Rob

Michael Jackson begged his lawyer to destroy the Thriller video a few weeks before it came out in 1983, and he called him every single day to make sure it was done. The lawyer, John Branca, had the only copy sitting in his office. He kept telling Michael he was on it and never touched it. The problem was Michael's church. He was a practicing Jehovah's Witness back then, still going door to door with his congregation, sometimes in a disguise so people wouldn't recognize him. Then the elders found out he'd made a 14 minute horror movie where he turns into a werewolf and dances with a bunch of corpses. They called it demonology and threatened to kick him out, and Michael genuinely believed that would cost him his place in heaven. You can see why Branca dragged his feet. A normal music video back then cost around $50,000. Michael's label wouldn't pay for this one, so Branca went out and raised $1.2 million by getting MTV and Showtime to pay for a behind-the-scenes documentary shot during filming. He had 24 normal music videos' worth of other people's money tied up in this thing, and now the 25 year old star wanted it gone. So he stalled, and eventually he came back with a fix. He told Michael that Bela Lugosi, who played Dracula and was one of Michael's heroes, had put a disclaimer on Dracula saying he didn't endorse any of it. Michael liked that. It's why the video opens with a title card saying the film in no way endorses a belief in the occult. It hit MTV on December 2, 1983 and sold another million copies of the album within a week. The VHS tape with the making-of doc went on to move around 9 million copies, the best-selling music video ever. In 2009 the Library of Congress made it the first music video ever added to the National Film Registry. The dance itself came out of Michael and his choreographer Michael Peters making zombie faces at each other in a mirror. Michael said the hardest part was getting dead people to dance without it looking goofy. New York's Halloween parade is actually older than the video. A puppeteer named Ralph Lee started it in 1974 because his three kids didn't have a fun way to do Halloween, and about 200 people followed his giant puppets around the West Village. Tonight is the 53rd one, with more than 50,000 people marching up Sixth Avenue, and anybody in a costume can jump in for free. The Thriller dancers showed up in 2004, and first-timers still have to go to rehearsals every October before they're allowed to march. So that guy in the red jacket is leading a street full of New York zombies through a dance Michael Jackson called his lawyer every day trying to get rid of. nitter.cf/historyrock_/status/21…