Donny Osmond And The Road Not Taken.

Just imagine if Donny Osmond had taken Michael Jackson's career path.

Both Osmond and Jackson were bubble-gum pop heroes with their respective family groups in the early 1970's. The Osmonds were far more familiar faces on TV then, having made a name for themselves even before Donny was born, singing barbershop music. Their super-straight, clean-cut image worked against them in certain quarters -- they were just too uncool to many of the Woodstock generation, including myself. Just how cool could anyone be as a regular on the Andy Williams Show?

The Jackson 5, though, wore their Afros with pride and reflected the gritty urbanity of their Gary, Indiana hometown. Their outfits looked like a cross between your average Motown group and big-city pimpwear.

Oddly, the music both groups made around the time Donny was starting to get media attention sounded a lot alike. Listen to "One Bad Apple" by the Osmonds and it would be easy to think of it as a Jackson 5 tune. (Late edit: "One Bad Apple" actually was written for the Jacksons, but MJ's first number one record was "Ben" a year earlier -- written for Donny Osmond.)

But soon the spotlight was on Donny and Michael's solo careers.

Donny chose a TV show with sister Marie ("A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll") and still managed a few more popular records.

Michael, a few years behind Osmond, hooked up with Quincy Jones, a hugely-talented producer just as MTV was gaining a wide audience. John Landis produced some extremely creative videos, and there was no looking back. Michael Jackson was the hottest pop star on the planet.

Then Jackson got weird on us. Very, very weird on us.

The face lifts. The makeup to look white. Hanging with Liz Taylor. The crazy Sargent Pepper-in-Harlem outfits. Marrying the daughter of Elvis Presley -- for about a week. Sperm donor children. The accusation's of child molestation. Creating the Neverland amusement park for himself and his little friends. More accusations of child molestation. Wild shopping sprees for the most gawd-awful stuff man ever made. Dangling a kid over a hotel railing. Fleeing to Dubai, of all places.

It took a You-tube video of people dancing to "Thriller," at a wedding reception, of all places, to simultaneously make the sheer mention of Michael Jackson both a punchline of a joke, and yet, strangely cool again.

And now we have an early death, bags of prescription drugs, and a media frenzy all on what was to have been the eve of Jackson's farewell tour.

Donny, Donny, Donny. What opportunities you missed by being relatively normal. Think of it, Donny. Had you dyed your skin black, fondled a few kids, talked like Marilyn Monroe, and OD'd on something stronger than that permitted by the Mormon Church, you could have been the King of Pop.