Actress-songwriters Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci may have named their comedy-folk duo Garfunkel and Oates because it made them laugh, but it turned out to be a serendipitous choice for their careers.
“The first time we ever played an actual comedy club, they booked us because they thought we were the actual [John] Oates and the actual [Art] Garfunkel,” Micucci tells The Post. “That was a lucky break that wouldn’t have happened if our name was something else.”
Now the pair — who have been performing together since 2007 — are headlining their first TV series, the scripted comedy “Garfunkel and Oates,” premiering Thursday at 10 p.m. on IFC.
The half-hour show follows the two as they try to make it big in Hollywood while navigating messy dating scenarios. Most stories are based on their real lives (like Lindhome getting her eggs frozen); others, like Micucci trying to date a high-schooler, are exaggerated for comedy.
Interspersed in each episode are the duo’s trademark satirical, and often naughty, songs, with titles like “My Self-Esteem’s Not Low Enough to Date You” and “The Loophole” — about Christian girls who find a creative way to stay virgins until marriage (it’s amassed nearly 2.5 million views on YouTube).
View video“If you combine ‘Flight of the Conchords’ and ‘Avenue Q,’ you might have our tone,” Lindhome says. Besides a mutual love of ’80s pop and Broadway musicals, both are classically trained musicians — Micucci on piano and Lindhome on flute — though for Garfunkel and Oates, they wield a guitar and ukulele.
“We were really lucky that our sensibilities just match and our strengths are very different, so when you put them together, it kind of really works well,” Micucci says.
The two found another kindred spirit in Fred Savage (of “The Wonder Years” fame), who directs all eight episodes of the first season. They’ve also cast their comedian friends in guest roles (TJ Miller, Chris Hardwick, Abby Elliott), while John Oates himself pays a visit. Oates — who found the duo on MySpace back in 2009 and asked them to open for him — will appear in Episode 2, playing the owner of a porn store. They haven’t heard from the other half of their namesake, Art Garfunkel.
“Nothing yet, but we’re still holding out hope,” Lindhome says. “I feel like he must have heard about it by now.”