‘Flight of the Conchords’ hits the right note

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“Flight of the Conchords” rises on the likeability of its two stars. It’s impossible not to like the characters of Bret and Jemaine. They’re the upbeat, idealistic, romantic goofballs we all aspire to be, semi-intoxicated on their own limited talent and viewing the world as their oyster, although one they can’t quite pry open.

The situations they find themselves in would probably be better suited to a much more famous “show about nothing.” In “Yoko,” Bret is smitten with his new girlfriend Coco. But Jemaine, who couldn’t take a hint if it were inscribed inside the lenses of his glasses, continues to tag along with Bret as if those two were Simon and Garfunkel and Coco was merely a roadie.

Eventually, Coco’s presence becomes threatening to Jemaine, and he responds to it with a side-splitting lack of maturity. Yoko Ono had an easier time winning over Paul McCartney.

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But more than the knowing glances, the absurdist touches, the ludicrous outfits and the uber-quirky exchanges of dialogue, “Flight of the Conchords” gets most of its buoyancy from the musical numbers.

The songs concocted by Bret and Jemaine rival anything performed in music videos in the last several years. It’s not exactly rock, pop, folk, country or hip-hop, but an inspired sampling of them all crammed into a hybrid genre that might be described as “rock and droll.”

The other night the boys sang a song about tape. It went something like this:

“Love is like a roll of tape, it’s real good for making two things one; but just like that roll of tape, love sometimes breaks off before you were done. Another way that love is similar to tape, that I’ve noticed, is sometimes it’s hard to see the end.”

Now who can argue with that?

HBO has had some clunkers in the midst of its highly publicized successes. There was the astonishingly unamusing “The Mind of the Married Man” and the strangely out-of-place “Lucky Louie.” But then there is also “Entourage,” which found its rhythm in the second season and just keeps getting better.

If there is any justice, HBO will give “Flight of the Conchords” the same room to breathe. As Bret and Jemaine expressed it once in a song called, “Think About It”:

“Well, at the end of your life, you’re lucky if (you) die, sometimes I wonder why we even try; I saw a man lying in 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?’”

Insight into the human condition like that deserves a permanent home.

Michael Ventre is a Los Angeles-based writer and is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.

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