956 to 1990. Extraordinary to keep going that long.
Lefty E, it’s great to accidentally come across a show and then really enjoy it. The timeslot is so lame.
Helen, why are you Kerry Packer from beyond the grave? That’s spooky. Yes, it’s endearing and the guys are endearing. Apparently, their CD is going great guns in the US too. You have NZ rels? That’s spooky.
Oh and to give you more to think about, think about it, Laura, here’s the lyrics to Albi the Racist Dragon:
In the Marmalade Forest (forest)
Between the make-believe trees
In a cottage cheese cottage ?
lives Albi (Albi)
Albi (Albi)
Albi the racist dragon
Part 6: and so, all of the villagers chased Albi the racist dragon into a very cold and very scary cave. And it was so cold, and so scary in there, that Albi began to cry dragon tears. Which as we all know turn into jellybeans!
Anyway, at that moment he felt a tiny little hand rest upon his tail, and he turned around, and who should that little hand belong to but the badly burnt Albanian boy from the day before.
Albi: What are you doing here, I thought I killed you yesterday! (grumbled Albi quite racistly)
Boy: No Albi, you didn’t kill me with your dragon flames. I crawled to safety! But you did leave me very badly disfigured.
(laughed the boy)
Why are you crying so?
Albi: I’m crying because all of those horrible villagers chased me into this scary cave! I think it’s because I’m so racist. Get your hand off my tail, you’ll make it dirty.
Boy: No Albi, it’s not because of your racism that they chased you here. They chased me here too and I became all disfigured like this. They just don’t like you and I…because…well because we’re different to them.
And that made Albi cry a single tear, which turned into a jellybean all colors of the rainbow!
And suddenly, he wasn’t racist anymore.
So they sat in the cave (the cave!)
And ate bubblegum pie
YUM!
Albi
The racist….
Well, not anymore!
Dragon
Thanks for the link, Laura. Had a look at that post.
I think the reason I’ve never read that blog before is because it says it’s for “genius” people. Certainly harsh on My Word and My Music. Interested to read that the shows currently on are from the 1980s. Can anyone confirm this? The show did go off the air for some time. And look there’s a Just a Minute blog:
http://justaminutesite.blogspot.com/
It used to be larfs to hear the presenters of Kiwi hour on 4zzz in Brisbane talk about chatting to the sound guy at the “The Muxing Duhsk”
The Kiwi hour on 4ZZZ. You’ve got to hand it to 4ZZZ, they gave (give?) everybody a go, even Kiwis. The Muxing Duhsk….with feesh and chups.
The ‘genius’ thing is from an internet quiz meme thingo, here:
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx
It says my blog also requires genioos reading skills. Couldn’t get it to work on LP’s url.
Yeah, Hoyden gets a Genius Reading Skills tag too. I think it’s due to having the word “diabolical” in the About blurb on the main page.
Flop Eared Mule is only Junior High!!!
‘Scuse me while I go egg Coach Krassheimer’s car.
“Couldn’t get it to work on LP’s url.”
That made me chuckle.
Junior High sounds like fun, as does egging a teacher’s car. And you get to hang around the hallways trying to be cool and stuff.
Um. OK. I’m going to be charitable and assume that didn’t quite come out as intended, Darlene.
It was meant to be a little dig at our NZ cousins. All meant in good fun. As a Queenslander, I understand greatly being dim and having a lack of talent.
Yeah, I’ve had to endure a lot of Kiwi jokes from Queenslanders. Forgive me for not being delighted to see them here.
Lots of jokes have been made about Queenslanders as well, but neither people from NZ or Queensland are an oppressed minority dealing with the problems of discrimination and bigotry (not last I looked). Although one could argue that one’s sense of humour is being oppressed.
And the FoTC use their NZness as part of the humour.
I appreciate your point, Nick, but I don’t agree with it.
I think Nick, that as New Zealanders we are just so stupid that we can’t even realise it, and it’s even stupider of us to think that anyone might think they had been, well, maybe, rude, by saying that New Zealanders are stupid.
Yours in stupidity, because clearly I’m stupid and talentless too,
Stupid Deborah
Some of my best friends are Kiwis.Apart from which it gives one a bit of a glow to know Middle Earth really exists.
I don’t actually see where I was accusing you of being discriminatory or bigoted, Darlene, so there’s really no reason to be so defensive! Do you actually think backing down now would mean acknowledging something untenable about yourself? It really shouldn’t.
God strewth.
Thanks for putting the humpf on a light-hearted post about a funny satirical show about a pair of NZ musicians trying to make it big in the US.
For my next post, I’m going to make a joke about rich white blokes (no, I better not because somebody might get offended).
I didn’t suggest you were suggesting I was being bigoted or discriminatory, Nick. I am suggesting that having a quip at NZers and Qlders is aok because Qlders and NZers are not a discriminated against minority and that to suggest otherwise says more about you than it does about me.
Ah, that’s how we’re so stupid, Neil. It’s just that we are so stupid that we have no sense of humour.
Uh, that would be, “Nick”, not, “Neil”.
For the record, I’m exceedingly fond of Flight of the Conchords — it’s a gem-like example of classically laconic and self-deprecating Kiwi humour, transplanted without alteration into the context of a single-camera US comedy show. Quite a remarkable feat.
The moment I felt I was back home was when I saw the poster in the consulate with the slogan (paraphrased) “New Zealand: Don’t expect too much and you’ll quite like it”.
Absolutely agree, Nick, about the quality of the show.
That laconic and self-deprecating sense of humour is wonderful when done well. Makes me wonder about the similarities and difference between the FoTC chaps and, say, The Office.
Deborah, I figured you’d mistaken me for Neil Finn and I was enveloped in a warm glow.
I don’t think you’re doing yourself any favours pushing this line, Deborah.
Also, I don’t have to be part of an oppressed minority to take exception to witless insults against my — or indeed anyone else’s — country.
Oh, that’s awesome. Sorry Deborah. Meant to type Darlene.
Right, that’s me off my high-horse for today.
I think the thing is that ’self-deprecating’ humour works because it’s self deprecating.
I have become at least a little bored with Kiwi jokes. But while I can grin and bear it elsewhere, they’re hard to take on a supposedly progressive blog. I’ve been hanging out around LP more-or-less since I arrived in Australia, mostly very quietly, because it’s my kind of place. But not so much if I get to read yet more stuff telling me that I’m stupid.
NZers really don’t like being talked down to and patronised, anymore than anyone else does. It doesn’t feel like a joke to me, but then again, it almost never does to the person (in this case, country and its people) who has less power.
I think there’s a valid point here. I have a colleague at Griffith who’s a Kiwi, and we used the “just humour” claim regarding NZ jokes in class to explore the boundaries of humour and derogatory speech. There seems to be an assumption that when someone is close to you identity wise, ribbing is ok. But then some of the most violent speech acts take place within relationships and families!
I think I said earlier on that we were going to have to agree to disagree. No, I just checked I didn’t say it, I think I was going to but I said something else instead.
As a witless and stupid Queenslander, I reserve my right to make insults against other people’s countries (particularly if those countries are….)
And I also reiterate the point I made at 1.55pm (but I won’t type it out again because that would require effort and I’m lazy as well). I’m going to stay firmly on my old nag about this one.
FoTC is on Sunday nights on Channel 10. Check your guides for what is on between it and Big Brother.
I’m glad someone’s mentioned the Finn brothers because I initially thought Darlene was being ironic. I plead guilty to making jokes about the accent (mine is of course unexceptionable :D) but most of New Zealanders I’ve actually met are in fact either smarter or nicer than I am. Often both.
Of course I don’t think NZers (or Qlders) are stupid….Christ almighty as if I am in a position to judge.
Although after doing the test that Andy gave to Maggie in an episode of Extras I have discovered that I have a hate rating of 9.6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWWFU7r2K0
Here’s another way of putting this ‘joke’, or piece of ‘irony’, or whatever.
(1) X is from a certain country.
(2) All people from that certain country are dim and untalented.
(3) Therefore X must be dim and untalented
Generally, we would say that this argument is unsound because the second premise is flawed. Do you want me to spell it out as to why it’s flawed? Or maybe, you could just admit that jibes about NZers being stupid are not really all that funny, and it was kind of a silly thing to say.
I just said that I have a hate rating of 9.6; don’t know if I can top that or not. Could try, though, but I am trying to do other things while reading this thread. Bit difficult that doing two things at once thing.
See comment at 2.30pm and comment at 1.55pm.
Whatever, Darlene. I don’t think this is an ‘agree to disagree’ matter; that’s a tactic that can be used to dismiss other people’s concerns. I don’t know what Nick / Neil thinks about this, but I do think that if I was playing bingo, I would be pretty close to getting a scorecard completed by now.
I’m doing lots of things at once too. Some marking, writing a reference for someone, getting washing through. Heaven knows how my silly little Kiwi brain can cope.
Ha ha, Darlene committed a thought crime and now the New Zealanders are gonna have her re-educated.
I think this discussion is sidestepping the real question. Which end of the bell curve are the Kiwis who emigrate sitting on?
I’ve heard it argued both ways, mostly around the chully bun….
Old Piggy Muldoon used to say we expats raised the IQ of both countries. Now that man really knew how to talk smack.
Only if you are the bingo caller, Deborah.
I’ll mark you down for a couple of complimentary tickets for the upcoming bawdy farce, Carry On Kiwis, a hilarious and saucy look at a couple of young Kiwis in Australia. The shows features a well-known Australian celebrity as the lecherous Aussie owner of a fruit picking firm. It writes itself.
Jobby, it’s a lost cause trying to re-educate me since I wasn’t educamacated in the first place.
“Jobby, it’s a lost cause trying to re-educate me since I wasn’t educamacated in the first place.”
Art degree, right?
With a double major in politics and a minor in witlessness
I did my thesis on life experience.
Boom boom.
Tee hee, it’s all good material, Jobby
Darlene - You can hear Just a Minute on RN at 5.30am on Wednesdays. As well as Stephen Fry and Norton, the current star, a bit too determined for mine, is Paul Merton, some husband on Caroline Quentin.
Thanks for that, amphbious. I will listen next week and see how the modern version compares to the days of Nimmo and Williams et al
Paul Merton…have heard the name but unaware of his comedy. Stephen Fry is good value.
Paul Merton was a long time team captain on Have I Got News For You, the British show from which Good News Week derives. He’s pretty sharp.
Merton and Quentin are divorced now.
Merton is an extraordinary improvisor (and Quentin’s not bad either). Check the wonderful improvised radio series, The Masterton Inheritance, which is rebroadcast on BBC 7 from time to time, like currently, on Mondays. (BBC 7 allows you to replay any show from the last week.)
Merton is also a long time member of the TV panel show, Have I Got News For You, which is much the same as our Good News Week (or vice versa), and on that show he produced the best recovery I have ever seen from a comedian whose joke line wasn’t working.
The Flight of the Conchords is quite good, and something that isn’t always appreciated is the high level of musicianship of the two actors.
Sorry, the BBC 7 link wasn’t right, try again.
Hiker, the FoTC play up their supposed lack of musical talent in interviews, but they are obviously talented singers and musicians.
Thanks, tigtog. Just been loooking up info about I Got News for You.
Caroline Quentin was in that fine English drama, Blue Murder. She was also in that not terribly funny comedy with Chris Langham called Kiss Me Kate (he was in the funnier People Like Us).
From Stuff White People Like (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/77-musical-comedy/):
“…when you have jokes that aren’t that great and music that isn’t that great, you can mix them together and create something that will entertain white people…”