Dance Conditioning By Superheroes, For Pop Stars

The guy who played the TV version of The Incredible Hulk pre-Hulk was Bruce Bixby. He was a rather wispy fellow. Not so much Hulk-ish. And since anyone who isn't a Major League Baseball player can't just grow muscles like that overnight, they needed to have someone else play the part of the Hulk after the Hulk was angry. That actor was a one Lou Ferrigno and he spent the latter part of the seventies on TV covered in green paint and running around shirtless and with tattered pants as if he had just emerged from a desert island and was pissed! The guy had been a bodybuilder since he was 21 and won a bunch of bodybuilding contests where they get all tan and oily and flex whilst wearing a thong that is at least two sizes too small to fully contain their grundle. Sounds just perfect when you're looking for a guy to be the guy who has just grew seventeen sizes in ten seconds and burst out of all of his clothes.

That was back between 1978 and 1982. And The Hulk, well, he's still buff. And if you're in the market for, say, a personal trainer, you're probably going to want someone like him who looks like they've personally trained themselves at some point. Hopefully a recent point (you ain't payin' for a cheerleader!). But the kind of guys that I picture hiring Lou Ferrigno as their trainer are manly guys. Guys who work out. Guys who lift weights. Guys who can bench press more than 40 pounds. Those kind of guys. I do not picture some guy with little linguine like legs and pipe cleaner arms who rarely goes out in public without a surgical mask on and has named his children after bedroom furniture accessories.

Translation: I do not picture Michael Jackson hiring Lou Ferrigno to be his personal trainer to get him in shape for his upcoming concert series in London.

The Press Trust of India reports that "The superstar, who is known for his skinny frame, has asked actor-turned-trainer Lou Ferrigno to help him shape up before his much hyped comeback shows." Um, I don't think that "his skinny frame" is exactly what Michael Jackson is known for, especially lately. I could come up with a list of things a mile long that he is known for, I don't think that "his skinny frame" would be making an appearance on that list. According to Ferrigno's wife, Carla, "Lou and Michael have known each other for a long time. Lou first trained Michael 15 years ago." Really? 15 years ago? So, 1994? Let's see....what was he doing then? Taking Brooke Shields and the diminutive Emmanuel Lewis to the Oscars with a chimp in tow? No, that sounds SO eighties. OH, right! 1994! Sure. That's the year that Lisa Marie Presley went crazy and married him. Behold!

Off the subject here for just a minute, but man, what was she thinking?! Do I have questions for her! (So, what was the guest house like?) I mean, you really have to wonder about what was going on in a person's life that would make them think that getting married to Michael Jackson was a good idea. (I can't even think about putting on pants when my life is in turmoil, let alone marrying Michael Jackson. She must have been bad off. Clearly delusional!) But I digress. So, he doesn't exactly strike me as having been working out with Lou Ferrigno in that photo. But, then again, I'm not comparing it to anything. If 1994 is the after shot, I need a before shot. Where's 1993 when I need it? Behold!

Oh, yeah. See there? That makes it clear. He's HUGE in '94. Um, not so much. From the magazine covers that I've looked at, for most of 1993 and 1994 he looked like a club going lesbian in 1989. Long, permed, mulleted do. Brightly colored, long sleeve shirts buttoned all the way up to the top. Looking at those two photos above really begs the question of what in the world could he have possibly been training him for? Life post-op? Because it certainly doesn't look like weight training.

And The Times.co.za seems to confirm what I had extrapolated from the photos I had seen as they write "...Michael refuses to lift weights. He doesn’t want to bulk up.” Of course that has to be followed up with a paragraph of wacky facts about Jacko, so they add "The 50-year-old singer - who weighs a reported 126lbs and eats just one meal a day - is reportedly battling skin cancer and is said to be terrified gaining weight will damage his chances of beating the disease." Um, yeah. You look real healthy the way you are there, Mike. 126 pounds? Dude, you're 5'10"! Skin cancer or not, have a sandwich.

All right! All right! There's no need to get carried away there. Sheesh. No one wants that! Come on! How about something a little bit more believeable.

Not bad. Better. Closer to "believable", but still pretty far off. (The 1/2 lb. weight though? Nice touch.)

So what is Lou's impression of the begloved one? "Michael is more delicate. Our trainer conditioned him for dancing." I thought that "delicate" was the very definition of someone who is "conditioned for dancing"! I'm so confused. The Hulk is helping Michael Jackson with his dancing. The humanity! And "delicate"? Gee, do you think?! Behold!

I guess with Jacko refusing to do weight lifting, it is safe to assume that they won't be training with any of those overturned cars from back in The Hulk's heyday. I'm really not sure how Mr. Massive, Lou Ferrigno is going to help Michael Freaking Jackson get conditioned for dancing. Or WHY. Is it possible that Lou can teach Michael some little known secret about dance conditioning? (You know, I keep saying "conditioned for dancing" and "dance conditioning", but I have no idea what any of it means, and yet I keep saying it! Go figure.)

Maybe he saw this French dude performing his bit of perfected insanity here and thought, "That's JUST what I NEED!" Behold!

Hmmm. Maybe. It wouldn't be so far from reality if that was actually the case. But I did Google "dance conditioning" and this is one of the results I received. Behold!

A little Jacko. A little Hulk. Yeah, that could make sense. I don't what they're doing, but I am SO hoping that somewhere, somehow, someone with a little bit of video of Michael Jackson working out with The Incredible Hulk will surface so that we may all enjoy this odd little bit of pop culture conditioning. Maybe what happens is that Lou just jumps out at Michael and scares the holy crap out of him. Chases him around. Throws Volkswagens at him that he has to dodge. Maybe it's stuff like that. Hulk-based training. See if Michael can run to the top of that sand dune and jump over it before the explosion goes off. Or maybe after The Hulk bursts out of his clothing Michael has a certain amount of time to run around and find him a new outfit to wear. If he keeps improving his time, his reward is that he actually gets to dress The Hulk in his new clothes. I could see how something like that could motivate some folks. Some really strange folks.

I'm telling you right now, this is not the end. We're going to keep hearing about this tour of Jacko's and it is going to get weirder and weirder as it gets closer and closer to showtime. (Personally, I don't think the shows are going to happen. I see absolutely NO resemblance between the Jacko of today and the Michael Jackson who was the biggest celebrity in the world at one point. Those are two different people in my book. I just don't see how he can pull off one concert, let alone the 25 shows he says he's going to do. You heard it here first, but only if it actually turns out that way. If the shows actually do go on, you read that from somewhere else. Maybe the AP. CNN? They both suck lately. One of them.

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