New Kids on the Who?

I was preparing my breakfast this morning - Cheerios with sliced bananas - when my dad asked me a question.

"Who are these guys?" He pointed to the front page of the Entertainment section. It was a full color photo of NKOTB! Also fondly remembered as the New Kids on the Block.

"Those are the New Kids on the Block," I said.

"The Backstreet Boys?" he asked.

So maybe he thought I meant it as an expression, like, "Oh those are the new kids on the block," and not as in a band. As a kid I was never really exposed to popular music. I hate to admit it, but as a 3rd and 4th grader, my exposure to the "cool kids" music consisted of a Barbie cassette and a Simpsons cassette. It was all I had in my trusty Walkman. I don't think I could have even identified an NKOTB song on the radio. I just heard the other girls at school talking about it. I would just smile and nod. I remember my classmate Janelle was obsessed with them. She had a young mom who let her listen to all kinds of popular music. I never thought I was missing out though. I was just ignorant to that type of music. It was always Oldies on 99.7 KFRC or soft rock on KOIT 96.5. Hey, I was a kid, what can you do when you sit in the back seat and have no control over the radio?!

Back to this morning.

"No," I said, "those are the New Kids on the Block, the original boy band" (of my generation).

He replied, "Oh you mean, Making the Band?"

Here he was not referencing the Diddy-fied Making the Band, but the original version back like 10 years ago, when they created the now-defunct, O-Town.

"No Dad, it's the New Kids on the Block, the boy band from the late 80's and early 90's. They were like the first boy band, before the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. They are having a reunion tour." (It said that on the front page.)

"Oh I see," my dad said.

A funny conversation to start off the day. The really funny thing is that my dad is all up in the celebrity stories. He reads Page 2 to get all the day's gossip. Sometimes he hears stuff before I do. I guess it's because I was never a real fan of NKOTB, mostly due to sheer ignorance that they existed, that my dad, now twenty years later, has no idea who they are either.