“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…
An ongoing ramble by Charlie Sweatpants . .