10 Reasons Michael Jackson Was a Geek

10 Reasons Michael Jackson Was a Geek

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King of Pop a Geek?

Regardless of his legal troubles, the world lost a cultural icon recently in Michael Jackson. He ruled the pop world with a gloved fist and his musical genius will be missed by the world. No matter what your personal opinion of the man himself was, his music and influence on future music spoke volumes about his creativity. There were things about him though, that would suggest there was a geek buried behind the veil and plastic surgery. Here’s 10 reasons that Michael Jackson was a geek.

10. He wore one sequined white glove. How is this any different than the grown men who show up at the Lord of the Rings premiere wearing cloaks and carrying staffs made out of PVC? There is even a website devoted to isolating every white glove in each of the 10,060 frames of Jackson’s famous Billie Jean television performance.

9. He was Captain EO. The Disney attraction was produced by George Lucas, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and cost more than any other movie at the time (per minute of film.) The sci-fi fantasy musical used over 150 sci-fi effects, produced by Lucasfilm. It can still be viewed online, part one and part two.


8. Filed a patent for anti-gravity shoes. Along with his long time costumers Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush, Jackson filed a patent for shoes that would give the illusion of him leaning far past his center of gravity. From the patent:

“A system for allowing a shoe wearer to lean forwardly beyond his center of gravity by virtue of wearing a specially designed pair of shoes which will engage with a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface.”

7. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records. While there are a lot of records in the book that aren’t geeky, his dedication to his music and legacy made Jackson a true music geek. He’s got 13 World Records (and countless other awards) to show for his dedication.

6. Had a personal arcade and geek den. We all know Jackson didn’t like to go out much, so he built a personal video game arcade in his house. It’s to be noted, that in this geek den he had life size Star Wars characters, including a Han Solo in carbonite and many other movie & geek memorabilia. Gizmodo recently did a post on it here.

5. He wanted to build a robot. Not just any robot, but a giant 50 foot robot of himself to roam the streets of Las Vegas doing promotional bits. One could only assume that eventually it would be called upon to fight the Decepticons.

4. He was a gamer. Aside from his video arcade (see #6), he was involved in many video game projects. He starred in the Sega Genesis game “Moonwalker” and was featured as a hidden character in “Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2.” He also made a cameo appearances in the “Space Channel 5″ games, where he used his voice to take on a singing robot. It’s also rumored that he contributed music to a couple Sonic games, but was never credited. He recently had put his arcade game collection up for auction.

3. Moonwalker. Jackson spent seven million dollars making this fantasy picture featuring Joe Pesci, Mick Jagger, claymation and the fantastic song, “Smooth Criminal.” As mentioned above, there was also a “Moonwalker” video game starring Jackson. There are still some available on Ebay, if you happen to have a Sega Genesis laying around to play it.


2. He was a collector. From circus animals, to strange artifacts (his attempt to purchase Joseph Merricks’ skeleton for example,) Star Wars items and the very expensive purchase of the Beatles catalog, Jackson liked to collect things.

1. He made a Zombie movie. It’s undeniable that Thriller is one of the greatest pop rock albums ever produced. It’s also undeniable that it was a zombie movie. Not only did Jackson make a zombie movie, but he was a werewolf within the zombie movie. Now that’s geeky.