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<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMichael Jackson fans dress up and bust a move at \u2018Michael\u2019 screenings<\/p>\n
Moonwalks, gloves and fedoras take over “Michael” screenings, fans can’t help but get up and groove in the theaters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/story-highlights> Nearly eight years ago, Scandia Family Fun Center<\/a> in Victorville installed Michael Jackson\u2019s slide, which once stood inside the late pop singer\u2019s Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County.<\/p>\n After this month\u2019s release of the Michael Jackson biopic \u201cMichael,\u201d<\/a> there\u2019s been a renewed interest in the \u201cKing of Pop,\u201d his music, life, family and memorabilia.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Tuesday, several families at Scandia waited in line to ride \u201cMichael Jackson\u2019s Slide,\u201d a faded yellow structure that the location installed in 2018. The structure towers 39 feet and is near the batting cages.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aerial photographs of Jackson\u2019s Neverland Ranch show that the slide was installed near a carousel at the 2,700-acre ranch located in Los Olivos.<\/p>\n Neverland, Peter Pan\u2019s fictional island, was reimagined and constructed by Jackson as a Disney-like amusement park and his estate, where he resided from 1988 to 2005.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the years, Jackson acquired nearly 20 rides, with most of them sitting untouched for years before he died in 2009, according to the Los Angeles Times.<\/p>\n In 2018, General Manager Hal Bradley told the Daily Press the three-lane super slide, which extends 162 feet in length, might have been called the \u201cThriller\u201d slide.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe owner, he was looking for a slide and just happened to come across the one from the estate of Michael Jackson,\u201c Bradley said. \u201cIt was at his Neverland Ranch, and that’s what he went for.\u201d<\/p>\n David Helm Sr., former owner of Helm and Sons Amusements, confirmed the sale, telling the Daily Press one phone call sealed the deal.<\/p>\n Helm said he purchased the slide and other rides in 2008 \u2014 several years after Jackson left the ranch for good \u2014 but his working relationship with the \u201cKing of Pop\u201d predated the purchase.<\/p>\n \u201cI was affiliated with Michael for 14 years,\u201d he said. \u201cHe hired me to put some rides in (at Neverland). Not all of them, but I installed them and maintained them when they needed more specific attention.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore Michael passed … he hired myself and my men to take some of the rides out because he was making a change of residence. One of the things he wanted to do was put the rides in storage. He was going to reinstall them (at his new home). About 12 months later he died. So it wasn\u2019t to be. It was very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to Helm and Sons, the Fairfield-based Butler Amusements was among the companies that purchased rides at auction in 2008 before trucking them across California and other states for use at carnivals and fairs.<\/p>\n The Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” achieved a record-breaking opening weekend at the domestic box office,\u00a0 earning $97 million domestically in its opening weekend, according to estimates from Comscore released on Sunday, April 26.<\/p>\n The film, which stars Jackson’s real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson<\/a> as the iconic singer, scored the biggest opening weekend for a musical biopic in history.\u00a0<\/p>\n The record was previously held by “Straight Outta Compton<\/a>,” the 2015 film about N.W.A that debuted with $60 million domestically<\/a>. “Bohemian Rhapsody<\/a>,” which starred Rami Malek as Queen singer Freddie Mercury<\/a>, also opened to $51 million in 2018 and went on to collect more than $900 million worldwide.<\/p>\n Among 2026 releases, “Michael” grabbed the second-biggest opening of 2026 at the domestic box office, coming in behind “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie<\/a>” but ahead of “Project Hail Mary<\/a>.” Worldwide, the movie launched with an impressive $217.4 million.<\/p>\n The Scandia Family Fun Center is located at 12627 Mariposa Road in Victorville.<\/p>\n USA TODAY contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on X @DP_ReneDeLaCruz\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.vvdailypress.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Michael Jackson fans dress up and bust a move at \u2018Michael\u2019 screenings Moonwalks, gloves and fedoras take over “Michael” screenings, fans can’t help but get up and groove in the theaters. A slide from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch is now at the Scandia Family Fun Center in Victorville, California. The recent release of the biopic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2397726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[369789,39915,30218,346465,346470,28769,22220,346466,369785,37765,21751,239390,23038,28546,23301,314147,364177,6297,284334,21741,21993,51971,369788,369794,66715,21739,298114,344928,309642,465393,21912,21800,346106,358176,211924,21738,239343,239453,468037,346464,76567,343785,21940,23083,369784,369791,22361,23152,284335,346463,346469,23139,239344,412873,311214,311220],"class_list":["post-2397725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-369789","tag-affiliate","tag-ai","tag-amusement","tag-amusement-parks-and-attractions","tag-and","tag-arts","tag-attractions","tag-bernardino","tag-ca","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","tag-company","tag-county","tag-disney","tag-documentary","tag-documentary-films","tag-eamotion","tag-enabled","tag-entertainment","tag-films","tag-highlights","tag-interstate","tag-interstate-15","tag-jackson","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-local-affiliate-travel","tag-michael","tag-michael-jackson-singer","tag-movies","tag-music","tag-musical","tag-musical-films","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-pan","tag-parks","tag-peter","tag-peter-pan","tag-pop","tag-pop-music","tag-san","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-singer","tag-story","tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-theme","tag-theme-parks","tag-travel","tag-u0026","tag-victorville","tag-walt","tag-walt-disney-company"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Michael-Jacksons-Neverland-Ranch-slide-stands-in-Victorville.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2397725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2397727,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2397725\/revisions\/2397727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2397726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2397725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2397725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2397725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Is the slide a \u201cThriller\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n
From Neverland to Victorville<\/strong><\/h2>\n
‘Michael’ breaks record<\/strong><\/h2>\n