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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that slides backward through history one day at a time.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Bluesier, and in this episode, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: a standout moment in dance history, the day when Michael

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Speaker 1: Jackson went full astronaut by moonwalking across a stage in

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Speaker 1: southern California. The day was March twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three.

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Speaker 1: Michael Jackson performed the moonwalk for the first time at

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Speaker 1: the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in California. He debuted what would

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Speaker 1: quickly become his signature dance move during the taping of

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Speaker 1: the Motown twenty fifth Anniversary TV special. The live audience

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Speaker 1: got to see the gravity defined dance step in person,

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Speaker 1: but the rest of the country would have to wait

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Speaker 1: until the show was broadcast on ABC nearly two months later.

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Speaker 1: For any listeners who aren't familiar with the moonwalk, it's

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Speaker 1: essentially a sliding backward dance step. When performed properly, the

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Speaker 1: moonwalk functions as a kind of optical illusion, making the

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Speaker 1: dancer appear as if they're walking forward but moving backward.

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Speaker 1: It's been more than forty years since the King of

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Speaker 1: Pop took the moonwalk mainstream, but variations of the step

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Speaker 1: have been around for much longer. The earliest footage of

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Speaker 1: a dance akin to the moonwalk comes from the early

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Speaker 1: film performances of legendary jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway.

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Speaker 1: He called the move the buzz, but it wasn't as

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Speaker 1: smooth or as convincing as the moonwalk we know today.

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Speaker 1: In the decades that followed, many other performers took a

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Speaker 1: shot at gliding backward, including Bill Bailey in the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: James Brown and Bill Robbinson in the nineteen sixties, and

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Speaker 1: David Bowie in the nineteen seventies during the tour for

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Speaker 1: his Aladdin Sane album. Another early moonwalker was famous French

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Speaker 1: mime Marcel Marceau. In the nineteen forties, he had a

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Speaker 1: popular routine called Walking in the Wind, where he would

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Speaker 1: pretend to brace himself against an imaginary wind. Marceau would

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Speaker 1: struggle with all his might to move forward while steadily

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Speaker 1: sliding backwards, a technique that's now known as the air walk.

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Speaker 1: But the really interesting part is that Marcel Marceau and

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Speaker 1: Michael Jackson were friends for decades, and Jackson said on

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Speaker 1: multiple occasions that the mime's work had a big influence

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Speaker 1: on his performance style. That said, Jackson was probably influenced

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Speaker 1: by all of the performers I mentioned in one way

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Speaker 1: or another. But if we're looking for who inspired his moonwalk,

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Speaker 1: the likeliest candidates are three performers from the musical variety

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Speaker 1: show O SoulTrain. Jeffrey Daniel, garn gaspar candidate and Derrick

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Speaker 1: Cooley Jackson all appeared on the hit TV show in

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies or early eighties, and all of

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Speaker 1: them performed a similar move called the backslide. According to

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Speaker 1: Daniel and Cooley, they were each contacted separately by Jackson's

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Speaker 1: manager ahead of the Motown Anniversary special in nineteen eighty three. Apparently,

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Speaker 1: Jackson had seen and remembered their performances on SoulTrain and

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Speaker 1: wanted them to teach him the backslide. It took Jackson

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Speaker 1: a good while to get the hang of the tricky step,

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Speaker 1: but he eventually got it down, even putting his own

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Speaker 1: spin on it. With the backslide, Cooley later explained, you

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Speaker 1: slide backward and you make it look like you're walking forward,

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Speaker 1: but the moonwalk is in a circular motion, like you're

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Speaker 1: floating in air and you keep continuing in a circle.

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Speaker 1: That was a whole different dance move. Jackson clearly believe

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Speaker 1: the new move would be a crowd pleaser, as he

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Speaker 1: chose to debut it during a primetime TV special that

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Speaker 1: was sure to be viewed by millions of people. At first,

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Speaker 1: though it didn't look like the singer would get the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to do it. At the time, Jackson had already

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Speaker 1: released two solo albums, but he still wasn't fully out

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Speaker 1: of the shadow of the Jackson five group that had

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Speaker 1: given him his start. In fact, the Motown special was

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Speaker 1: meant to celebrate the greatest hits of the label's first

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Speaker 1: twenty five years, so Jackson's involvement was supposed to be

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Speaker 1: limited to a Jackson five reunion. The specials director Don

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Speaker 1: Meischer an executive producer Suzanne de Pass refused to let

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Speaker 1: any of the artists play new material, only their Motown classics,

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Speaker 1: but after Michael Jackson insisted on performing his new single

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Speaker 1: Billy Jean during rehearsal, the showrunners decided to make an exception,

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Speaker 1: and so the singer took to the stage on the

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Speaker 1: evening of March twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, and performed

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Speaker 1: a metalie of jackson Five songs with his brothers. Then,

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Speaker 1: when the performance was over, he segued into his own

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Speaker 1: solo routine, delivering the only non Motown song in the special.

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Speaker 1: Jackson's black sequined jacket and single white glove made for

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Speaker 1: an eye catching outfit, but the singer made sure to

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Speaker 1: wear short black pants and sparkly white socks to draw

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Speaker 1: attention to his feet. The audience cheered for every twist, spin,

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Speaker 1: and hip thrust that he pulled off, but there was

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Speaker 1: a clear spike in excitement when Jackson hitched up his

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Speaker 1: pants and began sliding backward as if skating on ice.

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Speaker 1: His first moonwalk took up only two and a half

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Speaker 1: seconds of his nearly five minute performance, but for many

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Speaker 1: it was the defining moment of the evening. When the

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Speaker 1: Motown special aired on May sixteenth, nineteen eighty three, just

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Speaker 1: under thirty four million people tuned in to see it,

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Speaker 1: represent a full thirty five percent of all TV owners

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Speaker 1: in America. Jackson was already a superstar, but his moonwalk

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Speaker 1: catapulted him to a new level of fame. One of

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Speaker 1: his idols, Fred Astaire, even called him up just to

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Speaker 1: congratulate him on his fancy footwork. After that, the moonwalk

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Speaker 1: became Jackson's signature move. In nineteen eighty eight, he titled

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Speaker 1: his autobiography Moonwalk and then released a movie in the

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Speaker 1: same year called Moonwalker. But even though he clearly embraced

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Speaker 1: the move and the name, Jackson always insisted that it

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Speaker 1: was the media, not him, that coined the term moonwalk. Regardless,

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Speaker 1: the moonwalk was a game changer for Jackson's career and

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Speaker 1: for the world of dance. Pretty soon everyone was trying

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Speaker 1: to do it. Even Jackson's pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, was said

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Speaker 1: to have gotten pretty good at it. So for anyone

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Speaker 1: out there who's tried and failed to pull off the

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Speaker 1: move in their living room, don't give up. If a

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Speaker 1: chimp can do it, so can you. Problem. I'm Gay

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Speaker 1: Blues Yay, and hopefully you now know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like

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Speaker 1: to keep up with the show, you can follow us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show and

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Speaker 1: if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to

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Speaker 1: send them my way by writing to this day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to kazb Bias for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another day in history class