Thriller (music video) Totally Explained

Everything about Thriller Music Video totally explained

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is a 14-minute music video for the song of the same name released on December 2, 1983 and directed by John Landis who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jackson. The mini-film music video was broadcasted on MTV three weeks before Christmas 1983. It was the most expensive video of its time, costing US$500,000, and the Guinness World Records in 2006 list it as the "most successful music video", selling over 1 million units.
"Thriller" was less a conventional video and more a full-fledged short subject or mini-film; a horror film spoof featuring choreographed zombies performing with Jackson. The music was re-edited to match the video, with the verses being sung one after the other followed by the ending rap, then the main dance sequence (filmed on Union Pacific Avenue, Los Angeles) to an instrumental loop, and finally the memorable finish: the choruses in a "big dance number" climactic scene. During the video, Jackson transforms into both a zombie and a werecat (although makeup artist Rick Baker referred to it as a "cat monster" in the "Making of Thriller" documentary); familiar territory for Landis, who had directed An American Werewolf in London two years earlier. Co-starring with Jackson was former Playboy centerfold Ola Ray. The video was choreographed by Michael Peters (who had worked with the singer on his prior hit "Beat It"), with significant contributions by Jackson. The video also contains incidental music by film music composer Elmer Bernstein, who had previously also worked with Landis on An American Werewolf in London. The video (like the song) contains a spoken word performance by horror film veteran Vincent Price. Rick Baker assisted in prosthetics and makeup for the production.
Jackson, at the time a Jehovah's Witness, added a disclaimer to the start of the video, saying:
To qualify for an Academy Award, "Thriller" debuted at a special theatrical screening, along with the 1940 animated motion picture Fantasia.

Plot

DJ and his date run out of gas in a dark, wooded area. They walk off into the forest, and DJ asks her if she'd like to go steady. She accepts and he gives her a ring. He warns her, however, that he's "not like other guys". A full moon appears, and DJ begins convulsing - transforming into a horrifying werecat. His date shrieks and runs away, but the werecat catches up, knocking her down and begins lunging at her with its claws.
   The scene cuts away to a movie theater (the Palace Theatre in Hollywood) where Michael and his date - along with a repulsed audience - are actually watching this scene unfold in a movie called Thriller (by Vincent Price). Michael smiles but his date is frightened, and tells him she's leaving. Michael catches up to her, exclaiming "It's only a movie!" Some debate follows over whether or not she was scared by the scene; she denies it, but Michael disagrees.
   Michael and his date then walk down a foggy street, and he teases her with the opening verses of "Thriller". They pass a possessed graveyard, where corpses suddenly begin to rise from their graves, as Vincent Price performs his rap. Michael and his date then find themselves surrounded by the zombies, and suddenly, Michael becomes a zombie himself. Michael and the undead perform an elaborate song and dance number together, followed by the chorus of 'Thriller' (in which Michael is changed back into human form), frightening his girlfriend to the point where she runs for cover.
   The girl is chased into an abandoned house, where the zombies and Michael slowly approach her. Right before they reach her, she wakes up and realizes that it was all a dream. As Michael asks "What's the problem?", he offers to take her home, but as the video ends Michael glances back at the camera, grins, and reveals his yellow monster eyes (accompanied by Vincent Price offering one last haunting laugh).
   After the credits, when they concurrently show the zombies dancing again, the disclaimer humorously states, "Any similarity to actual events or persons living, dead, (or undead) is purely coincidental." Landis' An American Werewolf in London likewise offered this disclaimer.

Awards

Grammy Award

Year	Category	Result	Notes

1985	Best Video, Long Form	Winner	"Thriller"
1984	Best Video Album	Winner	"Making Michael Jackson's Thriller"

Year	Category	Result	Notes

1999	100 Greatest Music Videos Ever Made	#1
1984	Best Overall Performance in a Video	Winner
1984	Best Choreography	Winner	Michael Peters, choreographer
1984	Viewer's Choice	Winner

Making Michael Jackson's Thriller

Released in tandem with the video was an hour-long documentary providing candid glimpses behind the scenes of the production. Called Making Michael Jackson's Thriller, it, too, was shown heavily on MTV for a time and was the top-selling home-video release of all time at one point, with more than 9 million copies sold.

References and parodies in pop culture

Cinema

In a brief scene from the 1984 film Beverly Hills Cop, Eddie Murphy's character Axel Foley is seen walking past two grown men, each dressed in imitation versions of Jackson's "Thriller" video outfit. His response, used in trailers for the film, was the trademark Murphy laugh.

In a scene from Poison Ivy Jerry Disbro, played by Joe Wright, is seen wearing a single glove and shiny red vest.

In the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), performers in the Von Steuben Day Parade scene are said to be reenacting steps from Thriller but some have described this as coincidence.

The spoof film The Silence of the Hams features an image by image parody dance of the video, however, in this film, the Michael Jackson impersonator is carried away by the zombies.

The impromptu dance sequence in the director's cut of Shaolin Soccer features dance steps and similar camera angles from the Thriller music video.

A Thriller spoof was done by the German comedian Otto Waalkes in his first motion picture Otto - Der Film. However, in place of zombies he used multiple actors resembling the German folk singer Heino, and in place of the original lines a variation of Heino's song Schwarzbraun ist die Haselnuß ("Black-Brown is the Hazel Nut").

In the 1998 film The Wedding Singer there's a scene where the character Sammy is dressed as Michael Jackson in Thriller. This scene is also used in the musical adaptation of the movie. During the song "Single", which appears in the same scene, Sammy makes several references to Jackson in general, such as when he says that "no chick will ever moonwalk on your heart."

In the 2004 film 13 Going on 30, Jennifer Garner's character Jenna Rink starts an impromptu dance to Thriller following the zombies' movements. (External Link

)

The movie Return of the Living Dead Part II briefly shows a zombie dressed up like Michael's character. This zombie spins around when electrocuted.

The 90's Tamil Movie 'Valli' Directed by Superstar Rajnikanth (his only Directorial Venture) features the audio of Thriller, as a gang of baddies dance in a disco.

A parody of the video is an Easter egg on the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within DVD, which features the computer-generated cast of the film.

The Axe Gangs dance near the beginning of the movie Kung Fu Hustle loosely resembles the dance.

An extended (animated) dance scene reenacting Thriller is found in the second half of Kronk's New Groove.

The 1984 Hindi film Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki has a synchronised dance sequence in a graveyard with actor/dancer Mithun Chakraborty in a red suit, earning the title of the Bollywood Thriller.

TV

There is a Halloween episode of South Park ("Pink Eye") in which Chef turns into a zombie while wearing Jackson's Thriller outfit and singing a sexually provocative parody of the song entitled "I'm Gonna Make Love... Even When I'm Dead" while other zombies dance like in the clip.

In another episode of South Park ("The Jeffersons"), Michael Jackson (going by the alias Michael Jefferson) is wearing his red Thriller outfit as his plastic surgeries begin to break down, causing him to resemble his zombie form seen in the video.

In an episode of the original series of The Lenny Henry Show, Lenny Henry parodied the music video with a song titled "Thinner". The clip was a parody of Jackson's battle with anorexia nervosa at the time.

In an episode of Family Guy, Peter and Cleveland are at a dance and Cleveland's outfit looks like Michael Jackson's outfit.

In the The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror III", Bart and Lisa try to resurrect their dead cat Snowball, but by mistake resurrect hundreds of corpses who crawl out of their graves. Bart uses a magic spell to raise these zombies and wears Michael Jackson's Thriller album on his head.

In the first episode of season three of ReBoot, Enzo is rebooted into a zombie. He wears the same clothes as Michael Jackson does in the video. Also, he performs some of Michael Jackson's signature dance moves such as the moonwalk when the user shoots at him.

In the TV cartoon series Animaniacs, the character Buttons the dog is chasing after Mindy, when he suddenly ends up in a graveyard where zombies roam. Buttons wears the outfit similar to Michael's character and even dances (almost in the same manner) to lure the zombies away from Mindy.

In the 6teen episode "Dude of the Living Dead", one of the zombies is wearing the same outfit and look of Michael Jackson in this video.

In Chappelle's Show, Dave Chappelle played in a sketch where he was a prospective juror in the Michael Jackson trials and when he was asked if he believes Jackson is guilty or not, he says no, simply reasoning that Jackson is innocent because "he made Thriller."

In the Disney Channel TV show The Replacements, Riley Daring is shown doing dance steps to Thriller, with a bass-line also similar. The character named Buzz also pops up and laughs like the video at the end of the credits.

In the Cartoon Network cartoon The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, a brain-hungry meteor tells Billy to get people's brains, he gets an outfit like Jackson's and everyone (except Grim & Mandy) do so steps from the Thriller video.

In the The WB (now The CW) show Blue Collar TV in an episode where the "Fat Family" flashes back to where the husband is in a dance-off with a man who wants his girlfriend (who is his wife later in the flashback) and they use the dance from the Thriller video.

At the end of a skit of The Man Show, Adam Carolla and Drew Pinsky discuss the aftermath of attempted self-masturbation (the skit dealt with what would happen if Adam cloned himself) with his clone. After being asked about which Adam exploded (The rule of cloning in the skit was "Don't have sex with your clone") and having Drew leave the house to masturbate the skit ends with Adam having the same eyes as Jackson had at the ending of the video. The skit also included the testimony seen at the start of Thriller except at the end of the skit and with Adam's name used.

On "American Duos", the season premiere episode for the second season of the Psych TV series, series star Dulé Hill is dressed as Michael Jackson and doing choreography from the "Thriller" video despite the fact that, along with series star James Roday, who is dressed as Roland Orzabal from 80s group, Tears for Fears, they're actually singing "Shout". The episode was coincidentally directed by Thriller video director, John Landis.

In an episode of Robot Chicken, the cast and crew, who had been killed in the previous season, returned as zombies and chased after their killer, one of the shows producers Matthew Senreich. His cell phone rang and his ringtone was Thriller, causing all of the Zombies, including Seth Green, the 600,000,000 peso man, and the nerd to do the dance moves from the video, only to stop and continue chasing him when the ring stopped.

In an episode of My Wife and Kids, Jay realizes that her make up is cadaver makeup, and her face becomes temporarily deformed. When Michael runs to her aid, he says she'd be good in the Thriller video. He humorously performs a few dance moves from the video, to the audience's amusement.

In an episode of Total Drama Island, the chef leads the kids in a rigorous version of the Thriller dance, going non-stop for hours.

In the Halloween special of Australian quiz show Spicks and Specks, the final question during the Final Countdown round is "A point to anyone who can do the Thriller dance". Panelist Dave Hughes got up and did his own version of the dance.

In a commercial which aired in the United States during Super Bowl XLII titled "Thrillicious"(External Link

) for Sobe Life Water, super model Naomi Campbell performs the Thriller dance with 30 CGI-animated lizards.

In a episode of Kappa Mikey Gonard starts dancing the way Michael did in the video

In the episode "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back" of the show Boondocks, Riley is told to go get Grandad's outfit, and one of the ones he brings back is Michael's Thriller outfit.

Andy Samberg did a SNL Digital Short called Punched Before Eating that ends in a zombie dance sequince, somewhat reminiscent of Thriller.

The cast of British soap opera EastEnders made their own version of the video for the charity Children in Need.

Video games

In the video game, at one point in the first level (a graveyard) there's a dance floor, on which a vampire dressed in a red outfit similar to Jackson's appears. Suddenly, some zombies pop up from the ground and begin to dance along with the vampire before attacking the player. The music in this phase sounds like a short sample from the song.

In "The Sims 2 Nightlife", the Smustle dance is similar to Thriller's choreography.

In, there's a dance off in the middle of the 4th stage where you're trying to rescue, oddly enough, Space Michael (Jackson), and the onscreen characters mimic part of the Thriller dance.

In Michael Jackson's own video game (only available on Sega) Moonwalker, one of the levels is when Michael has to defeat zombies in order to get to the next level similar to his own video clip Thriller.

Many of the games in THQ's WWE Smackdown! feature steps from Thriller as optional taunts for created characters.

In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, female Undead characters using the /dance command were formerly able to do several Thriller dance moves. It is unknown why this was removed from the game.

In the MMORPG Guild Wars, female Necromancers using the /dance command copy exact moves from Jackson from when he was a zombie. Male Paragons perform the dance from Jackson.

In the MMORPG RuneScape, players can earn an emote called "Zombie Dance" from a random event. This dance uses some of the moves from this video. Players can also earn parts of a zombie costume, if one examines the boots of this costume, the description says "Thrilling".

In Rayman Raving Rabbids, Rayman and the Rabbids can be seen doing a dance similar to Thriller after some of the music games.

In the video game, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse, when the zombies stand still long enough, they do a part of the dance from Thriller.

In the game Final Fantasy VIII, during Edea's Parade, the masked dancers are performing the dance moves from Thriller.

In the game The Typing of the Dead, during the Credits sequence, the player can type out the developers' names as they scroll down. Doing so will cause zombies to break out of containers and start to dance, a la Thriller.

Miscellaneous

An issue of the Marvel comic book Dazzler was devoted to an homage/parody of the making of Jackson's video. The plot centered on the title character (a dancer by trade) winning an audition to work on a horror-themed music video starring an entertainer obviously patterned on the singer.

Former WWE superstar Brian Christopher would often use Thriller choreography while walking to the ring as apart of his hip-hop gimmick while with the tag-team Too Cool.

Johnny and the Dead, a book by Terry Pratchett (and its television and stage adaptations) make occasional references to the music video.

This song was part of DTV Monster Hits except that it ends after two minutes and fifty seconds.

In the off-off Broadway musical, the cast does a take off of the zombie dance in the "Do the Necronomicon" number.

A story development in the webcomic The Adventures of Dr. McNinja parodies the video, featuring Benjamin Franklin as Michael Jackson and Dr. McNinja as his date. (External Link

)

In the webcomic Order of the Stick there's a reference

to Jackson's video, specifically speaking of the zombies.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb had paid homage to Thriller and the moonwalk with his touchdown celebrations in 2003 and 2004.

At Disney theme parks, cast members (Disney speak for "park employees") who have dressed as Pluto have been known to do the Thriller zombie dance in costume to the song.

An entire story arc in One Piece focuses on an island called Thriller Bark, which is filled with zombies. The author of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda, is known to be a Michel Jackson fan.

Trivia

Right before Michael and the girl leave the theatre, the announcer on the screen utters the line "See you next Wednesday", a line featured in most John Landis films. A poster for Landis' early film Schlock can be seen in the lobby.

Forrest J. Ackerman can be seen sitting in the row behind Michael and his date. In the row in front of them, longtime Jackson bodyguard Miko Brando can be seen. Makeup FX wizard Rick Baker appears as the eye-rolling zombie seen exiting a crypt and other makeup FX artists who worked on the film also make cameo appearances.

When Michael sings the chorus with the zombies, his face appears completely normal as if he wasn't a zombie yet, which he said on the making of the video was because the mask was so uncomfortable to wear.

Grape jelly was used for the gory effects.

In October 2007, Much More Music placed "Thriller" as number 2 of the Top 40 Most Memorable Music Videos on "Listed".

The dancers almost went on strike because they wanted to be paid more; dancing in the shoes they were given on the cement was causing all of them leg pain.

The music video was released theatrically in 1983, in order to qualify for an Oscar in the Short Film category. However, there was some controversy amongst independent film-makers as the film was directed with a well known director and had a higher budget than the shorts which are usually nominated in that category. The film received "Two Thumbs Down" on the TV show At The Movies with Siskel & Ebert Siskel felt the film wasn't special and was simply Michael Jackson dancing around, with zombie and werewolf effects. Ebert felt the film recycled ideas from earlier films (notably An American Werewolf in London) and the musical sequences were too long. Further Information

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