It starts with "Tonight on Making the Band," but instead we see the history of this show, with Lou "Snack Attack" Pearlman looking for five boys to make a boy band. Ashley tells us that Lou "will always be a genius because he has a talent for putting groups together." We see Lou hug boys. We are introduced to Mike Cronin and Mike Morin. They are still employed by Trans Continental Records to manage O-Town. We are told that, and we see the words on the screen. Got it. Ashley tells us that the two Mikes are thinking about leaving Lou's company to come and work for O-Town. Sure they are, kid. What you don't know about the music business could fill Lou Pearlman's dinner plate.
Ashley leans in toward Boston Mike. Boston Mike plays with some electronic device instead. Ashley tells Mike that he's worried about the "contract situation." He confesses that it's the first time he's ever done something like this. No shit? Ashley tells us that it's very important that they watch their backs. Scary music takes over in the background as Ashley informs us that there are some people in this business who will take advantage of you if you let them. Amazing insight for just one boy, isn't it?
Opening credits. With each passing day, my hatred for Jacob grows. He wasn't even really in the last episode and I just hate him.
We start with thirty blissful seconds of sky shots. I love it. I love it so much. Lou enters some room and beelines right for Ashley. Lou hugs Ashley as the other boys back away. Ashley asks Lou what he thinks about "this little production, here." Lou smiles and says, "I love it. I love it. It's phat." I'm leaving that joke alone, people. Sometimes they make it too easy.
Ashley explains to us that, in the beginning, Lou said that he was going to be very involved in the group. He said that he was going to be "one-sixth member." He explained to the boys that instead of being a manager and taking a manager's cut, he'd act like he was the sixth member and take one sixth of all profits. We get a very scary close-up of Lou's face as Ashley tells us that, as time went on, Lou was around less and less. Lou's ear is gigantic. Gigantic! I think I see a bag of Cheetos in there. Ashley says that Lou is too busy to be their manager.
Lou sits behind his office desk and says, "I would love to do it all." How fucking creepy is that? The blinds are closed so you can't see just how sweet Lou's office is. By the way, I'm sure this isn't really his office, but just a "modest-looking place" in which they filmed Lou back-pedaling. He explains that since he runs several companies, he just can't be at O-Town's beck and call. I don't think that Lou owes anyone an explanation. He doesn't have to cater to anything these boys say. How degrading that he even has to pretend to care.
Lou walks up and hugs Boston Mike. Everyone makes small talk. Ashley explains again that the two Mikes (Boston Mike and Silent Mike) are still employed by Lou, and that they're thinking of quitting and working full-time for O-Town. Right.
Lou moves in on Silent Mike, but Silent Mike gives the stiff-arm, so Lou just has to pat him on the shoulder from a distance. Silent Mike looks at Lou like, "You're disgusting. Please leave this room so I don't have to smell you anymore." I imagine that Lou wears tons of Drakkar Noir. Tons of it. Boy juice.
Ashley complains about having to be involved in the business side of things. That's how you're going to end up broke in three years, Ash. Mind if I call you "Ash"? Of course you don't. You don't care what anyone thinks of you or what they call you behind your back. As Ashley talks, we see a shot of Boston Mike staring at Lou and then turning away as Lou turns to look at Boston Mike. It's creepy.
Dan's way too close in his close-up as he tells us, "It's a...it's a sticky situation, man, I'm telling you. It's a sticky situation." Such insight on that boy. Dan explains that Lou is the reason they're even in a band that has a record contract. Lou continues to stare at Boston Mike. "We gotta watch out for ourselves, too," Dan says. Do these boys know that nobody is listening to them? I'm just wondering. Is this early enough that they might still have been convinced that they were going to be superstars?
The boys are in Hollywood for the "Liquid Dreams" video shoot. We see lots of girls standing around as we're told that the boys get to choose the female dancers for the video.
"Swoop" the choreographer is bundled up in all kinds of clothes. He walks over to Trevor and tells him that they'll only look at about ten girls, and out of those, they'll have to chose five. "What?" Trevor asks like he's insulted. He says that they don't want to audition the girls, and that they're already supposed to be picked. Swoop ain't got time for none of Trevor's bullshit. He just keeps playing with his snot rag as he goes, "No." Then Trevor and Swoop speak in grunts and vowel sounds and I can't understand what's happening. Trevor stands in the middle of a group of auditioning girls and says, "If it was up to me, there'd be about a hundred." Then he turns and politely says to one girl, "Excuse me." This boy thinks he's going to get laid at a dance audition. Ass.
The camera follows Trevor (he checks behind himself to make sure) as he mumbles "only have five" over and over again. He walks into a room where the other boys are, and announces what Swoop told him. They all start shouting, "Not it!" because that's what you do when you're twelve. Oh, y'all. Jacob's not there again. Do they invite him to do anything? I love it. Trevor tells us that they don't want to pick the girls.
Cut to a strip club. It's actually the rehearsal/audition room, but there's no difference. Music pumps through about shaking booty, and girls grind, grope themselves, wiggle and jiggle away, hoping to get picked by these children. There are also about sixteen other men in the room watching through the mirror, so I'm not buying that O-Town gets to pick the five girls for the video at all. Boston Mike watches Erik, Trevor, and Ashley get nervous around actual girls. There are also way more than just ten girls in here. I don't know who's doing this voice-over, but it's priceless: "I haven't dealt with girls...in a professional, like, like, in a thea-- in a theatrical performance." Someone else says that they are all beautiful. The camera slowly pans across Erik, Trevor, and Ashley in another staged moment. I hope it's staged, because Erik's fixing to catch some flies in that mouth of his if it opens any wider. "We need to act professional," Erik says, as we watch some girl tuning in Tokyo on her titties. "But then you see them and they're like...pow! Pow! They're like...unh! Unh! You just...." And that's it. That's all Erik has to say. Write it down and live by those words, friends.
The boys clap and Erik mugs to the camera how happy he is to watch girls wiggle in front of him.
We watch the girls wait around as the boys all link arms with Swoop. "This is so funny," one of the boys says, presumably because there's not a girl in that room who does anything for him. Boston Mike and Ashley are cheek to cheek as they discuss the different girls. Across the room, Erik and Trevor are trying to get girls to give up digits.
Cut to a shot of Trevor dancing with a girl. We learn that she's Stacey, Dancer #1.
Cut to slow-motion on another girl. She is DeAnna, Dancer #2.
Dancer #3, Angela, stands near Ashley during the video shoot. Porn music is playing in the background as these girls get their only minutes of fame.
Dancer #4 is half-naked in slow-motion. We see a shot of her ass as we learn that her name is Kristen.
Diana, Dancer #5, can hardly be seen because Ashley's so pretty to her. He's got his mouth open like he's turned on and he's going, "Ooh." God, what a pretty gay boy he is. I wish I were Lou.
I just ate an entire bag of Pirate's Booty while watching Ashley's open wet mouth. Fucking hell. I've turned into Lou Pearlman.
One of the dancers (I'm not sure she's in the video) is flirting with Erik in a break room. She asks whether this is his first video. He says it is. She bends down and stretches her ass in front of him as she asks how he feels. He says it feels good. This is the part of the porn where they have sex. The music knows it and the girl knows it, but Erik seems to have forgotten his lines. Instead, he babbles that, for so long, they were just television personalities, and now they're finally rock stars. The dancer is incredibly bored. She asks whether they're the band that played for the Miss America pageant. This hits a sore spot on Erik, and he says he doesn't want to talk about it. The dancer apologizes, because she's now ruined her chances of getting a video solo shot. Jesus, people. Behind the dancer, over the microwave, there's a piece of paper listing the instructions on how to pop popcorn. For real. There are only two steps on the paper. The other piece of paper is a huge sign reading, "Eat popcorn in KITCHEN ONLY." Obviously, this building is teeming with morons who can't be trusted to eat snack food outside the kitchen area. I can't understand what the dancer says , because she's jamming her fingers into her mouth, but she mentions TRL. Erik explains around his lip patch of pubes, "We need TRL to play our video." He says this to us like it's going to be hard. MTB is a Bunim-Murray production, right? Yeah, I thought so. Erik tells us that they need TRL to play the video so that the song is associated with the video. I wish Erik got to go past the sixth grade. "TRL is definitely an intricate part of the puzzle." Idiot.
Ashley and Boston Mike meet at an empty table in an empty restaurant to discuss the contract. That earlier contract discussion was taken from this scene as well. Ashley says that he doesn't think Lou should get paid unless he's working with O-Town, "and doing something to deserve it." Is he serious? Does he think this would have happened at all without Lou? He's lucky he gets any money at all. Ashley says he's relying on Boston Mike and their lawyer to make him understand all of this. Somebody isn't doing his job if Ashley thinks that Lou has to do anything at this point to get paid. ["Yes, and didn't it occur to Ashley to get a lawyer not affiliated with Lou to look at his contract before he signed it? No wonder Ashley's father hates him." -- Wing Chun]
Boston Mike lets us in on his brilliant scheme: he met with each band member individually to ask what he thought about things. He also tells us that there's nothing in writing right now, so O-Town could change their management if they wanted. Boston Mike is so smart. Lou is clearly paying him to make O-Town think that they can do this on their own; then he pretends to be their manager while Lou's company takes away everything O-Town has so that they beg to be taken back, and in return, Lou gets an even bigger cut. Ashley asks whether they are out of line for thinking that Lou doesn't deserve one sixth of everything they ever make just because he picked them. Boston Mike spins like a top and says, "You guys signed a one-sixth agreement? That's you. I can advise you and say I'd look into doing it before you do such a thing? Not recommended, but I've no say in what you do. I can only advise you. But that's your final call." Ashley: "So basically what you're saying is, we need to have a, a real strong talk with our lawyer and make sure this, this one-sixth agreement gets worked out fast?" Mike: "You need to have a strong talk to make sure this one-sixth agreement never happens." Sayeth the man who wants to manage O-Town. Ashley babbles that they need to watch their backs and that there are people in this business who can take you "for what you're worth." Well, I don't think O-Town would lose very much in that respect. Ashley tells Boston Mike that they're eventually going to have a discussion with Lou about it, because something's going to go down soon. Boston Mike says that Lou would never talk about it. "You don't think so?" Ashley asks. Mike lies, "I'm very grateful for everything he's done for me. I'm very grateful for everything he's done for you. But he's more of a hurdle than a good thing now." Again, leaving the "hurdle" joke alone. But look how Boston Mike's playing them. It's so gross. Ashley lowers his head to the table. Are they ever going to order, drink, or eat anything?
Ashley tells us that he doesn't think Lou has a hidden agenda. I'm leaving out the part where I make cracks about all of the places on his body Lou's hidden things, like spare snacks, contracts, and Jonathan Knight. We see a flashback where Lou's taking some of the boys on his boat, racing through the ocean as Ashley tells us that Lou's been just one of the guys and a friend from the beginning. Can't someone help this kid out before he ruins his entire life? I mean, I'm pretty busy this weekend, but can one of you give him a call? We see a shot of Lou hugging some of the boys as they give out autographs and people take pictures. Ashley's wearing the gray shirt and Erik's got that Daniel-san headband on. Lou hugs only Ashley. It scares me that Lou and I have the same taste in boys. It shakes me to my core. Ashley tells us that Lou said he'd always be there. He appreciates everything Lou did for them and he'll always be a genius in Ashley's eyes. Ashley then tells us, "I've just heard that after they [Lou's other boy bands] get put together is when the problems start happening." Is that sentence in English? And how could the problems start happening before the band is put together? God, these kids are dumb. Who is filling their head with ideas that they don't need Lou? Oh, Boston Mike. You're so evil.
Video Shoot. Hollywood. Same shot of the Beverly Hills sign they always show, even though these kids are probably nowhere near Beverly Hills. In a giant green room known as the "Special Effects Set," Ashley and Lou are discussing the video. I guess. Or they're just flirting. I don't know. Do you care? Thought not. Boston Mike cares, however, and butts in to hear what they're discussing. He's relieved to see that they aren't passing a pornographic Polaroid for blackmailing, but just looking at still shots for the storyboard. To be on the safe side, Boston Mike confiscates the photograph. Oh, wait. It's a CD. Even better. Ashley looks away so that Boston Mike doesn't get suspicious, and Lou's flailing around talking to nobody.
Ashley tells us that he accidentally acted standoffish around Lou. Jacob twirls his dread. Hey, Jacob? Where've you been? Oh. Here he is to tell us his thoughts on the contract: "We have not signed a one-sixth deal. It's just...it's a very unfair deal. It's...somebody who gets one sixth of everything that you do and it's not -- it's in, instead of a manager but, you know, he's a brilliant guy when you can fire a manager but you can't fire a band member. So, it's one sixth for life. It's in writing and he gets one sixth of absolutely everything. And that's not fair."
Lou counters from on high: "To me it's a lot more than [the] contract. It's making sure everybody is happy. Because, bottom line -- I started the group. I made it happen because I put my full energies in it to find -- and I was lucky to find -- these guys. So, it's kind of like asking someone to step up and put them in business and then not giving them any profit on it and [you] may not even get your money back." As much as that sentence makes no sense whatsoever, Lou's completely right.
The video room is a giant puddle with a blue screen. All these kids have to do is dance and lip-synch. Like that's going to happen. Dan says that he's at his first video shoot, and that everyone who's in that room is there because of everything O-Town has accomplished. Sense of entitlement, much, Dan?
There's a montage here of video making. Jacob's dancing scares me. So does his singing. Is the line "she's a muffalltic tree"? What the hell? "Muff erotic dream from a magazine"? This song is terrible!
Jacob smiles and tells us that their first video is phat. Their song, however, is shitty.
More video-making montages. Boys touch girls and act like it sexually stimulates them. Erik wears stupid sunglasses. Then he falls down in the water. I mean, he totally busts it. Everyone's dancing, and he cracks his ass on the ground. Everyone laughs as Erik screams, "All in the name of my craft!" Then someone yells at them to get back to work since Dave Meyers's videos cost a million dollars a nanosecond. Trevor kicks in the air and voice-overs that he's having fun.
Boston Mike's all, "Oh, guys, I forgot to tell you!" Smooth. He's got them all in the limo and tells them the "good news." He says that Lou called and said he doesn't need the one-sixth agreement. He says he doesn't want a piece of management because he's being taken care of by the records and the television show. He says he'll sign the paper to release everything. Brilliant. O-Town was probably costing him much more money than it was making anyway. Ashley strokes his non-existent facial hair and asks Boston Mike to repeat himself slowly. Boston Mike says "double dipping," which is so nasty I don't want to rewind to find out why. Ashley says this is "awesome" news. Boston Mike says, "Well, it is what it is. Let's just hope it's true." Playing them like a deck of Old Maid cards. Dan says that they should be careful, and that this seems too easy. Fade to commercial. Those boys are just getting played, yo. How do they not see this? Who's going to manage them? With what money? They need Lou more than they need oxygen.
Orlando. "The City Beautiful," the sign reads. Andrew stands in front of a sign that reads 104 KRBE. That's a Houston station. In fact, right behind Andrew you can read the sign that says, "Houston's #1 Hit Music Station." Jeez. Andrew tells the boys that MTV added "Liquid Dreams" today. Wouldn't they have noticed MTV there when it made Making the Video? Of course they're going to add the damn thing. I hate this show. Trevor tells us that he's a huge fan of TRL. Erik and Jacob hold hands as Andrew says this is a good thing. He goes on to say that this is like a dream come true. He says he doesn't ever want to wake up. This is how Ashley started taking massive amounts of drugs.
Shots of the sky. I love them so. Ashley calls Lou's voicemail. Ashley tells us that Lou called to congratulate them. Ashley leaves a message saying, "What's up?" I love that Ashley has to call Lou.
Immediately, the two Mikes usher the boys into a meeting room. They are all signing contracts putting the two Mikes in charge of management. Wasn't there supposed to be a lawyer meeting as well? Erik says that they believe in the two Mikes, and that they think this is the best decision. Someone asks whether there's anything they need to talk about. Boston Mike looks to Silent Mike. Silent Mike says, "At this point, no." Silent Mike says that the boys will be working sixteen-hour days. Trevor cuffs Silent Mike on the shoulder and says, "That's funny." Silent Mike says that he isn't kidding. The ink isn't even dry yet, y'all. Silent Mike hits Trevor back on the arm. Trevor looks at his arm, and then everything starts to sink in. Ashley and Trevor are like, "No way. Sixteen?" Silent Mike says that he's serious. Ashley asks when those sixteen hours would be. Silent Mike pretty much says they'll be working as long as they're awake. Ashley then asks how many hours are in sixteen hours, and if eight in the morning until midnight is actually sixteen hours and if that would be considered a sixteen-hour day even though some of those hours are at night. Just sign the paper, boys. Let the grown-ups do the thinking.
New York City. The boys are going on TRL. Trevor tells us that he's hanging out in the green room looking at the view of all the fans in the street. He tells us he was just thinking how amazing it is that they are there right now.
Establishing shots of Total Request Live. Carson Daly stands with O-Town. My vagina starts making squeaking noises, it's so clean from all the douches in front of me. I wish Ashley would puke on Carson. They have a fog machine going, which is strange. Carson says that it's tear gas to keep the girls away. You mean the assassins. Erik-Michael, what the hell are you wearing? Did this interrupt your workout? He's wearing giant baggy gray sweats. Trevor gets nervous, and there's an awkward pause before he introduces "Liquid Dreams."
Oh. My. God. This is the video? This is terrible! It's all cheesy with the mercury and the bad music and the images of girls that aren't real. This is the worst thing ever! Look at Jacob with the bad dancing and the bad singing! Look how fake everything looks. Oh, this is the worst video ever made. And who dressed Erik? That stupid "O-Town" sign in the back. It's like a fake video. The dancing is so bad.
Dan says that it was an awesome experience to know that his family was at home watching the finished product of his work on national television. It's like they don't know they're on television every week.
Carson has the best line: "I'd like to thank O-Town for literally making something out of nothing." Okay, Carson, you win this time. But I'll get you time, Daly. time.
And we're back in Orlando. O-Manor. Jacob eats pizza. Trevor pours a Coke. Erik tells us that there's an emergency meeting and that only means "something bad."
Boston Mike: "Out of nowhere, which is a very aggressive move, Trans Con has cut you out." Man, it's just step one, step two, step three in scaring these kids into submission. "Trans Con?" Ashley repeats, wearing the same gray shirt from the past hour I've been watching him. Erik wears his Karate Kid bandana and lowers his head. Boston Mike continues by saying that their incidentals and everything else have been cut off. The per diem is cut off. Their credit cards are cut off. Jacob freaks out, wanting to know why Trans Con would do this. Uh, because you just wrote Lou out of the contract? The boys then just all talk at once and none of them knows anything about what they're discussing. They think that Trans Con is doing this to get back at them for not letting Lou have his one-sixth deal. Do they think that Trans Con owes them anything? That they should keep paying for this group? I really don't get it. Ashley tells us that they're upset because it happened all of a sudden and they didn't get any warning: "It just happened. It was like -- boom! Our cell phones were shut off. Boom! The credit card was cut off. No per diem. And no word from Lou." Oh, wah. Lou was paying for those things, you child.
Someone says that they should call Lou. Jacob waves his dick around saying he'll call Lou and that he'd storm into Trans Con tomorrow if only he wasn't so busy with their tour schedule. Erik pouts and tells everyone that they don't march into some place yelling, and that they should wait until they calm down before they discuss anything. He's trying to grow a mustache. It's hysterical. Erik says this isn't personal, but a business thing. Everyone pouts. The screen tells us, "To be continued..."
Can someone tell me who that creepy silent guy who always is behind O-Town but never talks is? He's at this table right now. I'm afraid of him.
Why are these baby cartoon commercials playing during this show? So scary to me.
week Lou calls himself "Papa." Yeah, it's as nauseating as you'd think it would be.