There’s no such thing as bad publicity supposedly, even if it is truly damaging to somebody’s career.

Michael Jackson was a shining example of this, with his problems generating all sorts of interest towards him. Whenever the iffy subject of shedloads of debt cropped up, then Michael responded by purchasing extravagant tacky art. Which as we all know, plunged him further into debt.

One of the biggest stories to dog Michael Jackson during his life wasn’t his exploding hair, morphing skin colour or amusing pet monkey. Instead, it was his long court battles against children who claimed that that everything got a bit too friendly. But he was found to be innocent – so now the geniuses at Sony want to reintroduce Michael Jackson into the lives of Japanese kids via their PS3 console.

Now, Sony hasn’t lowered the tone and decided to release a game entitled Escape From Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch and, as far as we know, Jesus Juice won’t be used as a power-up. It’s much more tasteful than that. No actual youngsters will be harmed in the making, as the Michael Jackson and Sony tie-in will be focused around the painfully exploitative This Is It DVD.

As we all know, Michael Jackson was due to play a number of gigs in London’s O2 arena last summer. The promoters of the show had intended it to be so bollocking good that we’d still be in shock in awe over the part where Michael skateboards over a seven-foot trough of donkey poo. But due to unforeseen circumstances, Michael was taken from away from us and is now crooning away in heaven. Or hell. Or a secret island.

With lost revenue on their hands, the gig promoters needed a quick cash in to rake in some funds. T-shirts and other merchandise wouldn’t do. Instead, it was decided that all of the rehearsal footage would be chopped together to show Michael Jackson performing in a healthy state. Not the man using sellotape to keep his nose held onto his face. Naïve fans fell for this and the film, entitled This Is It, rocketed to the top of the box office.

So what’s next on the lucrative Michael Jackson deceased cash cow? As far as we can tell pretty much all bases have been covered, but Sony isn’t done with randomly mismatching products yet. Sony’s PlayStation 3 console is coming with a copy of This Is It on Blu-Ray. Not a game or a limited-edition box featuring Jackson’s awful looking mug, but a copy of the movie. Yes, we’re confused too. Gamers Daily News report:

“The bundle will run about ¥33,500 ($365) and only be available in Japan starting on January 27 Included are the Blu-ray movie of Michael Jackson’s behind-the-scenes concert film, along with a 120GB black PS3 Slim.”

When pieces of the moon appear with Michael Jackson branding on them, then we’ll know it’s time to give up and support Janet Jackson. She’s not as much of a corporate whore as her brother. Probably because she’s not as good as her brother.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Michael Jackson’s This Is It opens on Wednesday, and it’s bound to be a stupendous hit. But what’s it like?

Well, frankly, who cares? This Is It will be a hit no matter what it’s about. This is It could consist of nothing but Michael Jackson mumbling threats at a sleeping cat for two hours and it’ll still end up as one of the year’s top-grossing films. But it would be sort of nice to know what This Is It is like, wouldn’t it?

Well fear no more – Michael Jackson’s brother Jackie has seen This Is It, and he loves it. And he once recorded a song called Cruzin’, so he knows quality when he sees it.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It couldn’t have asked for a better name. Not only is it the phrase he repeated again and again like a melting wax mannequin of Rain Man when he first announced his London comeback, but he also managed to record a song of the same name before he shuffled off. And the title has meaning, too – because this really is it from Michael Jackson. Once the film is released, we’ll never hear from him again. Apart from, you know, when his albums keep getting constantly repackaged, each with a brand new unfinished, lacklustre demo bolted onto it to keep the money coming in.

And on Wednesday This Is It will finally be released. And nobody knows what it’ll be like. The movie posters promise that you’ll see Michael Jackson ‘like you’ve never seen him before’, which we originally assumed meant ‘gaunt, frail, wheezing, forgetful, dangerously medicated and conspicuously on the brink of premature death’, before the This Is Not It campaign put the kibosh on that idea.

So we just don’t know. Luckily, This Is It has already been seen by one reviewer, and he’s as impartial as you can possibly get. He’s… oh, he’s Michael Jackson’s brother Jackie Jackson. Here’s what Jackie Jackson thought of This Is It, according to TMZ:

“My brother’s movie ‘This Is It’ is truly riveting. Michael is electrifying! We get a glimpse of a true genius at work. His passionate message for healing the world, saving the planet and our children’s futures is something he was always striving for in his lifetime.”

Might Jackie Jackson have an ulterior motive here? We don’t think so. Remember that this is Jackie Jackson we’re talking about here – a Jackson so staggeringly inconsequential that, rather than waste their time thinking up a proper name for him, his parents just decided call him an abbreviated version of their surname. His opinion counts for even less than yours – and look at the state of you, for crying out loud.

Now, Jermaine Jackson‘s review of This Is It is something we’d love to hear. Chances are it’ll go something like:

“My movie ‘Jermaine Jackson’s This Is It’ is truly riveting. I am electrifying! We get a glimpse of a true genius – me, Jermaine Jackson, the original lead singer of The Jackson Five – at work. My passionate message for healing the world, saving the planet and our children’s futures is something I was always striving for in my lifetime. Which is still ongoing, by the way. Not like some people I could mention. I probably have an album out soon or something. Love me!”

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

When you heard Michael Jackson’s new single This Is It yesterday, you probably thought “Wow, Michael’s still got it.”

And you’re right. Michael Jackson has still got it. It’s just that ‘it’ in this case refers to an 18-year-old collection of obscure Puerto Rican pop songs. Because This Is It was first released in 1991 by an artist called Sa-Fire, who we haven’t heard of either.

What’s more, it’s been announced that Paul Anka will get half of the royalties from This Is It, ensuring him a massive payday. So just imagine how much bigger the payday would have been if the song was actually any good.

We don’t know about you, but yesterday we were actually pretty scared. It saw the first play of Michael Jackson’s first posthumous single This Is It and, terrifyingly, things went off without a hitch. That’s not the Michael Jackson way at all. There were no scandals, no spurious postponements, no giraffes sploshing around in pools of their own blood. It was all coordinated with a level of professionalism that would have made Michael Jackson blanch, if it was possible for his skin to get any lighter than it already was. Obviously.

Announcing a new single and then releasing it on time without any controversy isn’t the way to celebrate Michael Jackson’s life. Organising a tribute concert in Vienna and then cancelling it because nobody wanted to play there – now that’s the way to celebrate Michael Jackson’s life. This Is It had no problems, no snarl-ups, no snafus – which is why we were scared.

In retrospect, though, we shouldn’t have bothered. This Is It had plenty of problems, snarl-ups and snafus. We just had to wait for them to emerge. Problem number one was that This Is It was co-written with My Way writer Paul Anka – and originally titled I Never Knew – for a 1983 album that never came to fruition because of an argument between Jackson and Anka. This meant that Paul Anka would have to receive half of the royalties for the song’s re-release which, as he told TMZ, he was more than happy to accept:

“They realize it’s a mistake, they realize it’s my song, they realize it’s my production of his vocal in my studio and I am getting 50 percent of the whole project, actually, which is fair.”

And problem number two is that This Is It has already been released once, by a Puerto Rican singer called Sa-Fire 18 years ago. Here it is…

We’re over the moon that This Is It has turned out to be such a monumental balls-up. It’s how Michael Jackson would have wanted to be remembered. Obviously the Michael Jackson movie This Is It still poses a problem, but we’re sure that the producers still have time to bungle it in a respectfully Jackson-esque way before its release. Maybe they can prime the reels to catch fire 15 minutes in, or just recut the whole thing until it consists of nothing but home-recorded footage of a toddler carelessly hitting a yogurt pot with the back of a spoon for 45 seconds or something.

We know you can do it, This Is It producers. We believe in you!

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

Michael Jackson’s aborted comeback shows were dubbed This Is It. And his new movie is called This Is It.

Now Michael Jackson has a new song. Guess what it’s called. That’s right – it’s called Mr Dingleberry’s Enchanted Bloodhound. No, no it’s not. It’s also called This Is It. And the good news is that, provided that Free As A Bird is your favourite Beatles song and you feel that Tupac Shakur never really came into his own until several years after he died, it isn’t completely awful.

You want to listen to Michael Jackson’s This Is It, don’t you? Oh, go on then.

Michael Jackson’s death has taught us all two exceptionally valuable lessons. Lesson number one is that you probably shouldn’t take medical-grade anaesthetic on a recreational basis, and lesson number two is that death can actually increase your productivity by up to 75%.

Because what did Michael Jackson do in his last few years? Not a lot – there were all the lawsuits, obviously, and the occasional bout of transvestitism to keep him occupied, but that was about it. Even his comeback shows didn’t sound particularly heartening, what with the postponements and the rumours of ill health and the contractual obligations to only appear onstage for 13 minutes per concert. But now he’s dead? There’s no stopping Michael Jackson.

Seriously. Not only has Michael Jackson made a movie from beyond the grave, but he’s also recorded a new song to accompany it. Well, we say ‘new song’, but he actually recorded it in 1991. And then decided that it wasn’t very good. Not even good enough to be a b-side. Not even better than Earth Song. And so he locked it away so that it could never be heard. And now, probably on the basis that the first line of the song also happens to be the title of his new movie, it’s being released as a transparently opportunistic single.

But, on the plus side, at least This Is It is better than the last posthumous music we heard from him, on the basis that it’s an entire song and it hasn’t been ripped off from an underwhelming song on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas soundtrack. And it’s all over the internet, too. Here, have a listen…

If you listen closely enough to This Is It, you’ll hear Michael Jackson’s brothers harmonising on backing vocals. This is down to the verbal arrangement that Michael Jackson had with his brother Jermaine on his deathbed whereby Jermaine agreed to appear on every single last piece of posthumous Michael Jackson merchandise, even if he logically doesn’t even have anything to do with it and the merchandise ends up appearing inferior in comparison. It would have been a written arrangement, but Michael was too ill to sign the contract and then the contract burst into flames and blew away in the wind. Jermaine isn’t making it up, you know.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of This Is It, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s just one of 200 unreleased Michael Jackson songs that will be released over the course of the next few years. So just 198 stories identical to this and we can all go home.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

It’s fair to say that the new Michael Jackson film This Is It will be the greatest movie in cinema history.

Wait, that needs to be modified. It’ll be the greatest Michael Jackson movie in cinema history. No, that’s still not right. It’ll be the greatest hodge-podge of halfhearted private rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson in cinema history. We’re almost there – it’ll be the greatest hodge-podge of halfhearted private rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson that’s released suspiciously close to Halloween in cinema history. Bingo.

That’s right – Halloween. Never say that Hollywood doesn’t have a sense of humour.

We know it’s a little early, but we think it’s time you started to plan your Halloween weekend. Specifically, what movie you plan to watch. Because you’ve now got the choice of Saw 6 or Michael Jackson’s This Is It. And it’s a tough choice – do you watch a hacky, convoluted, utterly formulaic piece of scary crap about a creepy old man with a toy fetish who delights in torturing those younger than him and clearly isn’t as good as he was a few years ago, or do you watch Saw 6?

Anyway, our point is that Michael Jackson’s new movie This Is It – the movie collated from fragments of his final concert rehearsals – has a release date. And, as you’ve probably guessed, it’s Halloween weekend.

What’s the significance of Halloween? Does it coincide with his birthday? No, that’s in August. Does it mark the anniversary of his first number one single as a solo artist? No, that happened in May 1981. Is it because the sight of a drug-ravaged 50-year-old plastic surgery addict absent-mindedly lurching his way through a number dance routines that he clearly has no interest in while worrying that all the sudden movement will cause his terrifying Munch-esque deathmask of a face to disintegrate naturally lends itself to the concept of Halloween? Well, um, yes.

Or because the Thriller video had a bloody werewolf in it or something. God knows. We prefer our version, though. Anyway, why the sudden rush to get Michael Jackson’s This Is It into the cinemas? The LA Times reports:

Sony Pictures Entertainment received court approval to bring Michael Jackson to the big screen… The court’s authorization, announced Monday in Probate Court by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff, allows them to edit more than 80 hours of rehearsal and behind-the-scenes footage into a movie.

Oh, we understand – it’s because if they take their time and craft a decent, well-edited movie that will do justice to the memory of Michael Jackson, people won’t be dumbly grief-stricken enough to watch it. It’s better to do a crappy job and get rich, everyone knows that.

So Sony has two months to turn 80 hours of footage into a coherent movie. That’s going to be a tough job, and it’s clear that the editors will face some tough choices – do they show Michael miming his way through a hastily-choreographed performance of Liberian Girl, or do they show him backstage being pumped full of medical grade anaesthetic by an ethically dubious doctor while another assistant sellotapes his nose back on?

Oh, the decisions.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter