Game developer PopCap Games says it is removing the famed “dancing zombie” from the PC and iPhone versions of the game after the late King of Pop’s people contacted the company about the undead character’s familiar features.
In “Plants vs. Zombies,” players pit an army of vegetation against wave after wave of reanimated corpses. The game features different zombie characters who each have different, uh, skills and therefore must be fended off in unique ways.
With his red attire and black Jheri curl, the offending zombie even performed an in-game dance with a troupe of back-up dancer zombies — a la Jackson’s “Thriller” music video.
PopCap spokesman Garth Chouteau released the following statement about the rotten situation:
The Estate of Michael Jackson objected to our use of the ‘dancing zombie’ in ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ based on its view that the zombie too closely resembled Michael Jackson. After receiving this objection, PopCap made a business decision to retire the original ‘dancing zombie’ and replace it with a different ‘dancing zombie’ character for future builds of ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ on all platforms. The phase-out and replacement process is underway.”
Source: MSNBC
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