With a long-awaited long weekend just a few hours away, we’re sure a few of you will hear some Michael Jackson smash hits at a BBQ soon. Today also happens be his 50th birthday. Though the King of Pop’s career is near kaput (we said it), his brush with a different five-oh still warrants our undivided attention. It's been 40 successful and scandalous years since the afroed wunderkind and his brothers signed with Motown. Today, the BBC charts his moonwalk into pop culture superstardom, and subsequent collapse. The folks over at Gawker commemorate his birth with a link to a hypothetical, plastic surgery-free Michael Jackson — though we think this other-Jacksons composite is irresistible as well.

Regardless of what the future holds for Jacko, we’ll always remember him as a smooth-moving zombie.

Photo via General Rubbish.