Dancing Zombie

Dancing Zombies are Zombies that moonwalk across your lawn and bear a striking resemblance to either a certain pop superstar or a 70's disco king, depending on the game version.

Overview
Absorbs 17 normal damage shots. Appearance changes upon absorption of 9 normal damage shots.



How the Zombie Works
The Dancing Zombie dances onto the lawn and summons four (three if it is next to a pool or on the edge of the lawn) Backup Dancers, which appears somewhat like a cross. These five zombies will dance at the same rate, and will stop moving if one of them has to stop or is slowed down through freezing. If one or more Backup Dancers die, and the Dancing Zombie is still alive, it summons more until it dies.

Note that the newer version of Dancing Zombie has been enhanced. Meaning, they become stronger. The older Dancing Zombie always summons Backup Dancers on the second column from the right, while the newer version of Dancing Zombie summons them on the first column. The newer Dancing Zombie also eats faster than the older one, meaning an advantage to them.

Strategy
The Back-up Dancers have low health and can be handled by a competent lawn defense so you should,'t concentrate on attacking them. To easily deal with them, simply place an instant kill (like a Squash, Doom-shroom or Cherry Bomb ) near the lead dancer. Also, it is one of the more deadly candidates for a Hypno-shroom, as although any already summoned Back-up Dancers will not be hypnotized, it will summon new hypnotized Backup Dancers. Fume-shrooms and Gloom-shrooms are very good against these zombies, because their fumes will damage the lead dancer as well as the shielding Backup Dancers. Another weakness of the Dancing Zombie is that he and his Backup Dancers must stay in their cross formation. This means that if one Backup dancer is frozen, slowed, or blocked, this will affect the rest of the zombies as well (this only applies to movement speed; if a zombie is frozen or slowed but another zombie is in range, it will eat a plant at the normal rate). Because of this, using movement-restricting plants like Kernel-pults and Snow Peas are a good idea. If you want to block this zombie with a Wall-nut or Tall-nut, you should plant it in the row that the Dancing Zombie itself is in, preferably where the hindmost Backup Dancer is; because otherwise the formation will simply walk onward after the Backup Dancer dies.

I, Zombie Puzzle Mode levels
Plant Dancing Zombies in rows (or next to rows) with many Potato Mines or Chompers. If the first plant in the row is a Potato Mine, make sure to plant it in the back row so it doesn't get destroyed. Also, if there is a Chomper in the first column of the row you plant it in, make sure to plant a plain Zombie or Imp first so it cannot eat the Dancing Zombie. Don't plant it in rows with Fume-shrooms, or Spikeweeds, which can hit both it and the Backup Dancers at the same time. Another strategy is to plant the Dancing Zombie in a cleared row in between two heavily defended rows. Spikeweeds can be a threat if you place the Zombie in a row with it, usually there are alot of plants on other rows, while the back-up dancer chews on the plant, the Dancing Zombie will sometimes pause on the Spikeweed, and if the Zombie continues to step on it, it will find its head missing, and die. You should let Bungee Zombies grab the weed off the ground so the Dancer won't die and waste 350 Sun. Another useful place to use this is if you have cleared a row but a nearby row is very heavily defended, i.e. would take more than two Football Zombies to destroy, this zombie can be placed next to that row. It will very probably summon a Backup Dancer behind the last offensive plant, allowing you to get the brain. On the other hand, if there is a Sunflower you really want, this isn't that helpful, although the Sunflower probably will still give you some Sun.

Achievements
The Achievements "Walk This Way", "Disco Is Undead", and "Thrilling the Zombies" are unlocked by using a Hypno-shroom to hypnotize a Dancing Zombie, but the latter achievement name was changed when the zombie was changed. This if no Zombies kill them, will summon hypnotized Backup Dancers.

Controversy and Change
Although this Michael Jackson-inspired zombie was present in the game before Jackson's death, the estate of Michael Jackson objected to its inclusion in the game (more than a year after his death), claiming it resembled Michael Jackson too closely. PopCap Games agreed to remove the zombie from the game, and replaced it with a more generic disco-dancing one in a leisure suit and afro in an update to the iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad versions and in all future releases of the game. There is also a patch for a game that changes the game so that it uses the old zombie, for afficianados who don't like the new zombie.

Trivia

 * The Dancing Zombie resembles pop superstar Michael Jackson who, coincidentally, died less than a month after the release of the game.
 * It was actually created in tribute to Michael Jackson's "Thriller", which is what it's dancing.
 * The new Dancing Zombie slightly resembles Disco Stu from The Simpsons.
 * For some reason the text in the Suburban Almanac stating that any resemblance to any persons is accidental was not changed when the Dancing Zombie's picture was.
 * The new Dancing Zombie has a dead goldfish inside its shoe, a nod to Disco Fishbowl Platform shoes from the 1970's.
 * If the Dancing Zombie or any of its Backup Dancers are slowed down, paralyzed, or blocked by a plant, the rest of the group will slow down with it or not move, respectively.
 * The new Dancing Zombie walks and summons Backup Dancers faster.
 * The Dancing Zombie and its backup dancers are the only zombies that have been restyled so far.
 * When the Dancing Zombie comes out and is slowed down, the zombie will still be at normal speed (Although later on he's slower).
 * The music when the Dancing Zombie summons his backup is same as when the "dance" code is activated.
 * If the Zombie and not the backup Dancers has to bite a Rottening Garlic, and if it moves to the top or bottom lane, if only one Backup Dancer dies, the Zombie will not summon another one untill it moves back to the middle lanes.
 * The Dancing Zombie only wears one glove.