Dancing Zombie



Dancing Zombies are Zombies that moonwalk across your lawn and bare a striking resemblance to a certain pop superstar.

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

Suburban Almanac Entry
Dancing Zombie  Any resemblance between Dancing Zombie and persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Toughness: medium. Special: summons back-up dancers. Dancing Zombie's latest album, "GrarrBRAINSarblarbl," is already rocketing up the undead charts.

How the Zombie Works
The Dancing Zombie moonwalks onto the lawn and summons four (or three if he is next to a pool or on the edge of the lawn) Backup Dancers, which appear in a square around him. 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.

Strategy
Don't bother attacking the Back-up Dancers, as they have low health and can be handled by a competent lawn defense. To easily deal with it, simply place an instant kill (like a Squash 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 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 or slowed, this will affect the rest of the zombies as well. 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 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.

Achievements
The achievement "Walk This Way" is unlocked by using a Hypno-shroom to hypnotize a Dancing Zombie.

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, claiming to resembled too closely to Michael Jackson, more than a year after his death. 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 and all future releases of the game.

Trivia

 * The Dancing Zombie resembles pop superstar Michael Jackson who, coincidentally, died shortly after the release of the game.
 * It was actually created in tribute to Michael Jackson's "Thriller", which is what it is dancing.
 * The new dancing zombie slightly resembles Disco Stu from The Simpsons.