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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Happy 43rd Deathday, Walt Disney!

The animation king was only 65 when he died on this day in 1966, of lung cancer.

Yes, Walt was a smoker. (Lucky Strikes and Gitanes, according to biographers.) The original Disneyland Main Street included a tobacco shop:
If you're looking for cigarettes, you've also come to right place -- even though you don't see them on display. The tobacconist keeps them under the counter. Just ask for any of the popular brands.
The shop was located right next to the magic store, where comedian Steve Martin worked as a kid.

The tobacco shop was removed in 1991, replaced by a baseball card shop. And the magic shop is under the weather.

But not to be glum. Walt would have been the ripe old age of 108 if he was still alive today. And now he has the pleasure of being buried next to Michael Jackson.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:17 AM0 comments  

Friday, September 04, 2009

Michael Jackson Buried At Last

At Forest Lawn in Glendale, just over the hills from Hollywood.

He's in the Holly Terrace, one of 11 halls that make up what Forest Lawn calls the Great Mausoleum. The Daily News:
The graves of Hollywood legends Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Red Skeleton and Nat King Cole dot the heavily guarded mausoleum's dim hallways -- as do 24-hour security cameras.
That Red Skeleton -- a kidder to the last.

The grave isn't public, says the LA Times:
Jackson fans who believe they can find Jackson's above-ground crypt in the expanses of the Great Mausoleum should rethink that, according to Forest Lawn officials.

"The Great Mausoleum itself is primarily restricted to family members," said William Martin, communications manager for Forest Lawn. "So when you come in, you're asked who you are coming to visit." Also, he added, there are many cameras on the premises.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 4:24 AM0 comments  

Monday, August 24, 2009

Michael Jackson's Death: "Homicide"

Jeepers, here we go. Homicide, says the LA coroner.
On the morning Jackson died, Murray said he tried to induce sleep without using propofol, starting first with valium at 1:30 a.m. When Jackson was still awake at 2 a.m., Murray injected Jackson with lorazepam, then injected him with midazolam at 3 a.m. Murray told police he administered several other drugs over the next few hours.
Good grief.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 2:56 PM2 comments  

Monday, August 17, 2009

"King of Popsicle" Succeeding Where Disney Failed

Walt Disney's body has long been rumored, falsely, to lie frozen beneath the Matterhorn at Disneyland.

But now comes word from The NY Post that Michael Jackson really has been frozen beneath the Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. Jackson is getting the ice, it seems, where Disney could only manage to be boringly cremated.

The Post has one of those irresistable headlines -- "Chiller! Jacko Now the King of Popsicle" -- and adds in breathless Post-speak that the body was moved from "Motown biggie Berry Gordy's family crypt" on orders from Jackson's mother, Katharine:
Katherine is refusing to let her son be buried in an unmarked grave because she's terrified that robbers will snatch his body or that the site would be desecrated.

So he lies alone in a small, bare brick room with beige walls in a gold casket, which rests on a white bench and is encased in a clear fiberglass container that keeps frost out, the sources said.
Well, maybe. In any case, Jackson is clearly bucking to join Alexander the Great in our loop Oddly Preserved. Alexander was also placed in a gold casket, though he was then soaked in honey -- a gaudy touch that the Jackson family may be hard-pressed to match.

As a bonus coincidence, the cremated remains of Walt Disney are now buried at... Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 6:38 AM0 comments  

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Eternal Moonwalk

Even if you've had enough of the Michael Jackson story, we recommend the totally awesome tribute Eternal Moonwalk. Really.

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Posted by Mr. Hehn at 11:52 AM1 comments  

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Pantheon of Unflattering Photos


Joe Jackson, father of Michael Jackson, at a memorial service today in Gary, Indiana.

(Photo credit: WENN)

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 10:32 AM0 comments  

Friday, July 10, 2009

Least Surprising Story of the Day

Michael Jackson had multiple plastic surgeries, says doctor.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 2:50 PM0 comments  

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Where's Michael?

Turns out he is at Forest Lawn -- at least, temporarily:
Michael Jackson's body is at Forest Lawn cemetery, sources close to the family told ABC News, but a dispute among his brothers and mother over whether the King of Pop should be finally laid to rest at Neverland Ranch is delaying his burial.
Jackson's remains may not stay at Forest Lawn, however. The singer's brothers and mother, sources said, are engaged in a argument about whether he should be buried at Neverland Ranch, the Xanadu-like estate at which the King of Pop once held court but where he vowed never to return again after police raided the home looking for evidence of child molestation in December 2003.


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Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Usher Sings at Michael Jackson's Memorial


More photos from the Michael Jackson memorial service here.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 8:22 PM0 comments  

Forest Lawn: Michael Jackson's Final Resting Place?

(TV trucks outside Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills on 7 July 2009.)

A family funeral for pop star Michael Jackson took place at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills today, and Jackson reportedly (may) be buried there after his funeral today.

Forest Lawn has a long and slightly odd history. It's just over the hill behind the famous HOLLYWOOD sign; a friend and I once walked up the hill past the sign and its many security cameras, over the brow of the hill (Griffith Park to your right as you're heading north) and then down into Forest Park.

Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills is loaded with celebrities: Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Steve Allen and Telly Savalas among them. Ed McMahon and David Carradine just landed there, too.

(Note: Walt Disney himself is at a different Forest Lawn property, Forest Lawn Glendale, which is a few miles away.)

As an additional Hollywood touch, from the cemetery you can look right across the Ventura Freeway at the Disney animation studios in beautiful Burbank.

Forest Lawn's other claim to fame is its extravagant (some would say kitschy) tributes to the American Revolution. The cemetery includes a replica of Boston's Old North Church and other odd items. Per the Forest Lawn website:
- Feel the excitement of the American Revolution as you stand before the world's largest historical mosaic, The Birth of Liberty.

- Visit a faithful reproduction of Boston's fabled Old North Church

- See larger-than-life-sized bronze statues of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln

- Watch a free 26-minute movie about the American Revolution

- Tour the Plaza of Mesoamerican Heritage, a tribute to the early civilizations of North America who thrived in the land that is now Mexico
Not your average Boot Hill, in other words.

Hubert Eaton, who founded Forest Lawn, didn't go for the gloomy graveyard model. He believed in "memorial parks" where families could come to visit and even picnic among the dearly departed. Toward that end, he banned stand-up headstones in favor of flat tablets, and he's credited with inventing (as it were) this all-flat-tablet style of cemetery.

(Eaton, like Disney, is buried at Forest Lawn Glendale.)

We didn't even know it was a celebrity burial ground at the time of our walk, but we marveled over the Old North Church replica and the Revolutionary details, which have an olde-time Hall of Presidents feel. It's a strange scene.

As another friend said today, "All you need is a Ferris wheel and Michael will feel right at home."

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 12:33 PM0 comments  

How Many Cops Does it Take to Manage a Michael Jackson Memorial Service?

3200.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 8:10 AM0 comments  

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

MJ in a Crystal Coffin?

It could be the biggest SoCal processional since OJ and Al Cowlings.
A mega-motorcade, replete with bizarre touches like a glass coffin traveling via horse and carriage, may be part of Michael Jackson's funeral cortege from Los Angeles to his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California, according to media reports.
'Officials believe the event would be so popular that cars would stretch unbroken for 125 miles between Los Angeles and the Santa Ynez Valley, where Neverland is located,' said the Los Angeles Times.
Hooboy.

Or maybe it won't happen after all. 125 miles in a horse-drawn carriage in a day seems like a stretch, unless Smarty Jones is pulling.

Jackson won't be buried at Neverland, in any case. Even the deceased King of Pop can't overcome regulations engineered by the funeral industry 'way back when.
"It's nobody's fault. Everybody in Santa Barbara feels bad about it," the source said.


[ Update: Now the family says it definitely won't happen. ]

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 11:56 AM0 comments  

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Where's Bubbles?

Turns out Michael Jackson's famous chimp companion, Bubbles, now resides at the Center for Great Apes, in Wauchula, Florida.

Here's his profile from the Center.

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Posted by Mr. Hehn at 11:46 AM1 comments  

It Just Got Weirder

US Weekly now claims that Michael Jackson is not the biological father of his two oldest children.

The real father is Jackson's dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, says the mag.

TMZ chimes in with the claim that Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife who carried the first two kids, is not the biological mother, either. She was (supposedly) a surrogate only, with the eggs coming from elsewhere.

Which sets things up nicely for a complicated custody battle in which none of the participants is actually related in any way to the children. (Unless the dermatologist jumps in.)

Although Rowe is not the biological mother, it's not a slam dunk that she would lose a custody battle. This type of case has never been litigated in California courts. Since Rowe was married to Jackson when Michael Jr. and Paris were born, there's a presumption that she's the biological parent. That presumption can be rebutted by other evidence.
Brother.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 10:30 AM0 comments  

Unknown Dump Truck Men Are Trashing Neverland

That didn't take long.

The AP says that the trash man has already come to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.
...Pickup trucks and a large dump truck towing a flatbed were seen entering the 2,500-acre Neverland Ranch, a major piece of the singer's debt-strapped financial empire. It was not clear who had requested the fleet or for what purpose.
I just spent some time trying to get a handle on the ranch itself. I've heard the name many times, natch -- mentioned mainly as an exhibit of Jackson's odd and free-spending ways -- but never quite got the whole scene. Now I get it.

One can start with these Neverland photos from our Jackson profile.

Turns out the ranch is about 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, up through Burbank, Oxnard, and Santa Barbara, and near the town of Solvang. (Google Maps shows the ranch here.)

Solvang is its own sort of Neverland, an "authentic" Danish village that has been on tourist maps for years. (Moreso since the area was featured in the film Sideways. The Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamatti characters stayed in the kitschy windmill Days Inn in nearby Buellton, 10 short miles from Neverland.)

Neverkand is also about 18 miles north of Ronald Reagan's own getaway, Rancho del Cielo. (Jackson had Reagan in size, 2500 acres to 688.)

Here's a nifty Neverland map, posted by a video tech who worked a charity event there.

It's bigger than I thought. The map lists cages for elephants, giraffes, orangutans, tigers, bears, and a crocodile (yikes!) along with bumper cars, a ferris wheel, swings, a "sea dragon" (?), etc. (No Bubbles, though.) As for the layout, it's zoo animals to the north, rides in the middle, private residence to the south.

Jackson apparently lived in the middle of the amusement park when he was in residence; there wasn't a separate mansion elsewhere, as I had assumed.
Mr. Jackson spent more than 15 years living at the ranch. He wrote songs for 1991's "Dangerous" album while sitting in a treehouse overlooking the estate's four-acre pond. His three children were home-schooled on the third floor of the main house.
As for the free-spending ways:
[Jackson] created a Neverland Valley Fire Department, with a small fleet of working engines and full-time firefighters who were occasionally dispatched to battle brushfires on neighboring properties.

At its peak, Neverland boasted a staff of 150, and cost $10 million a year to maintain, according to people familiar with the matter.
When he wasn't in residence, Jackson let schoolkids and other visitors have the run of the place.

Oh, and Liz Taylor married Larry Fortensky there in 1991.

Now we find out that Neverland wasn't even really Jackson's any more. After much wrangling over debt in years past, he handed it over last November to Sycamore Valley Ranch LLC, a company owned partly by him but mainly by the powerful property company Colony Capital.

Which maybe explains the dump truck.

[ June 30 update: E! Online now says Neverland will host a public viewing of Jackson's body over July 4th weekend. Perhaps, in the Reagan tradition, the workers are just there to clear brush? ]

[ July 1 update: Unknown dump truck men are trashing cleaning up Neverland. "Unconfirmed reports suggest Jackson's body may be placed in a glass coffin and be transported from Los Angeles to Neverland in a 'fairytale carriage.'" ]

[ Still later July 1 update: The Jackson family says there will be no viewing at Neverland after all. ]

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 6:37 AM0 comments  

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Michael Jackson's "Woo-hoo" Secret -- Revealed!

(Street art seen in Chicago -- 27 June 2009)

I will now reveal a secret I've been keeping for the last 20 years about Michael Jackson.

Michael is dead now, alas, so I assume I won't be creating any gross legal or ethical difficulties in revealing my little tale.

Back in 1989 I was working as a production manager for Will Vinton Productions, the Claymation people. At the time Will had a very hot shop, thanks to his California Raisins commercials. So hot, in fact, that Michael Jackson called up and asked to be made into a dancing raisin himself.

Thus was born the "Michael Raisin" TV ad, produced in 1989.

Due to some kind of nutty legal angle -- something about Michael being under contract to Pepsi, I think -- Jackson's image could be used, but not his voice. So a Michael Jackson impersonator was brought in to do the actual singing for the ad.

Now for the little secret, which Will told me about in his office a few months later. Will directed the animation for the spot and went down to Los Angeles for the postproduction sessions with Michael. Jackson was a perfectionist, so was Will, and as they were going through the final sound mix, one thing really bugged them: the impersonator just hadn't caught the esprit of Michael's trademark "woo-hoo".

They fiddled with the sound, trying to tweak it, without much luck. Finally Will turned to Michael, raised an eyebrow, and said "Well, Michael, do you...?" Leaving the question hanging open just a little, as it were.

Michael got it and grinned. They had the sound tech set up a mic right there... and Michael did an illicit one-shot "woo-hoo!" They dropped it in on the spot, telling no one, naturally, since it was technically less than fully legal or contractual or whatever.

And it went out the door that way. A 60-second version of "Michael Raisin" was released in 5700 theaters before going on TV, mostly in a shorter (woo-hooless) 30-second version.

So Now It Can Be Revealed: That's Michael himself singing a secret "woo-hoo!" in "Michael Raisin." You can hear it at just about the 28-second mark:



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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 3:06 PM0 comments  

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Best "Charlie's Angels" Photo Ever

Among the Farrah Fawcett photos supplied to us by our friends at WENN is this memorable Charlie's Angels promo shot from 1976:



We have other shots of the trio (the Angels stroll! And play chess!) but this one catches the mood of the show best -- or at least, the mood of the show as it wanted to be seen.

Something about the dainty way Jaclyn Smith tilts her front leg makes the whole shot work.

Smith's bikini (those hips!) reminds us that Fawcett wasn't necessarily even supposed to be the prime cheesecake in the show. Smith was supposed to be the smooth-hot model, after all, and Kate Jackson was the smart one. (She even looks fairly believable in that riding outfit.)

Farrah looks confused about something. Possibly she's wondering if her outfit is a hand-me-down from The Love Boat, another Aaron Spelling production that had its pilot the same year. Or perhaps she's puzzling things out: "If Kate is the smart one, does that make me...?"

It didn't take long to sort out Fawcett's role once the show hit the air: she was The Blonde. She took off as first among equals -- a la Michael Jackson in the Jackson 5, you might say.

More Fawcett fotos here.

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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 12:19 PM0 comments  

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson Dead at Age 50

The L.A. Times reports that Michael Jackson died after a cardiac arrest today.

[Update: Jackson has indeed died. He passed away at 1:07 pm Pacific time, according to the LA County Coroner.]

For a look back:

Here's Jackson's YouTube page, where you can see some of his great videos from years past.

Entertainment Weekly has a very helpful photo feature titled "Michael Jackson: 18 Key Moments."

And here is a video interview from 1972, with Michael talking to Dick Clark.

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Posted by Mr. Hehn at 3:46 PM0 comments  

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Can Michael Jackson Rally for 50 Concerts?

"He'll probably play a couple of shows, then get a doctor's sick note. Jackson's not a well man. To do 50 concerts you need real strength, mentally and physically. He couldn't even read the teleprompter at the press conference."
An in-depth look at Michael Jackson's physical and financial health.

800,000 tickets have been sold for his upcoming 50-concert stand in London.

Of course, some say it wasn't even Jackson at the press conference in March.


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Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:45 AM2 comments  

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