“Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this post in no way endorses a belief that this statement was anymore necessary than the one at the beginning of this music video.”

The reason it was there is because Michael Jackson was a Jehovah’s Witness at the time. That’s just one of the many many many things you can find out about this music video on Wikipedia alone.

I guess I can add one thing to this that you have dig around a bit to put together. I’m sure there have been some made since Thriller, but just in case you didn’t know, or remember how huge this music video was, it was popular enough to get its’ own porno spoof. It is called Driller: A Sexual Thriller (1984).

Driller (1984, dir. Joyce James)

They even spoofed Jackson’s opening statement.

Driller (1984, dir. Joyce James)

Because when I see this,…

I totally want to see it have sex.

Driller (1984, dir. Joyce James)

The mask in Thriller is much better.

What I love best about this is that John Landis kind of predicted this would happen a couple of years prior when he made An American Werewolf In London (1981). Landis likes to stick references into his movies to a fictional film called See You Next Wednesday. Thriller is no exception. As Jackson gets up to leave the theater, you can hear someone onscreen say “See You Next Wednesday.” Of course An American Werewolf In London also had that bit, but it was a porno in that movie.

An American Werewolf In London (1981, dir. John Landis)

There’s even the scene where David is sitting in a porno theater watching the fictional “See You Next Wednesday” movie while talking to Griffin Dunne’s character who is looking like the undead in Thriller at that point.

An American Werewolf In London (1981, dir. John Landis)

The only other thing I noticed is that if you drop the ‘s’ in “Peters”, then you have a director that got his start making horror movies.

Sadly, just like Down Under by Men At Work and It’s Tricky by RUN-DMC, this music video ended up in litigation. Both John Landis and Ola Ray sued Michael Jackson over royalties. I’m glad none of that kept the music video off of YouTube as it seems to with so many others.

Happy Halloween!