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New Kids on the Blecch is the fourteenth episode from the twelfth season of The Simpsons. In the episode, a music producer selects Bart, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph to be members of the next hit boyband, who record subliminal songs about joining the Navy.

The episode was written by Tim Long and directed by Steven Dean Moore. The episode's title is a play on the boyband New Kids on the Block. The episode has received positive reviews from critics and was watched by almost 10 million viewers.

Plot
After watching 38-year old Carlos Lopes in the 1984 Summer Olympics on TV, Homer decides to participate in the Springfield marathon to prove to Marge that he is fit. In the end though, Bart comes out as a surprise winner, by entering from a side alley near the end, wearing a stereotypical Italian costume as a disguise. But while receiving the trophy, a bird rips off his fake moustache, causing an angry mob to chase after him. Cornered, he accepts a ride from a stranger to escape. The stranger introduces himself as 'L.T. Smash', who happens to be a music producer. Smash offers Bart a career as a member of a boyband known as "The Party Posse", as his stunt showed he has the right bad boy attitude. Bart accepts, and becomes the Party Posse's fourth member, joining Nelson, Ralph and Milhouse. The Party Posse quickly ascend to stardom, albeit using complex voice enhancers built by NASA. They perform at Springfield Elementary to high applause.

The band releases a single video 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. She sees Otto has decided to join the Navy, and goes to L.T. Lisa 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 Navy, and that bands have often been used for recruiting. 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 also explains the new administration is having 'Project Boy Band' shut down and turns off the band's voice enhancer, exposing the group's mediocre singing voices, and causing the concert to fail. Aggravated by his superior officer's actions, Smash goes insane and threatens to send the carrier out to sea. When Smash completes his threat, a terrified audience leaves the carrier. Smash sails the ship to New York City in an attempt to destroy Mad  Magazine Headquarters. Despite the attempts of boyband 'N Sync to stop Smash, he destroys the Mad Headquarters with the ship's missiles, although the Mad workers manage to survive. After Smash's criminal actions, he is arrested and the potential of the fraudulent Party Posse remains unfulfilled. However, the Posse is upset they did not appear on the cover of Mad.

The episode ends with 'N Sync talking about the Navy, saying that it is out there every day protecting them from Godzilla, pirates and jellyfish. Lance Bass then reveals that the band has signed JC Chasez up for the Navy and two navy MP's drag Chasez off screaming.

Production
The episode was written by Tim Long and directed by Steven Dean Moore. Mike Scully was angry that they had not pitched enough story ideas, so he pitched this episode, along with "Trilogy of Error." During the pitch session, he suggested that *NSYNC guest star on one of the pitched episodes. The decision to add a government conspiracy came late, an idea which was pitched by George Meyer. At the table read for the episode, the cast ad-libbed the lyrics and music.

'N Sync instantly said yes to being asked to guest star, although Justin Timberlake had to record his lines separate from the rest of the band due to a family death. During the recording session, the staff brought their kids along to meet the band. Tom Hanks, who was filming Cast Away in the same studio, wanted to meet them and came by. The song that introduces 'N Sync every time they walk in is "No Strings Attached". Justin was reluctant to say "Word" since he swore it was something he would never say, so as a joke the editing team reused the one take where he said "Word" after nearly every line.

On meeting the band, producer Mike Reiss said "I'm not a fan of 'Nsync but they are five of the nicest girls I've ever met". The singing voices of Bart, Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph were performed by a vocal group called Natural. Josh Horn, who portrayed Milhouse's singing voice in the episode, also played keyboards on the tracks.

Release and reception
In its original American broadcast on February 25, 2001, "New Kids on the Blecch" received a 9.7 Nielsen rating, translating to approximately 9.9 million viewers. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 18.1 million viewers watched the episode, making it the tenth most viewed show in the week of February 19-25, 2001. On August 18, 2009, the episode was released as part of a DVD set called The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season. Matt Groening, Mike Scully, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, Tim Long, Matt Selman, Tom Gammill, Max Pross, Hank Azaria, Steven Dean Moore and Chris Kirkpatrick participated in the audio commentary for the episode.

After its broadcast, "New Kids on the Blecch" received positive reviews from critics. Graydon Royce of the Star Tribune described the episode as "comedy gold". In 2003, Annie Alleman of The Herald News included it in her list of her ten favorite episodes of the series.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, syndicated versions of this episode cut the part where the missile from the aircraft carrier launches and decimates the MAD Magazine office building (with all of the writers coming out of the explosion okay). For a period of time the scene was only available on the season 12 DVD, however the scene once again appears in syndicated versions of the show.