Michael Jackson's impact on TV's infallible mammoth The Simpsons goes far deeper than we previously suspected.

In fact, Jackson is probably one of the many creative minds who helped the show and its characters move into more musical territory and become an even deeper part of global pop culture. When you're a king, you have all sorts of powers, so you might as well use them for the good of your kingdom.

That's why when I become king, I will order all television networks to play nothing but Top Gear and Robot Chicken and that episode of Married...With Children where Al meets a stripper named Rocki Mountains. Anyone who tries to stop me will be thrown into a cell without the benefit of trial and forced to watch reruns of Cop Rock and AfterMASH until their eyes stop working and/or melt right out of their skull. Whadaya gonna do about it? I'm the frigging king!

Jackson did have an uncredited role as a mental patient who thinks he is Michael Jackson in the third-season's premiere episode titled "Stark Raving Dad", according to Mike Reiss, The Simpsons writer who co-wrote the episode with writing partner Al Jean, in a secret commentary hidden deep within the bowels of the third season DVD. The singing voice, however, is someone else.

Jackson did the show on the cusp of his popularity as a musician. Reiss said his skin color had just started to change and joked that Jackson was "three noses in" at the time of his appearance. Jackson was very involved with the episode. He reviewed the show's script very carefully, even asking if they could remove a joke about Prince and Elvis out of the dialogue.

Reiss said Jackson did all of his own acting, but insisted that his official singing double Kipp Lennon, the youngest member of the Lennon Sisters' family, provide Jackson's musical voice. Jackson reportedly "roared" during Lennon's performance because he thought it would make a great prank on his brothers. Reiss said he didn't get it.

Interestingly enough, his association with the show began way before that episode in another uncredited role. Apparently, Jackson was a huge fan of the show and, more specifically, of the mischievous Bart (it's probably best to leave any and all snide assumptions about Jackson's attachment to young Bart aside, out of respect for the dead). He actually called the show's producer James L. Brooks before his guest appearance and told him that he wanted to make Bart a musical sensation by writing a hit single for him. That hit single became "Do the Bartman."



The song appeared on the show's first album and later premiered as a single and music video. It never got much airtime in the states because the single was never released, but it tore up the British charts after spending three weeks at number one in 1991, a week longer than Jackson's own single "Black or White" released the same year. Maybe Jackson could have outlasted Bart if he called it "Black or Yellow."