Michael Jackson’s Halloween new CBS animated special.
Michael Jackson lives! Well, at least an animated version of the King of Pop lives. He’s in a new one-hour Halloween special airing at 7 p.m. Friday on CBS.
It’s sure to be a thriller. “Thriller.” Get it?
The real star of Michael Jackson’s Halloween is Jackson’s music. There are also the voices of eight CBS fan favorites.
The family-friendly special stars Lucas Till (MacGyver) as Vincent, and Kiersey Clemons (Extant) as Victoria. Also on board are Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory), Lucy Liu (Elementary), Christine Baranski (The Good Wife), Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), George Eads (CSI) and Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond).
The trailer shows Parsons as some sort of dancing jacko’-lantern dude.
The special was created and produced by Optimum Productions, the Jackson company owned by his estate. Jackson died in 2009 at the age of 50.
Aside: Jackson may be long dead, but his estate still earned $825 million in 2016, according to Forbes magazine. Most of that came from the sale of Jackson’s half of the Sony/ATV publishing catalog. Forbes says Jackson has earned more than $3 billion during his career, before and after his death.
Michael Jackson’s Halloween follows the adventures of young Vincent and Victoria, and Ichabod the dog, as they meet on Halloween and wind up at the mysterious This Place Hotel, located at 777 Jackson St.
Jackson purists will recognize “This Place Hotel” (originally “Heartbreak Hotel”) as a 1980 song written by Michael and performed by The Jacksons.
Once they get inside the spooky place, Vincent and Victoria “are sent on an unexpected, magical adventure of personal discovery.” Whatever that means. The special concludes with a sprawling dance number featuring an animated Jackson.
Get ready for the special by brushing up on the lyrics and singing along with me:
“It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurkin’ in the dark.
“Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart …”
Blindspot. The drama finally returns to NBC at 7 p.m. Friday. The renewal for a third season came despite a substantial loss in viewership. That would explain why it has been kicked to Friday nights, when nobody is watching.
When last we saw the gang, the FBI team had prevented nuclear annihilation of the East Coast, Jane and Weller, um, consummated their relationship, and we flashed forward two years to find Jane living on a clifftop plateau with monks.
Then Weller (evidently her husband now) arrived with a sort of a lunchbox containing a thingee that made Jane’s tattoos glow. It seems three of their colleagues have disappeared and need help.
The series stars Jaimie Alexander as the copiously tattooed Jane Doe, and Sullivan Stapleton as Kurt Weller.
I understand that fans’ questions about marriage and monks and mountaintops will quickly be answered early in the first episode and, according to series creator Martin Gero, “Those glowing tattoos are a whole new layer that kick off a whole new adventure!”
Kevin ’splains it all. I’m still getting emails from readers miffed that TV series unceremoniously kill off main characters.
Blue Bloods fans, especially, thought Linda Reagan (Amy Carlson) died unfairly out of the blue between seasons, and some Kevin Can Wait followers believe having Kevin’s wife, Donna (Erinn Hayes), die was a cruel way to get Leah Remini (The King of Queens) back on a sitcom with James.
The official reason behind the switcheroo on Kevin Can Wait was the old familiar excuse, “the show was heading in a new creative direction.” Nothing personal against you, Erinn. You were marvelous. Buh-bye.
In an interview with the New York Daily News, James (a series co-creator) said Donna’s death was necessary.
“I get that people are like, ‘Whoa, why would you do this?’ But it really felt a thing like this was needed for this show to drive forward,” James said. “If we got through a second season, I wouldn’t see us getting through a third one. We were literally just running out of ideas.”
Season 2 opened with a time jump of a year from Season 1 and had Kevin casually mentioning Donna’s death, which wasn’t explained and may never be. “Driving forward,” Kevin has partnered with Vanessa Cellucci (Remini) in her private security firm.
Donna? Donna who. Longmire. Did you get the memo in Tuesday’s column? Season 6 of Longmire finally streams on Netflix on Nov. 17. Pass the word. mstorey@arkansasonline.com