Hey, remember the video for "Smooth Criminal"? Me too. And what I remember about it most is that incredible gravity-defying lean performed by MJ and his cohort of '30s-era hoods. Well, sorry to tell you: They used strings to pull it off. But Jackson wanted to take the move on the road with his Bad tour, and he knew strings weren't going to work. So he created a goddamn anti-gravity shoe and then patented it with the U.S. government. You don't get to be the King of Pop by letting lame stuff like gravity limit you.
The shoe features a stiff ankle brace and a notched heel that slide into a hitch on the stage, allowing MJ and his dancers to lock in and lean out. Or, in the words of the patent abstract:
A system for allowing a shoe wearer to lean forwardly beyond his center of gravity by virtue of wearing a specially designed pair of shoes which will engage with a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface. The shoes have a specially designed heel slot which can be detachably engaged with the hitch member by simply sliding the shoe wearer's foot forward, thereby engaging with the hitch member.
Insanely cool. RIP King of Pop.
[H/T FMH
