“That took a lot of class.” – Troy McClure
I had genuinely forgotten just how bad some of these Season 12 episodes are. I remember when this boy band episode was first broadcast, and I remember hating it, but I’d forgotten how painfully long it is. And I know it clocks in at the usual amount of time, but the third act of this one is terribly boring, even by the standards of Zombie Simpsons. There’s a concert on the ship, then it sails to New York, then they blow up the Mad Magazine building for some reason and it just keeps on going to the point that it feels like it’s never going to end. Oh yeah, and “‘N Sync” shows up to be fawned over instead of mocked. Just a truly awful spectacle.
Anyway, there are a whopping eleven people commenting on this one, including one from ‘N Sync.
1:15: Mike Scully had to yell at the writers for not coming up with any good ideas and this piece of shit was the result.
3:15: Discussing how star struck everyone was to have ‘N Sync around.
4:45: Still talking about how popular ‘N Sync was.
5:20: Laughing at the stupidity of their band notification joke.
6:30: Now they’re discussing how all of the ‘N Sync songs sounded the same.
7:45: Discussing how the guy they got to produce the crappy songs was an asshole to the singers they brought in. The purpose, of course, was to get that authentic boy band sound that really made this episode oh so special.
8:20: Discussing how faithfully their crappy fake boy band singing imitates actual crappy boy band singing. Seriously.
9:30: In keeping with the other Season 12 DVD commentaries, this is the part where they laugh about how strange and bizarre the plot of this episode is.
11:40: Discussing the fact that they had no ending for this episode, somebody says, “It was during a period when a lot of conspiracies were afoot on the show. When people weren’t what they seemed.” Basically that means that they didn’t have an ending for this half-cooked story and just pulled something out of their asses. What’s more, they did that a lot. Yet again, the apathy towards the quality of their own show is really telling.
12:40: Talking about an ‘N Sync concert.
13:10: Someone mockingly calls the story “airtight” to general laughter. They just don’t care.
13:20: Discussing whether or not the Village People were an inspiration for this insane Navy conspiracy ploy, “That’s way more thought than we put into it.” Yup.
15:40: “Another great song”. Seriously, half this episode is bad imitations of worse songs, and these guys are thoroughly entertained by it.
18:00: Long story from ‘N Sync guy about the perils of lip syncing.
19:30: Lip syncing story still going on.
19:50: Laughing at the wild stupidity of having ‘N Sync show up for no reason.
20:35: Mildly interesting note in that they had to pull this episode from syndication for a while after the 2001 terrorist attacks because they blew up a building in New York.
21:12: Laughing at the Irish cop and what they’re doing on a moving boat. I’ll say it again: utter apathy towards their work, just the textbook definition of phoning something in.
Dead Homer Society 
8 responses to ““New Kids on the Blecch” Makes Baby Jesus Cry”
Funny you should head this post with a quote and screen shot from “A Fish Called Selma”. I love that episode AND its commentary. I will actually re-listen to that commentary from time to time. The participants (Oakley, Weinstein, Silverman(?) and the episode’s guest star Jeff Goldblum) all have interesting and intelligent things to say about the story, its genesis, the voice acting, the direction, Jeff’s experiences as a guest star on The Simpsons, etc. They’re not just killing time on the commentary track.
The “A Fish Called Selma” quote was strictly to make fun of them for their celebrity obsequiousness. But it might be fun to go back and listen to commentary from an episode that doesn’t suck galactic sphincter.
I remember feeling especially repulsed by “New Kids on the Blecch” when it first aired – and that was, what, almost ten years ago? It’s more than a little depressing thinking about the fact that truly terrible Simpsons episodes have been with us for so long. Didn’t this episode end with LIVE ACTION footage of N/Sync yukking it up in the Simpsons studio, over the closing credits? Shameless fawning on Zombie Simpsons’ part, even by their own celeb-whoring standards.
Sadly, you are correct. The end credits are “behind the scenes” style shots of the ‘N Sync boys recording their shit. Because – you know – it was just such an *honor* to have ‘N Sync as guest voices that all the stops had to be pulled out, otherwise they might not have done it.
Was this the first time the show featured behind-the-scenes footage of guest stars? If so, to think that of all of the genuinely esteemed guests they had on before that, it was N’Sync they decided to show off to the audience.
Sort of. In Season 11’s “Take My Wife, Sleaze” the closing credits had live action footage of NRBQ performing the theme song, but nobody talked. I can’t think of any episode prior to this one where they showed the actual people recording their lines and goofing off for the cameras. One assumes they did it because these guys where just SO popular at the time that they needed to show them in their “behind the scenes” cuteness mode to capture the all important 12-13 year old girl demographic. Like you said, it’s pretty damning when you consider some of the people they had on before this. Kowtowing to ‘NSync, that’s low.
Not as low as my low low prices!
Seriously though – the producers either didn’t realise, or chose to ignore, the fact that in a couple of years time when ‘NSync’s fame inevitably dissipated, this episode would seem even more desperate and risible than it did at the time it first aired.
I think a lot of other Zombie Simpsons episodes featuring flavour-of-the-month celebrities have dated just as badly.
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