John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate, today fired off an angry letter to Discovery Communications president and CEO David M. Zaslav protesting the upcoming Jan. 13 broadcast in the U.K. of "Michael Jackson's Autopsy: What Really Killed Michael Jackson," a program that will reenact the King of Pop's autopsy.

In the three-paragraph letter, the executors were clear in their outrage:

We were especially outraged when a sickening print advertisement for the program appeared making light of Michael's death by depicting a corpse sprawled on a steel gurney covered by a sheet with a hand sticking out wearing Michael's signature sequined glove. Discovery obviously views this as clever advertising and creative "branding" for its program. But in fact, the ad is debased, sick and insensitive. No doubt this fictitious, morbid image is being spread worldwide even now on the Internet, viewed by Michael's loved ones, and even accepted as authentic by those who may be unaware that Discovery made it up.

The letter, dated Dec. 29, closes with this plea: "On behalf of Michael's family, fans, common sense and decency, we urge you to reconsider and cancel this program."

A spokesperson for Discovery Communications declined to comment.

-- Randall Roberts

On “Breaking News,” a snappish track on “Michael,” the first album released posthumously from Michael Jackson’s extensive archives, outtakes and potential discard pile, the singer laments the media obsession that defined his life.

“Everyone wanting a piece of Michael Jackson,” he sings in a voice that verges on an angry whisper. “He wants to write my obituary. You just want to read it again.” The context couldn’t be more ironic, considering that “Michael” often feels like a capitulation to those teeming masses who want one more shred of their beloved at any cost.

That’s not to say that “Michael” is embarrassing or damaging to the legacy of the biggest pop star of the last half-century or so. For the most part, it’s a considered artifact, both modern and nostalgic, by Teddy Riley, John McClain and Theron “Neff-U” Feemster, producers who have recently worked with Jackson.

The first song on the album, “Hold My Hand,” a duet with Akon, is a crisp anthem that fits in on the radio but doesn’t really blow anything open, despite its earnest attempts. “Keep Your Head Up” is a classic Jackson inspirational with a starry-eyed, gentle touch, not the full-blown Messiah mode of “Man in the Mirror” or “Heal the World.”

Maybe one of the sweetest, old-fashioned tracks, reminiscent of the aw-shucks romanticism of the Jackson 5, is “(I Like) The Way You Love Me,” which starts with a recorded fragment of Jackson describing the tempo and melody, and then a touch of beat-boxing. That modest snippet of Jackson’s notes imbues the song with the sense of an inspired musician who was still chasing his vision, seeking its most perfect incarnation.

But like some ghoulish postmodern joke on “Thriller,” “Michael” can’t help but feel like the work of zombie hands –- albeit tasteful zombie hands with ears finely attuned to the current whims and fancies of pop radio. Interestingly, questions abound about the album's authenticity in certain spots: Sony issued a rebuttal to the accusation from some Jackson family members that his voice in “Breaking News” is an imitation.

We might never know if it’s fake or not, but the debate only underscores the fact that “Michael” is a product of many different creators that raises as many questions as it answers. We’ll never know what Jackson really would’ve done with these songs but this is the first of, no doubt, many guesses we’ll get that hopefully won’t yield diminishing returns. "Michael" reasserts that in death, he’s still a mystery, the ultimate phantasmagoria of pop music.

 --Margaret Wappler

Michael Jackson
“Michael”
Epic
Two and a half stars

Michael Jackson fans can look at the release of the official first single from his posthumous album as Sony’s attempt to clean up the controversy of that other debatable single that hit the net a week ago, and who could necessarily blame them?

After the not-so-great response that the much touted “Breaking News” got when it premiered (fans debated its authenticity, M.J.’s kids and mom denounced it, Sony and the Michael Jackson estate defended it), the late King of Pop is back -- get used to hearing that -- with the official first single from his first posthumous album, “Michael,” which is slated to hit stores Dec. 14.

Titled “Hold My Hand,” the mid-tempo uplifting track is classic M.J. (listen here). In the song, a duet with Akon, he pleas for peace and unity behind a Caribbean-pop beat, courtesy of the Senegalese singer/producer.

“This life don't last forever, so tell me what we're waiting for,” Jackson sings. “We're better off being together, than being miserable alone.”

Apparently a handwritten note from Jackson was found indicating his desire that the track, recorded in 2007, be the first single on his next project. The note, of course, is now the possession of his estate. (It would probably be a good idea, for the sake of covering themselves, for the estate to include said note in the liner notes of the album -- in order to end any and all speculation about the handling of the project.)

Jackson fans are no stranger to the track, considering that an unfinished version of the song leaked in 2008, as did a number of Jackson demos and half-recordings packaged together, leaving Akon “devastated.”

“The world was not ready to hear ‘Hold My Hand’ when it leaked a couple years ago,” he said in a statement. “But its time has definitely come; now in its final state, it has become an incredible, beautiful, anthemic song. I’m so proud to have had the chance to work with Michael, one of my all time idols.”

Oprah Winfrey is certainly going out with a bang in the final season of her talk show, including Monday's show, which features her highly anticipated sit-down chat with Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine, and his three children.

In the revealing interview, Katherine admits that her son was addicted to plastic surgery and that after years of denial, Jackson patriarch Joe had admitted to beating his children. Katherine also discusses her son's 2009 death, saying she received the news from his personal doctor, Conrad Murray, when she arrived at the hospital, according to E!'s transcript of the show.

"He came out, and he was talking and it took him so long." Finally, Katherine asked, "Did he make it?" "He said, 'No, he's gone.' That's all I remember," she said, tearing up. "I'm sorry."

Read more about the interview and get up to speed on all the latest with Murray's involuntary manslaugher case over on news blog L.A. Now.

-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

twitter.com/gerrickkennedy

Photo: Oprah Winfrey, left, interviews Michael Jackson's family for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in Encino, Calf. At the taping are Jackson's parents -- Katherine and Joe -- and Jackson's three children  --  Prince, Paris and Blanket. Credit: Harpo Productions.

Even in death Michael Jackson has managed to captivate the media, so it's only appropriate that the lead single from his first posthumous album, "Michael," pokes jabs at his long, storied distaste for making headlines.

On Monday morning, his official site posted the full stream of "Breaking News," a jarring kiss off to the tabloids that preyed on his eccentricities even after his 2009 death.

The track is introduced by a slew of reporters' voices reading headlines of the singer.

"If you thought there was nothing else to say about Michael Jackson, just wait," one reporter says.

"Everybody wanting a piece of Michael Jackson, reporters stalking the moves of Michael Jackson," he sings on the track -- reportedly recorded in 2007 at a friend's New Jersey home, where the singer and his three kids had holed up for a number of months. "Just when you thought he was done, he comes to give it again."

"Breaking News" isn't the first time Jackson aired his grievances with the media through song. "Tabloid Junkie," "This Time Around," "Leave Me Alone" and, of course, "Scream" all quickly come to mind.

In true Jackson form, the song is already the center of controversy.

Garth Brooks’ Dec. 17 benefit concert in Nashville for victims of flooding across middle Tennessee has turned into a deluge of its own.

When tickets went on sale Saturday morning, demand was such that the country superstar, who hasn’t performed in Nashville for 12 years, added shows until he had amassed a string of nine over six days. Those concerts are expected to generate $3.5 million for ongoing flood relief efforts.

"It's great to be part of the healing," Brooks said Saturday. The feat almost doubles the previous record in Tennessee for ticket sales by a single performer, set by Michael Jackson, who had sold 72,000 tickets for a stadium show in Knoxville.

Brooks will play Dec. 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 22 at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena. Tickets were priced at $25, his standard maximum ticket price over the years, outside of his current engagement doing solo acoustic shows at Steve Wynn's Encore Theatre in Las Vegas. Brooks said 100% of the ticket revenue will be donated to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to help those who are still rebuilding after the flooding that hit the area in May.

When the concert benefit was announced late last month, Brooks told The Times that he didn't anticipate doing an extended series of shows, as he had done in 2008 to raise money for victims of Southern California wildfires the previous fall. But he said if the demand was there, he would add performances to generate more money.

He said the decision to hold the shows shortly before Christmas reflected his belief that "around Christmas time is when people seem to need the most help, and when people feel the most giving, so the timing just seemed to make sense."

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Garth Brooks at Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2008. Credit: Los Angeles Times

So maybe "Michael Jackson's This Is It" wasn't quite it.

The Jackson estate and Cirque du Soleil announced plans Wednesday for a Jackson-themed touring production, "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour," that is set to open in Montreal in October. The arena tour, which combines the performer's choreography and music with the Quebecois acrobatic troupe's signature dance and aerial moves, will travel to 27 cities across North America and reach Los Angeles' Staples Center and Anaheim's Honda Center in January 2012.

The production's writer-director, Jamie King, served as Madonna's creative director for the last dozen years, overseeing her 2008 "Sticky & Sweet" world tour. More crucial to his new effort, however, King previously worked with the King of Pop, serving as a backup dancer for Jackson for two years on his 1992-93 "Dangerous" world tour.

According to King, "The Immortal World Tour" combines the kind of pop spectacle Jackson was known for with the esoteric, theatrical qualities associated with Cirque du Soleil productions such as "O," "KÀ" and "Zumanity."

"From the moonwalk to the iconic choreography we've seen in 'Thriller' and 'Beat It' and 'Bad' -- all his mini-movies and music videos -- mix that with the world of Cirque," King said in an interview with The Times. "You shake it and can literally turn it on its head. Imagine taking the moonwalk to new levels, to new heights. Being able to do the moonwalk literally as if you're on the moon, all the way around the arena."

Unlike such Las Vegas-based Cirque du Soleil productions as "Love" (a joint venture between the troupe and the Beatles’ Apple Corps that re-imagines the Fab Four's music within circus-based artistry) and "Viva Elvis" (a Cirque show developed in conjunction with Elvis Presley Enterprises that launched this year), the initial idea with "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour" was to "bring Michael to the fans" and create the feeling of his concerts in an arena setting, said John Branca, co-executor of the Jackson estate.

"Cirque has not done a show with Elvis or the Beatles or any other historic rock 'n' roll icon that has gone into arenas and toured North America or the world, so it was exciting to be able to do something that had not been done before," Branca said. "Ultimately, there will be a separate show residing permanently in Las Vegas. That show is a couple of years off."

-- Chris Lee

Photo: A scene from the film "Michael Jackson's This Is It." Associated Press / AEG / Sony Pictures

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Michael Jackson died a year ago Friday, and since then, hundreds if not thousands of artists have paid tribute to his legacy in song. Of course, paying homage to the King of Pop is a notoriously tricky enterprise, considering the difficulty of topping the genuine article. Wisely, Oh No and Aloe Blacc opt to honor with him tunes diametrically opposed to the original versions.

French video game publisher Ubisoft revealed at a pre-E3 news conference on Monday that it is producing a new music and rhythm video game featuring Michael Jackson.

Ubisoft's deal with the Jackson estate will allow it to include a number of the star's most famous titles. Two announced Monday were "Beat It" and "Billie Jean."

The untitled game, which is scheduled to come out this year, will allow players to learn and copy some of Jackson's most famous dance moves, as well as sing along as they already do in games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero: World Tour.

The game will be available on every console and will take advantage of Microsoft's new Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360, which tracks users' movements and will undoubtedly be used for gaming elements.

Sony Music is expected to release an album of unreleased Jackson material in November, and it's quite possible the game will come out simultaneously as part of a unified marketing push.

It marks a return to the video game world for Jackson, who was the star of the Sega console and arcade game “Moonwalker,” which was based on the 1988 film of the same name. In the game, Jackson used his trademark dance moves to defeat enemies and rescue children. Songs such as “Smooth Criminal,” “Beat It” and “Billie Jean” were given digitized makeovers for the game, and Jackson’s pet chimp Bubbles was utilized as a power-up to give the Jackson character special abilities.

It has been widely expected that the Jackson estate would make a deal with a video game publisher since last year, following in the footsteps of The Beatles: Rock Band, though that game wasn't as big a seller as those involved had hoped.

-- Ben Fritz and Todd Martens

Photo: Michael Jackson. Credit: Roslan Rahman / AFP / Getty Images.

A just-announced collaboration between Michael Jackson’s estate and Cirque du Soleil also includes plans for a reality TV show along the lines of “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” to discover a young choreographer to help develop an arena tour and permanent show in Las Vegas built on Jackson’s music, dancing and life story.

The TV show, in the discussion stage but targeted to be on the air sometime early in 2011, would audition young dance enthusiasts from across the globe in search of “someone young, who is cutting edge, from the outside, someone in the streets, who can bring that style that no one’s ever seen before, like Michael always did,” John Branca, co-executor of Jackson’s estate, said Tuesday.

The parties believe the combination of Jackson’s name, Cirque’s reputation and a talent discovery show similar to two of the most popular shows on television right now will make it a hit.

The show’s winner would join two other professional choreographers to be selected by the team assembling the concert-style arena tour slated to get under way in the fall of 2011, and a Jackson-themed permanent show in Las Vegas.

“There is not a lack of creativity around the table,” Cirque President and CEO Daniel Lamarre said Tuesday. “We’re just starting to work closer together, and those are the initial ideas we’ve decided to go ahead with. But there are other ideas. We will be pursuing lots of lifestyle ideas. That’s only the beginning of our bold, creative forces working together.”

The deal with Cirque is just the latest in an aggressive series of grand-scale projects Jackson’s estate has undertaken in  recent months, in addition to the concert film and DVD “This Is It” from the tour that was aborted when he died last June and a new long-term contract with Sony Music covering reissues as well as new compilations of previously unissued recordings and, potentially, video games.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Michael Jackson in the movie "This Is It." Credit: Kevin Mazur

Michael Jackson’s estate and Cirque du Soleil will team up for a concert-like production that will tour sports arenas starting in the fall of 2011 to be followed late in 2012 with a permanent show in Las Vegas akin to existing Cirque productions built around the music of the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

“Having attended Cirque du Soleil performances with Michael, I know he was a huge fan,” John Branca, co-executor of Jackson’s estate, said in a statement issued Tuesday. “This will not just be a tribute to Michael’s musical genius, but a live entertainment experience that uses the most advanced technology to push every creative boundary as Michael always did.”

The location of the permanent show has not been announced, nor whether it will go into an existing hotel or a new facility, but Jackson and Cirque will team with MGM Mirage for that production.

“As a creative challenge, this project is the ultimate,” Cirque founder Guy LaLiberte said in the same statement. “Through the use of cutting-edge technology, we will produce a Cirque du Soleil experience not only worthy of Michael but unlike any other we have created before.”

Jackson’s estate and Cirque will split the costs and profits of their collaborative ventures 50/50, while intellectual property royalties will go to the estate.

“Our family is thrilled that Cirque du Soleil will pay tribute to my son in such an important way,” Katherine Jackson said in the statement.

Cirque’s Beatles show, “Love,” opened in 2006 at the Mirage and has been widely acclaimed as one of the troupe’s most inventive productions, while “Viva Elvis,” at the Aria Resort, has received decidedly mixed reviews from critics and fans.

Expanded coverage of the Jackson-Cirque collaboration will appear later today online and in Wednesday’s Calendar section.

-- Randy Lewis

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Photo: Michael Jackson in 1989 at the Soul Train Awards. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Pop & Hiss doesn't need much reason to call in sick and spend the day at an amusement park, but we now have another one. Though Disneyland sadly still lacks a little bit of Figment, cult characters Fuzzbucket, Hooter and Major Domo have returned to the park, as Michael Jackson's sci-fi short film "Captain EO" has officially reopened in Tomorowland. 

The 3-D film is replacing the now-stale "Honey I Shrunk the Audience." Fans have been lobbying for the return of "Captain EO" since the pop star's passing last summer, and it has been absent from the park for 13 years. But fears that Hooter, the space-alien-elephant, had eaten the original print can now be allayed (forgive the bad in-joke references to the film -- we're getting nostalgic here). "Captain EO" packs a pair of songs in its 17 minutes, as well as a score from the pre-"Avatar" days of James Horner.

"Captain EO" is arriving at just the right moment. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the Michael-meets-"Star Wars" mini-epic is just the perfect tonic to wipe our memories of a more recent 3-D clip involving Jackson -- the silly environmental essay that was broadcast on the Grammy Awards. As far as this blog is concerned, the only 3-D Michael we want to see is the one facing off with Anjelica Huston's Borg-like Witch Queen.

Those interested in saving the universe with funk can watch Jackson's "Captain EO" cut "We Are Here to Change the World" below. But be warned, spoilers lie beyond the jump.