Oh boy! It’s a Battle of the Man Bands!

By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
Sunday, September 9, 2007 - Updated 22h ago

Kingston homey Rich Cronin, late of LFO, former ’N Syncer Chris Kirkpatrick, Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees and Bryan Abrams of Color Me Badd are getting a second chance at fame and fortune thanks to their new VH1 reality show, “Mission: Man Band.”

But an L.A. group called the Man Band claims the cable network stole its name.

“With this show coming out, we can’t play a venue in L.A. without people expecting those (expletive) clowns,” complained Man Bander Tony Vitale, aka Man O’War, in an e-mail to the Track. “I mean, they should be expecting THESE (expletive) clowns!”

The Man Band has taken its case to MySpace [website] and YouTube and the group’s plight even has made VH1’s “Best Week Ever” show, which leads some to suspect their campaign is a hoax - and may even be a network promo for the “Mission: Man Band” show.

“It’s not a publicity stunt,” swore Chris Lee, aka Man Lee. “We really want them to stop.”

Chris told us that the group, which started in Savannah, Ga., when the members were in college, applied for a trademark back in 2005. He said they’ve hired an attorney who contacted VH1 on their behalf, to no avail.

But a network spokeswoman said the cable channel is sure there is no issue with the name, pointing out that the reality-show band is actually called SureShot, not Man Band.

The show follows the four aforementioned ex-boybanders as they attempt to make career comebacks with SureShot. It debuted two weeks ago and has already made Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List.”

Cronin, whose LFO career was sidelined while he battled leukemia, has a message posted on Man Band’s MySpace site giving props to the L.A. group.

“We bow down to the Man Band,” said Cronin. “We are Man Band fans.”

File Under: Man’s World.