Michael Jackson was an innovator who married the language of cinema to the music video format, collaborating with directors like Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Francis Ford Coppola on some of the most iconic short-form classics the medium has ever known.
Too bad, then, that his final film credit is the absolutely insane, T&A-filled spoof Miss Cast Away, (which, coincidentally, was also the final film credit for Bob Denver and Pat Morita). Let's investigate this lost gem, shall we?
Miss Cast Away, released on DVD in 2005 after screenings at a handful of film festivals, was directed by longtime Jackson friend Bryan Michael Stoller (whose credits include TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes and the Yasmine Bleeth/Dean Winters starrer Undercover Angel). Stoller became friends with Jackson when he directed a short film that spoofed one of the entertainer's Pepsi commercials, and when making Miss Cast Away, he sent Jackson a faxed request to take on the role of "Agent M.J."
"Michael was excited about it because, as most people know, he did a 30-second cameo in Men in Black II where he wanted to be an agent, and they wouldn't let him, so that was the joke," Stoller explained to MTV upon the film's release.
As Agent M.J., then, Jackson dispenses sage, green-screened advice to a crash-landed plane full of beauty contestants who are, as Wikipedia notes, "also avoiding the dangers of Jurassic Pork (a giant prehistoric pig) and a group of apes who are busy building an ark." Also, Agent M.J. has been sent to the island in a beam of light from the Vatican, because why not? Take that, Angels & Demons.
Here is the trailer (featuring Jackson, Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts, a simply timeless spoof of Austin Powers, and the Pope):
Stoller shot all of Jackson's scenes at Neverland Ranch, a process chronicled in this priceless behind-the-scenes footage where a lethargic Jackson (clad in a glittery costume pulled straight from the Linda Evans Cruise Ship Collection) is interviewed by Stoller, who's in turn interviewed by a talking ape:
No, you did not dream all that.
"It's just a silly movie; I didn't plan on [bringing about] world peace with this film," said Stoller. "Here's Michael Jackson and Eric Roberts and Joe Millionaire in the same film, with quirky special effects."
Indeed. As Jackson himself so often put it, "Hee hee."