"The Actor"
"Are you feeling the feeling that I'm feeling?" I hope so, because I'm enjoying this show so much that I might turn into Mel II. When Bret and Jemaine finished singing those lyrics, Mel and Murray were two of three people clapping in the audience.
Saturday Night Live's
Will Forte played Ben, a dry cleaner and semiprofessional actor whom the duo asks to tell Murray that he's from a record company and to give him a rejection call to boost his spirits about the direction of the band. We all need a little rejection to feel better, right?
When a brainstorming session to elicit a larger audience is going slowly, and Bret's idea to hand out free pencils at each gig gets nixed, the first song of the evening was presented in a video scrapbook to "Cheer Up Murray." The well-meaning guys sang about Murray's helluva good English bulldog, his wife having met someone on the Net, and that his friends are Bret, Jemaine and Greg. (Have we heard about Greg before?)
Forte was perfectly cast as he matched the tone of the show, blending his blank stares, friendly grins and a matter-of-fact delivery. Calling and using the name Stefan Gucci, Ben can't resist Murray's crying and sets up a record deal. Murray feels even more encouraged when he reverses the 90-10 split of the $2-million contract to a 10-90 split. Even Bret wants to take the deal. Jemaine tries to stop everything from spiraling out of control but, well, doesn't.
Bret and Jemaine seek advice from Dave, who recommends they be honest with Murray. But does honesty include saying monogamy isn't legal in this country to the "foreign chicks" he had a five-way with?
When the band discussed promotion ideas, I liked the thought of their faces on lunch boxes. But instead we got the second video of the night. With Bret playing the elf escort Figwit in
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, it was only a matter of time before we got their song "Frodo, Don't Wear the Ring." Everyone got in on the act, but it was Mel dressed as
Liv Tyler's Arwen who cracked me up the most, speaking in her "native tongue Elf-ish."
Murray holds a wrap party for all involved and is happily serving champagne at a VIP lounge. I didn't catch where it was held but was there a pole-dancer in the background? Bret and Jemaine get nervous about paying the check when it arrives, but Murray is confident having been given the "industry code." The next time you run up a $600 tab, just tell the waiter 57687452156 and see what happens.
Murray finally realizes he was duped, saying that not even
Crowded House gets a 90-10 split. And the autographed signatures should have tipped him off, too. Especially
Art Garfunkel's, which read: "To Ben: Thanks for keeping me clean," which was not a "drug rehab thing." But his proudest moment was just making the deal. And with that, we now know that Murray wears clean underpants because he washes them in the sink and drys them in the microwave.
And Ben got to make a
Martin Scorsese movie, costarring
John Turturro, about a dry cleaner - called "Dry Cleaner."
Oh, and this week's show skipped right over last week's ending about Mel being off the fan list. I guess it didn't take.
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Flight of the Conchords blog entries, go
here.
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