Michael Jackson’s Tricked-Out Gold Casket Cost $25,000

The Michael Jackson memorial service at L.A.’s Staples Center is underway right now.  TMZ is waiting to livecast it, and in the meantime has posted some scans of the event program, or “programme,” for our Commonwealth readers.

If you can’t view the memorial service now – or you’re at the point in MJ coverage that you can guess exactly what will be said, done, and commemorated there (talented but also troubled, singing influenced a generation of pop, bridged formidable racial gaps, etc.) – you should still at least take a look at Jackson’s $25-grand death whip.  His hereafter sleigh is solid bronze covered in 14k gold, after the jump, plus more celebrity casket news from one of the original kings of pop.  

It is made by the Batesville Casket company and called “The Promethean.”  James Brown went down in the same model.

Nice and all, but once I become a celebrity and die, I will be buried in an immovable stone sarcophagus carved with ancient runes and glyphs that ensure my body goes to the right afterlife.  My organs will be placed in small jars with Pokemon heads to represent their powers.  Why does no one do this anymore?

Also, recently, another original pop star had some casket news.  The Big Bopper, who died in a plane crash fifty years ago, has been exhumed and moved to a new casket.  What happens to the old one?

Jay Richardson, the Bopper’s son, plans to sell the empty casket on eBay to raise money for a musical show about his father and to keep the Bopper’s memory alive. Born three months after the crash, Jay, who lives in Katy, never met his father in life – but saw him for the first time at his exhumation…

“I have no personal use for the casket,” he said. “When you get down to it, it is just a metal box. More important is what this particular metal box represents.

“In another 200 years, will people care about rock ‘n’ roll?” Jay asks. “Who knows? But why would I want to destroy it? Even though it was Dad’s resting place for 48 years, it’s also a unique opportunity to learn more about the early years of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Source: Beaumont Enterprise, DVice.