Idol’s “Pepsi Moment” [VIDEO]

Did you catch American Idol last night, where rocker James Durbin made reference to what is no being called, "The Pepsi Moment?"

It was the music of Elton John that was being featured on America's #1 watched show and Durbin was about to tackle EJ's, "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting."

Here's a rundown on how it played out from Yahoo:

During his quite literally blazing cover of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" Wednesday, an onstage piano was lit on fire, and when Ryan questioned James about the potentially dangerous pyro, James quipped: "I have a lot of hairspray in my hair to keep it from jumping around so much--so the one thing I was worried about was having a 'Pepsi moment'!"

It's one thing to mention the beverage competition (American Idol is pro-Coco-Cola), but the "heat" is coming from the intended reference.

James was, of course, referring to an infamous 1984 incident, during which the late Michael Jackson's hair was set on fire by faulty pyrotechnics on the set of a Pepsi commerical. It was obviously James's attempt, failed or otherwise, at a joke--and it was a little amusing to see Ryan squirm like that. But according to TMZ, the Jackson family didn't find the remark very funny, and now James is under fire, so to speak.

"We were shocked to see this. It's nothing to make light of and everybody should be focusing on who was responsible for Michael's death," a Jackson family rep told TMZ. The source added that Michael's father, Joe Jackson, was particularly peeved that no one at Fox deemed it necessary to edit James's comment out of "Idol's" tape-delayed broadcasts in later time zones.

James took to his twitter page and explained he meant no disrespect to the singer.

I think it was just a harmless "slip of the tongue," with no disrespect meant to the late "King of Pop."

What do you think?