UK comedy writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, who co-created Peep Show and Fresh Meat, were forced to say no to the opportunity to create another well-known comedy series. Speaking to Ken Plume on his delightful longform conversation podcast A Bit of Chat this week, Sam Bain revealed that the duo had agreed to co-create Flight of the Conchords with Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie but had to turn the job down because of their commitment to Peep Show. Here’s Bain recalling what happened:
“I remember Series Four, we had a horrible decision to make because we were about a week away from flying to LA to co-create Flight of the Conchords, and then Peep Show got recommissioned and we couldn’t go … [It was difficult] especially when we saw the show and how good it was. At that point, we had no idea. Obviously, we wanted to do it, but we didn’t know it was gonna be as good as it was. That was quite painful … Obviously, it’s a luxurious position to be in to choose between Peep Show and Flight of the Conchords. It wasn’t like ‘Oh my God, we made the wrong decision.’ The sad thing is you can’t have it all.â€
The Flight of the Conchords guys ended up going with another UK comedy person, James Bobin (Da Ali G Show, The Muppets) to co-create their show, and the rest is history.