"New Kids on the Blecch" is the fourteenth episode from the twelfth season of The Simpsons. The episode title is a play on the pop group, New Kids on the Block.
Plot
By paralleling Rosie Ruiz at the 1980 Boston Marathon, Bart cheats in a town-wide fun run. 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 introduces himself as L.T. Smash. Smash 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 it.
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 L.T. Smash ("Lt." being the abbreviation for the Navy rank of Lieutenant). He says he is working to recruit people for the Navy.
Lisa points out her discoveries to Homer and Marge, but they dismiss her accusations as jealousy of 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), Smash 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 no longer have any recruiting power. Smash's superior officer terminates "Project Boy Band" by shutting off the band's voice enhancer, exposing the group's mediocre singing voices. Smash becomes increasingly aggravated about his superior officer's actions, and threatens to send the carrier out to sea. When Smash completes his threat, a terrified audience leaves the carrier. Smash sends the ship to New York City in an attempt to destroy the Mad Headquarters. Despite the attempts of boy band 'N Sync to stop Smash, he destroys the Mad Headquarters with the ship's missiles, but Smash's actions appear to only reinvigorate the Mad workers. After Smash's criminal actions, he is arrested and the potential of the fraudulent Party Posse remains unfulfilled.
The episode ends with 'N Sync talking about the Navy, saying that they're out there every day protecting us from Godzilla, pirates and wackin' jellyfish. Lance Bass then reveals that the band has signed JC Chasez up for the Navy. Two sailors drag the surprised singer off kicking and screaming.
Cultural references
Homer makes reference to the lyrics of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly when talking to Lisa
External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: "New Kids On The Blecch" |
- "New Kids on the Blecch" episode capsule at The Simpsons Archive
- "New Kids on the Blecch" at the Internet Movie Database
- Party Posse Lyrics
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