Speaking of HBO shows, and while it’s so cold that what warmth my blood has left to carry to my brain has to be expended on the thesis, check out the new Flight of the Conchords. HBO has saved us the trouble of downloading the torrent for the first episode. Normally I would never subject you to this kind of viral marketing, but the two guys behind the show are from my hometown, Wellington. Needless to say, us being New Zealanders, they are friends of friends, and it’s not every day such people get a show on Sunday night HBO, right after Entourage.
These guys have been on the stand-up circuit for ages. Funny thing is I never got around to seeing them live back home. (Though they were on my flight once between Wellington and Auckland, and the plane got struck by lightning.) The first time I saw them was visiting New York last year when a friend raved about them and played a recording of one of their gigs, and it was hilarious.
The show seems to be HBO’s answer to the BBC’s Mighty Boosh. To its credit, it’s commissioned its own British musical comedy rather than recasting The Mighty Boosh with Americans. (To American ears Kiwis sound like Brits, which seems to be a running gag in the show.) The first episode does not quite reach the heights the Conchords are capable of, but it’s pretty funny. It’s full of inside jokes for Kiwis too (some of which Australians will also get), like when Jemaine takes his new girlfriend out for a ‘kebab’. Australians will also recognise Arj Barker, who’s constantly on TV over here in one thing or another.
Scandalum Magnatum 
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