80's Friday: Thriller Video

(Listening to PYT Demo by Michael Jackson)

Like, Oh My Gawd, y’all!



You knew it was only a matter of time before I made my way around to Michael Jackson’s Thriller short film. I mean, we all knew it was coming. Especially with Halloween just around the corner.

Now the first time I saw Michael’s Thriller video was about twenty years ago, in 1992, when I was six years old. And it was indeed around Halloween because I remember one of my cousin put orange false nails on me that little black cats decorating the tips. I hated them because they were too small for my nails and hurt.

Anyway, we were sitting on the living room floor of her house and this video came on TV, and everyone was getting up and dancing and enjoying it. At the time I didn’t know who Michael Jackson was--I very vaguely at six years of age knew who he was.

You know I didn’t get the enormity of his star.

I just knew the music sounded nice and we were having fun.

Fast forward six years later. I was 12 years old and in the middle of what I call my Thriller Period. Picasso had his Blue Period, Tiffeny had her Thriller one.

I ran my poor mother raggedy buying me the Thriller album because to my young mind, you weren’t worth shit if you didn’t have a copy of the Thriller album. Like you weren’t doing Michael Jackson if you didn’t have it.



And I was so enchanted by the album, I played it incessantly until the damn cassette broke.

In the mean time, I had blow ups of his Thriller era pictures put on the wall, and I watched the Thriller part of “Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues” until I could practically speak right along with the announcer.

Summer of ‘98, my ambition became to see the Thriller video in its entirety. I very loosely remembered it from when I was six, but I wanted to see it again for myself.

I didn’t have to wait too long.

At the video rental store, I struck gold:

There on the shelf was The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and I immediately snatched it up.

The video actually opens with the 14 minute short mini-horror movie.

I was captivated, spellbound and tongue-tied watching the spectacle unfold before me.

It was genius, sheer genius that Michael had the movie part where he becomes the were-cat. (It ain’t a wolf because if you look at the monster he becomes, it’s a much more feline than canine sort of look he had.) And he’s smacking down trees and making his girlfriend shriek and piss herself running in the forest.



I was amazed. And had an overwhelming craving for popcorn once I saw Michael munching it, now in his iconic red and black triangle yoke jacket.

He was so gorgeous. I audibly went “OH!” when I saw how cute he was. Seriously, if I was Ola, I wouldn’t have been asking Michael to leave cause I was scared.

It’d be to get him out his jacket…but that’s another blog.

Then there was the singing and dancing and all the ghouls coming to life--which did frighten me a bit. Especially when Michael became a zombie himself, all pea-green with sunken eyes.


Never Seen a Happy Zombie Before...

It blew my mind. I had never seen anything like that in my life.

Not in a music video. Not with a real plot and choreography.

No half dressed bitches disrespecting themselves shaking their big asses all over the place.

Michael was too classy to have any of that in a video, and I loved that. He kept it clean and entertaining.

Then it was nice once the video ended, with that surprise at the end to boot!--to get the insight and look into Michael’s mind and all the work he did to produce his product.

He wasn’t just sitting on his pancake booty, he was actively participating and working.

It makes me so proud, even then, to see what all he did and how it paid off with making him take over the pop music world.

The world in general.

I do believe that if Michael had been a political type of man and had run for president, HE would have been the first Black President instead of Obama.

(Though I do believe Bill Clinton is high-yellow and won’t tell anyone LMAO!)

I mean if you can put an actor like Ronald Reagan into the White House, why not a singer/dancer/damn genius like Michael Jackson?


If Michael doesn't look like HE'S the Commander in Chief, I don't know who the hell does!


But that video really made me angry. I was angry with my mother for a few months because it really upset me that I missed being born earlier and completely missed the Thriller phenomena.

It really did kill me that I missed the boat by only three years man.

Ideally I would have been born in 1969, when my mom graduated high school. So I would have been about 13 or 14 when Thriller blew up.

(Then I realized my mother was married to her first husband--my daddy was her third,--and he was an absolute dog. I wouldn’t not have been as cute as I am now had her first husband been my father! LOL! )

That really bothered me for a while. Sometimes it still does.

But I just wanted to share that, and more is coming…in the next installment of 80s Friday, next week!

Here's a BONUS:

I did a "Thriller" inspired, but pretty, 80s type of make up job on my face. I hope you like it. I used shades of red and black!


Pardon the robe, I'm sick today...



Close-up of the eyeshadow