Flight of the Conchords Autograph by Way of Middle Earth

One show that I enjoyed watching was Flight of the Conchords, starring Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement as themselves trying to make it big as an indie band without finding much success. Bret Mckenzie has gone on from that show to find success as a songwriter, most notably putting music together for The Muppets movie and a couple of episodes of The Simpsons. Jemaine Clement has had a couple of roles that I enjoyed since the Flight of the Conchords show ended, in the films Gentlemen Broncos and Dinner for Schmucks. In watching Youtube videos of those roles to refresh myself I realized that in both of those roles he plays self-centered creative types who aren't as good at their jobs as they think they are. Hmm.

But long before all of the fame that Flight of the Conchords would bring, the native New Zealander Bret McKenzie found notoriety as an uncredited elf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. His imdb entry has this to say:

 Although his elf role in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) was only a brief silent cameo, his attractive character was noticed by female fans, who made him a minor Internet celebrity, and dubbed his character "Figwit" (short for "Frodo is great...who is THAT?!?"). When this came to the attention of director Peter Jackson, he arranged to have McKenzie reprise the (still-officially-unnamed) character in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). In interviews and commentaries, Jackson has informally approved the name of Figwit for the character. McKenzie was also brought back to play an elf character named Lindir in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).

I guess that bit of interest from the fans was enough to get him included as one of the autograph subjects in the 20014 Topps Lord of the Rings Trilogy Chrome set. I believe my wife is the one who showed me that McKenzie had autographed cards in Topps products. I went and searched this one out. He has an autograph in the Topps Lord of the Rings: Return of the King set as well, but that one seems to sell for about double the price of this Chrome card. This is just a fun novelty item for my collection, so I went with the cheaper option.