NEW KIDS ON THE BLECCH

'''New Kids on the Blecch''' is an episode from the twelfth season of ''The Simpsons''. It features the members of the pop music group 'N Sync.

Contents

Plot

Trivia

Cultural references

External links

Plot

By paralleling Rosie Ruiz's cheating in the 1980 Boston Marathon, Bart cheats in the Springfield's equivalent. When Bart's dishonesty is quickly discovered, he finds himself in hot water with fellow competitors and spectators, so he accepts a stranger's offer to help him escape. The stranger reveals that his identity is ''L.T. Smash''. L.T. offers Bart a career as a member of a boy band known as "The Party Posse". Bart accepts, and becomes Party Posse's 4th member, joining Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and Milhouse Van Houten. The Party Posse quickly ascend to stardom, albeit using complex voice enhancers built by NASA. No one is aware of the voice enhancer's use, and as such Party Posse's success depends on the voice enhancer.
The band releases a single titled "Drop da Bomb!", which contains the suspicious lyric "YVAN EHT NIOJ". Lisa's growing suspicion around The Party Posse eventually results in her discovering the line is a subliminal recruiting message to join the Navy, as ''Yvan Eht Nioj'' is ''Join the Navy'' written backwards. Lisa also discovers that L.T. Smash is, in reality, Lieutenant Smash ("LT" being the abbreviation for the Navy rank of Lieutenant). He says he is working to recruit people for the United States Navy.
Lisa points out her discoveries to Homer and Marge, but they dismiss her accusations as jealousy to Bart. The events come to a head when The Party Posse perform at a concert on an aircraft carrier, which only increases Lisa's suspicion towards the band. During the first song (which also contains subliminal messages), L.T. learns from his superior officer that MAD Magazine's next issue will lampoon The Party Posse, calling them The Potty Posse and thus the band will not have any recruiting power. L.T.'s superior officer terminates "Project Boy Band" by shutting off the band's voice enhancer, exposing the group's mediocre voices. L.T. becomes increasingly aggravated about his Superior Officers' actions, and threatens to send the carrier out to sea. When L.T.'s completes his threat, a terrified audience evacuate the carrier. The only people left on the ship are The Party Posse and Homer (Homer was unfortunately in the toilet at the time). L.T. sends the ship to New York City in an attempt to destroy the MAD skyscraper. Despite 'N Sync's attempt to stop L.T., he destroys the MAD building with the ship's missiles, but L.T.'s actions appear to only reinvigorate the MAD workers. After L.T.'s criminal actions, he is arrested and the potential of the fraudulent Party Posse remains unfulfilled.

Trivia

★ Contrary to popular belief, 'N Sync did not provide the singing voices for Party Posse. Two members of another Lou Pearlman boy band Natural provided some of the voices — Marc Terenzi for Nelson and Michael 'J' Horn for Milhouse.

★ This episode aired seven months before 9/11. During the scene in New York, the World Trade Center towers are briefly visible.

★ In the episode "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", Bart visits the office of MAD magazine and Alfred E. Neuman leans out of an office door and demands a progress report on an article named "New Kids on the Blecch," which is the title of this episode. Both episodes involve New York City, MAD magazine, and the phrase "New Kids on the Blecch".

★ A similar plot line happened in an issue of the Simpsons comic book. Three major differences are Homer is making the Boy Band, Todd Flanders and Roy are part of the band (Milhouse is absent, even though he "decorated Homer's hubcaps with his toothbrush") and they are called "Five from 'Field." Additional names considered were "The Buttkick Boys" (Nelson), "Bart and The Others" (Bart), "AAAAYYYYYYYY" (Roy), "The Shelbyville Rockers" (Ralph), and "The 5 Wise Men" (Todd). Also mentioned is the existence of a book called "Talent, Schmalent: How to Build your own Boy Band."

★ This marks the second appearance of Otto's father, who is also the superior officer of L.T. Smash and responsible for "Project Boyband". In "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge", he berates Otto for not amounting to much (though he may be pleased as Otto signs up to the navy in this episode due to the subliminal messaging).

★ L.T. Smash tells Lisa that subliminal messages have been in popular music for a long time, showing a series of spoof images. The first is "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" using bayonettes (implying that this famously anti-war band had done a recruiting message for the British armed forces); the "KISS Army", showing the members of KISS wearing olive drab uniforms cleaning a latrine with their full make-up (to recruit for the US Army); and finally "GI Blues", showing ex-army man Elvis Presley in a barber's chair about to receive a military haircut.

★ In the original airing of the episode, Mr. Burns asks Smithers, "you call yourself a Chinaman?" In future airings the line was changed to, "you call yourself Chinese?" on the soundtrack. In the later airings, since the animation could not be changed, you can see Mr. Burns mouthing the original line.

Cultural references

★ The scene of a video-clip in which boys are raising a tetherball pole is a parody of a very famous war photograph ''Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima'' by Joe Rosenthal.

★ The title is a pun on "New Kids on the Block" and "blecch", a word of disgust often used in MAD Magazine, which is featured in the episode. This was also heard on "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson" when Bart visits the MAD Magazine office in New York.

★ While going over his checklist for the Party Posse, Lt. Smash has three things listed. The third thing says "Boogaloo... Electric". This is a reference to the 1984 film '', which featured the electric boogaloo dancing style, or the band of the same name that made it famous in 1977.

★ The video for "Drop Da Bomb" is apparently directed by Ang Lee.

★ The jets used in the video are similar to the color of jets used by the Blue Angels.

★ In Mad Magazine, one man says, "Why don't we call it, ''Everybody Hates Raymond''?" This is a reference to the sitcom ''Everybody Loves Raymond''. Mad did indeed parody the sitcom in an issue, but the spoof name was "Everybody Loves Ray-Mud". Mad is known for overt spoofing in a childish name calling way; which Nelson laughs at when he learns he would be lampooned as "Smellson".

★ The song "Ralph Wiggum" by The Bloodhound Gang contains lines from this episode. The song itself is composed entirely of quotes from Ralph Wiggum (almost, or related, like "Yvan Eht Nioj").

★ When Bart says 'Hello Springfield', he speaks in a British accent, like in "The Otto Show"

External links

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★ Party Posse Lyrics