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 appear in a square around it. 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.

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 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.

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 shortly 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 goldfish inside his left shoe.
 * 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 is slightly better because it 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 is coming out and slowed down the dancing zombie will still be at normal speed (later on he's slower.)