MASSACHUSETTS, 1992: Six men sit in a large, posh living room in a suburban house. One stands up.
"I'm sorry, guys, but it has to be done," he announces as he leaves the room, in search of the mobile phone. He was right. The public just wasn't buying it anymore. The last album sold quite poorly, the gigs just weren't selling and the merchandising was dying off. It was time for the New Kids on the Block to end their illustrious musical career.
They did so gracefully. Donnie went in search of a 'higher meaning' in Tibet, Jordan moved to Germany and formed some sort of Krautrock band, Danny went to the gym (until he ran out of money), Joe's balls dropped, and Jonathon did something that no one cared about. They were low on cash and living like the common people, but not too bad off.
Two years later, fate intervined and the lads crossed paths again, in Nottingham, England. Jordan and Jonathon where there on holiday, and ran across Danny and Joe, also, weirdly enough, on holiday. They laughed, they cried, they fell in love. It was a glorious day in the history of the world, except the boys had a lingering sadness in the fact that Donnie was missing.
Their tears were soon remedied though. On a trip to Tesco's, they ran across Marky Mark, Donnie's brother. He brought them straight to Donnie.
"What have you done to yourself?" yelled Jordan. Donnie was no longer tough, scary NKOTB Donnie. He was calling himself Mel lately and roughing up the town.
"Oh, this, dahlings, is great. I've really discovered Girl Power in this life style! Not to mention I met this man who said that I could be a staaaaar if I could just find some more laydees to go along with this."
The Kids had an idea. Stardom? Fame? Fortune? Again? And they just needed to find laydees? They weren't too far off that themselves! From that day on, they started wearing dresses and 'honing' their 'new' act.
"I don't see why we should really make a totally new act," announced Jordan, who was now called Geri, "when we had a perfectly good one back then. Just change it a little, no one will really notice. If they bought it then, why wouldn't they buy it now?" His suggestion was taken to heart by the rest of the band, who started pulling out their copies of Hanging Tough again and listening closely.
Their first attempts at songwriting for their new girly selves showed that they wanted to break the bimbo image. They sang about algebraic equations. Their new manager, however, didn't approve.
"What the fook is 'We got G like e=MC^2'? That is not a song, ladies."
Back to the drawing board. The manager hired eight somewhat-intelligent monkeys to edit the original, mathematical songs. This proved difficult in that the monkeys, who were really not able to write, made up words quite often, and other times cut/pasted words that really didn't go together. No one really minded though.
So now it is 1997. Spice 'mania' (N.B.: There is no such thing. If you put a story in the tabloids enough, it looks like mania. However, I'm pretty sure there is no one out there who has Spice Mania.) has taken over. However, the girl/boys are having a hard time dealing with the gloss of it all second time around. Jonathon/Victoria is not happy being the One That No One Gives a Rat's Arse About once again. Donnie/Mel B feels that the 'tough' act is really wearing thin. Jordan/Geri is tired of prancing around and being sexy. Joe/Emma is starting to feel guilty for promoting paedophilia. Danny/Mel C (Marky Mark was going to be Mel A, but he was called off to do a B-quality film) is starting to wonder if there is more to life than athletics. Will they fall apart? Only time will tell if the Spices will suffer the same fate as the originals.