Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Are you moonwalking right now? Well, it's Saturday,
Speaker 1: so you know I'm moonwalking and this is my Saturday
Speaker 1: select PI from July one, two thousand sixteen. How the
Speaker 1: Moonwalk Works. Give it a listen right now. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radios.
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry. So
Speaker 1: it's just moonwalk right in this joint. Can you moonwalk? Now?
Speaker 1: I think everybody at the Bellhouse on June knows I
Speaker 1: can moonwalk. Okaynot I didn't moonwalk, but I think you
Speaker 1: could just based based on my moves, you could. You
Speaker 1: could make the assumption that I'm an awesome moonwalker. I've
Speaker 1: seen your moonwalk. It's you know, herky jerky, you know.
Speaker 1: It's that kind of moonwalk that guys like us do.
Speaker 1: I don't understand, you know, he kind of it kind
Speaker 1: of simulates the moonwalk. I see, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's a it's an echo of a moonwalk. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it smooth and floaty, oh I would. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: I know, And it's not a great moonwalk. It's right.
Speaker 1: I never learned the moonwalk because I didn't try to
Speaker 1: practice the moonwalk more than like once, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't do that. Oh yeah, I just bailed on
Speaker 1: it like my brother practiced and got okay at it.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he didn't, like, Yes, teach it as a
Speaker 1: class for free to children in need. No, he got uh,
Speaker 1: he got okay at it. Um. But I just I
Speaker 1: don't know if I think I bail on things that
Speaker 1: aren't easy for me. Well, that's definitely a candidate for that. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a trait I have. I don't like
Speaker 1: to spend a lot of time on something that I
Speaker 1: don't think i'm good at. I'm not one of those like, no, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try the moonwalk until I learned it. I see.
Speaker 1: I was like, maybe I just im not a moonwalker.
Speaker 1: Didn't you? Didn't you say you bail on books too
Speaker 1: that don't like capture your attention at this point in
Speaker 1: your life? Was that you? I don't think I said that,
Speaker 1: but I I didn't say that. Okay, but will you
Speaker 1: work your way through a book? Well, I'll give it
Speaker 1: a fair shot. It's been a while since I bailed
Speaker 1: on a book though, because I usually just pick good
Speaker 1: books like that. I know we're really good. Uh. I
Speaker 1: don't know how long I give a book. How long
Speaker 1: do you give a book? I will give a book
Speaker 1: two pages, yeah, but like three or four times? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: what am I missing? Let me try that again. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fair. I just write a book called Headful of Ghosts,
Speaker 1: which is pretty neat. It's like a psychological thriller. Huh.
Speaker 1: I haven't read a fiction booking forever, and then right
Speaker 1: now either I'm reading the right stuff, the classic and
Speaker 1: it's so that I think Tom Wolf might be the
Speaker 1: greatest reporter of all time. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anybody better our buddy Joe Randazzoh oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Of at midnight Fame people are like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I thought he was at the Onion. Now he's at
Speaker 1: at midnight. He used to work at the Onion. Uh.
Speaker 1: He just recommended a book which I'm really interested in
Speaker 1: that I wanted to tell you about because it sounds
Speaker 1: like it's right up your alley, called Sapiens, A Brief
Speaker 1: History of Humankind by you've all Noah Harari and the
Speaker 1: it has has a pretty remarkable thesis, which is that
Speaker 1: humans can Humans didn't kill each other off because they
Speaker 1: can cooperate in large numbers because we have an ability,
Speaker 1: a unique ability animals don't have two believe in things
Speaker 1: that exist only in our imagination, huh, like government and
Speaker 1: money and god. And he said, all of these things
Speaker 1: allow us to cooperate. Like we talked about in our
Speaker 1: money episode, it's like money has that paper has no value.
Speaker 1: We just all agreed. So it's essentially fiction, the cold
Speaker 1: concept of money. It's just something we've all agreed on.
Speaker 1: And he said, is it's this cooperation by believing in
Speaker 1: these fictional things that is the only reason that humans
Speaker 1: didn't kill each other off like you know, any other
Speaker 1: weird species. Yeah, I've got to check that out. They said,
Speaker 1: it sounds super interesting, and he said it was amazing,
Speaker 1: So and thank you for relating that. Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should read it and just tell me about it,
Speaker 1: because I'm still have never read four Man. I'm a
Speaker 1: fiction reader. I try to. I try to read nonfiction
Speaker 1: in it. I don't know, I just like a good
Speaker 1: fictional yarn more. I'm I'm quite the opposite. Like I
Speaker 1: told you, I want to be a civil War buff.
Speaker 1: I got one of those huge books that's supposed to
Speaker 1: be great and I just can't do it. Like The Moonwalk,
Speaker 1: you don't like fiction. I do like it, it's just
Speaker 1: for the so much of the time I'm reading for
Speaker 1: work that see. I think he would enjoy fiction as
Speaker 1: a break. Well, that's why I read Headfellow Ghosts. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm reading a fiction book. I need to
Speaker 1: just like read something different and use my imagination again.
Speaker 1: And um it worked. It was like it had an
Speaker 1: effect on me. What was that? What was it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What was it about? It was about a girl who
Speaker 1: may or may not be possessed and like how our
Speaker 1: family unravels around her. Is it like poplit? I don't
Speaker 1: know that. It's you know, like easy to read. Dean
Speaker 1: Kountz and oh no, no it was. It was a
Speaker 1: little more literary than that, and I wish I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to the author who who wrote the book. I don't
Speaker 1: remember the dude's name, but yeah, he does a good job.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to Dean Koons and John Grisham. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden, Uh, they know, they know what they are.
Speaker 1: Let's guys know what they are. Oh, Dean Kontz Man,
Speaker 1: that guy's imagination is fantastic. Jan I always assumed that
Speaker 1: he was better than Stephen King because he could finish
Speaker 1: the story. I've never read a Stephen King book, Chuck, what,
Speaker 1: I don't read a lot of that stuff. Okay. I
Speaker 1: read one Dean Kunt's book in my early twenties and
Speaker 1: one night. That's the only time I've ever done that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good thing about it. Kuon's bookcase. You
Speaker 1: can go through it like crazy. Started reading it like
Speaker 1: eight or nine and I stopped at like five in
Speaker 1: the morning. But each one is way different than the others,
Speaker 1: I mean, really differently. The guy's got a great imagination.
Speaker 1: You should read some of Stephen King's work, Like I
Speaker 1: know he is. He's he's so unfairly I was actually
Speaker 1: talking to Hodgman about this the other day. He's like,
Speaker 1: very unfairly criticized as a hack, but he's actually, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are student could sucks. But if
Speaker 1: you just because he's so prolific and because he very
Speaker 1: famously has trouble finishing a story, yeah, but he's like
Speaker 1: nobody can get inside the mind, like the dark side
Speaker 1: of a person's the average person's mind better than Stephen King.
Speaker 1: He's just a he's a great storyteller, aside from the
Speaker 1: ending part. So what's the Shining is probably the one
Speaker 1: I should read? Probably not because you're so used to
Speaker 1: Kubrick's shining and it's just so radically that's the big one, right,
Speaker 1: that's a big one. I've never read the stand I
Speaker 1: would start with the short stories. They're fantastic. Those he
Speaker 1: can finish. It's the largest what do you mean not finish?
Speaker 1: Like just amazing build up, and then the resolutions, like,
Speaker 1: so he finishes, you just mean it's okay, right, it's
Speaker 1: it's not left unfinished. It's the resolution is um the
Speaker 1: payoff is not so great. Yeah, interesting, and it's still fine,
Speaker 1: but it's he's so good at building things up that
Speaker 1: it's almost it would be almost impossible to finish it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we should call this beginning book
Speaker 1: talk with Josh and Chuck or patting the episode you
Speaker 1: want to talk a moonwalk? Yeah, we needed a little something.
Speaker 1: This is a short one. Well, you were saying that
Speaker 1: you were like you just couldn't do it because this
Speaker 1: is Let me let me tell you how I approached
Speaker 1: the moonwalk. All right, my left hand was covered in
Speaker 1: a white glove was sequence sewn on that my mom
Speaker 1: made for me. Did you really wearing the thriller jacket
Speaker 1: a little black pants. Yeah, that's how my moon walked.
Speaker 1: I was still not that great at it. You were,
Speaker 1: you were in man, this is so in my wheelhouse. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I mean I listened to pop music, but
Speaker 1: I was also the influenced by my well he's now
Speaker 1: my brother in law, but the General. The General started
Speaker 1: dating my sister when I was twelve, okay, so like
Speaker 1: he was always around and he was like, you're twelve
Speaker 1: years old old. You need to listen to the Almond
Speaker 1: Brothers and Leonard Skinnered and Molly Hatchett and Blackfoot in
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Rhythm section back the Doobie Brothers, like heck yeah.
Speaker 1: But I also listened to the American Top forty every week. So,
Speaker 1: I mean I was an MTV. I was glued to
Speaker 1: So you can't be glued to MTV and not like
Speaker 1: digest ing some of that stuff. But I was never
Speaker 1: never owned parachute pants or anything. But so that was
Speaker 1: the only sequence thing I ever owned. But that's very
Speaker 1: sweet that your mom did that. I think so too.
Speaker 1: It was a very sweet gesture. Um. But I think
Speaker 1: one of the other reasons the moonwalk spoke to me
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize it until researching this article chuck
Speaker 1: that I was also super into break dancing at the time,
Speaker 1: and the moonwalk is actually not a breaking move. It's
Speaker 1: a popping move. But for all but actual breaking and
Speaker 1: popping dancers, it was the same thing. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't see how it's a popping move. I saw
Speaker 1: that in the article and I couldn't put it together.
Speaker 1: Becoming is so herky jerky, and a good moonwalk is
Speaker 1: so smooth and buttery. Well, so locking is herky jerky? Right, Well, no,
Speaker 1: popping is too popping? Is that? Like? Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: also I wish this is really not good for audio,
Speaker 1: but it's also so you know, the one where you
Speaker 1: hold out one hand and make a wave the wave
Speaker 1: goes through your body to the other hand. The class
Speaker 1: of popping is it? Yeah? And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: all but the worms popping wrong? The worms are breaking move.
Speaker 1: I clearly don't know, but the average person who's who's
Speaker 1: doing these dances is probably popping, locking and breaking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it all kind of worked out at the same time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and I know we covered breakdancing some in the
Speaker 1: hip hop episode, but we should do it total breakdance,
Speaker 1: like give it its full do okay, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: call it the total Breakdance episode. But we I mean,
Speaker 1: we gotta cover some of it here because there's there's
Speaker 1: there's such a basis of it in the Moonwalk, or
Speaker 1: the Moonwalk cast such a basis in it. But the
Speaker 1: Moonwalk goes even further back then popping and locking, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about in a minute. It goes all the
Speaker 1: way back to the thirties. Should we take a break?
Speaker 1: Oh man? Yes, you know, stop all right. Josh just
Speaker 1: taught me how a moonwalking. Now I'm great at it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this I can't remember what that's called. The wave
Speaker 1: the waves where you stand up at a baseball game.
Speaker 1: So what is this? I don't know. I mean, people
Speaker 1: that don't know what Josh is doing right now are
Speaker 1: probably frustrated. But it's that you know that move you
Speaker 1: do where you wave the one arm and it goes
Speaker 1: to your body and the other arm waves and then
Speaker 1: you to your friend. Yes, that's a popping move. Is
Speaker 1: it body popping? Clearly doesn't. I don't know what popping means.
Speaker 1: I think the name is a bit of a misnomer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably all right, And by the way, people, you might
Speaker 1: as well get to this. I'm not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to gush much about Michael Jackson because I'm one of
Speaker 1: the people who thinks he'd did bad things in his
Speaker 1: private life. So if you don't hear me talking about
Speaker 1: how awesome he is, that's why I have a hard
Speaker 1: time separating the art from the artist. Well you want
Speaker 1: to throw it out there, man, if you believe that,
Speaker 1: how could you? I'm unconvinced at this point. All right,
Speaker 1: But I mean seeing my own a. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good one, good one. A bunch of people are like,
Speaker 1: that's what c o am covering my own a. Speaking
Speaker 1: for myself anyway, if you hear a little bit of
Speaker 1: like callousness in my voice, that's that's why. So uh,
Speaker 1: going back in time, Uh, it was not invented by
Speaker 1: that man. It was like you said, it goes back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen thirties. If you look on the YouTube's
Speaker 1: they're like history of the Moonwalk, you will see a
Speaker 1: nice video that shows the evolution of this dance, starting
Speaker 1: with Cab Callaway in the nineteen thirties doing something called
Speaker 1: the Buzz. The Great band Leader Jazz big band Leader.
Speaker 1: He remains unaccused of anything. He was also awesome in
Speaker 1: the Blues Brothers. Oh yeah, wow, he was still around
Speaker 1: for that. That's right. I forgot about that about fifty
Speaker 1: years on. Yeah. Uh so in the nineteen thirties he
Speaker 1: did something called the Buzz and it was a little
Speaker 1: more herky jerky and not as smooth. Then there was
Speaker 1: something that this article mentions called the camel walk, which
Speaker 1: I looked into, or the collegiate walk that like Sammy
Speaker 1: Davis Jr. Did in this video. I don't think it
Speaker 1: looks anything like the moonwalk, not really. I think going
Speaker 1: forward first of all, right, which is a big one,
Speaker 1: and it's cool. It's a cool move. Sure, James Brown
Speaker 1: dares Sammy to do it. Sam He's like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'll do it and awesome. So, boy, could you imagine
Speaker 1: being in that audience, man, Sammy Davis Jr. And James
Speaker 1: Brown on the same stage. I know, who do we
Speaker 1: have now? Bieber and whoever else? I don't even know
Speaker 1: him Bieber and Bieber it's a nightmare group. Yeah, so uh, sorry, man,
Speaker 1: we saw old. You're you're not old because we're trash
Speaker 1: and Justin Bieber, you're just saying it's a jerk. You know,
Speaker 1: he really has done a lot of stuff to say
Speaker 1: to earn that. Yeah, it's not like he's some like
Speaker 1: super nice guy. People are just unfair to like look
Speaker 1: at some of the videos and like peeing in a
Speaker 1: bucket in a restaurant. Did you ever see that one? No?
Speaker 1: I heard about that one though. That's wrong with Well.
Speaker 1: I think he's just too much wealth and not enough
Speaker 1: guidance end and probably too much booze and stuff. I
Speaker 1: think maybe he might be somewhat reformed now, but really
Speaker 1: I think he's grown up a little bit. But I
Speaker 1: don't follow it that closely. I see just the p
Speaker 1: and the bucket thing. Yeah, I mean that was enough
Speaker 1: to turn me off forever. Win him back, Justin went
Speaker 1: him back, good luck. So we're talking about the walk
Speaker 1: or the camel walk, right, so, um, you were saying
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like a moonwalk. In fact, it looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a reverse moonwalk sort of. But the
Speaker 1: point is it was it's somebody Sammy Davis Jr. Floating.
Speaker 1: Their feet are floating a little bit. They appear to
Speaker 1: be floating while they move. All right, So it's related
Speaker 1: to the moonwalk, right, I'll give you that. The one
Speaker 1: that's like dead on though, is Bill Bailey in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five full on moonwalks off the stage. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: nineteen at the Apollo. Yeah. And there's a great video,
Speaker 1: and it's at the very end of the video, but
Speaker 1: I urge you to not just skip to the end,
Speaker 1: because you've got two or three minutes of some sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet tap dancing, which I didn't realize how much I
Speaker 1: loved until I saw this guy and he was supposedly
Speaker 1: trained by Mr bo Jangles himself. Really, Ye, that was
Speaker 1: a real person. Yeah. I don't remember his name, but
Speaker 1: it was bow Jangles. Yeah. I love tap dancing. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it, and I watched this sounds like, Man,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. You should go see Gregory Hines. Is he
Speaker 1: still doing it? Probably there's no way. He's just like
Speaker 1: I'm done tapping. Yeah, tap was life for that guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that stuff is amazing. And what's the guy's name?
Speaker 1: I can't remember? Well, I did see that movie. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a guy uh savvyon Glover. Oh I know
Speaker 1: you're talking about like much more recent Yeah, like mean
Speaker 1: mean tap dancer. Yeah, like he just shouted insults while
Speaker 1: he was He looks stupid. But watch me dance. So
Speaker 1: Bill Bailey in nineteen fifty five, like legit moonwalked, and um,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say like he's the guy that invented it,
Speaker 1: because dance, like any art form, is just borrowed and
Speaker 1: changed and morphs along the years to where I don't
Speaker 1: know that anyone can specifically say, like Bill Bailey might
Speaker 1: have seen it from someone else. I've been like, that's
Speaker 1: a hot move. Yeah, he seems like the type of
Speaker 1: um talent that he could have come up within himself. Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: But what's weird, Chuck, is that that's apparently where it
Speaker 1: went and died. Like he created the moonwalk and it's
Speaker 1: stopped with him for a while. Sure. No, if you
Speaker 1: go back in the history of it, the people who
Speaker 1: popularized the moonwalk didn't know that he had done that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. So simultaneously,
Speaker 1: there's also some movement that's similar called the air walk,
Speaker 1: but it's mine. Yeah, like Marcel mars I was walking
Speaker 1: against the wind, very famous mime routine where his feet
Speaker 1: are floating. It's called air walking, and it's strictly mine, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The difference between that and the moonwalk is that they're
Speaker 1: stationary and acting like they're walking forward and the wind
Speaker 1: is blowing them, but they're not going backwards. It's but
Speaker 1: it's also not part of a dance either, correct, some
Speaker 1: don't dance. This is but this is a weird little
Speaker 1: thing that I didn't realize. There was apparently a mime.
Speaker 1: There's a period of the seventies where mimes were cool.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Yeah, I mean that was I
Speaker 1: remember watching Childs and Yarnell as a kid on television
Speaker 1: on major network TV. I was all brainstem at the
Speaker 1: time because I was totally unaware of that. Yeah, miming
Speaker 1: was a big deal and that like I would practice that. Okay,
Speaker 1: okay a little bit so not for years, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I practice miming. Well, a bizarre period of American pop culture.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Shields and Yard. Now this mime couple had
Speaker 1: a or they two dudes are a man and a woman.
Speaker 1: I think they were married. Um that they they had
Speaker 1: their own TV show. Yeah, Shields and Yardell was watched
Speaker 1: apparently by a lot of people, including you. It was
Speaker 1: also watched by a dude named Jeffrey Daniel. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Daniel was a great dancer, probably still is he is? Uh.
Speaker 1: Not only was he on Solid Gold, he was in
Speaker 1: the band Shalomar with Jody Whatley. Yeah, Jody Whatley and um.
Speaker 1: Shalomar was created by the great Don Cornelius of Soul
Speaker 1: Train h R I P I believe did he die
Speaker 1: a few years ago? And uh, Gary Mumford was the
Speaker 1: original singer and then on album number two, Gerald Brown
Speaker 1: took over, like you said, with Jody Whatley of Shaalomar
Speaker 1: Fame I guess and then later on her own Fame.
Speaker 1: Yeah she was. She had her own solo career, right
Speaker 1: and uh and this guy Jeffrey Daniel, Right, So Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Danielson in the Sheets remember that hit, Yes, this great
Speaker 1: Footloose soundtrack song Dancing in the Sheets, dude, dude, and
Speaker 1: that that was the eighties. The eighties stuff they you know,
Speaker 1: came around in the seventies with more disco. It was
Speaker 1: super disco e to start with. Um, but this dude
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Daniels, who was in Shelamore, who's also a solid
Speaker 1: Gold dancer. He had a pretty awesome move called the backslide,
Speaker 1: and when you watch him backslide, uh, he's he's moonwalking.
Speaker 1: It's total total moonwalk. It totally is and um. Later
Speaker 1: on he was interviewed like where did you get this?
Speaker 1: Where you know where? Where you know where did you
Speaker 1: come up with the idea? He's like, I was super
Speaker 1: into Shields and Yarnelle at the time, So miming influenced
Speaker 1: the backslide, which, as we'll find out in a second,
Speaker 1: directly led to the moonwalk. And we'll get to that
Speaker 1: finally after this. Alright, Chuck, we're back. Yes, Jeffrey daniel
Speaker 1: I watched that interview that's on the YouTube. It was
Speaker 1: on a British talk show called Soccer a m of
Speaker 1: the two thousand seven Things. Yeah, they had him on
Speaker 1: Soccer Am. Apparently it's not just about sports, but they
Speaker 1: have like comedy bits and pop culture stuff. Uh. So
Speaker 1: he was surprised. On that show. They showed the clip
Speaker 1: of of Bailey in the in the fifties and he
Speaker 1: was like, what's that. He's like, I've never even seen
Speaker 1: that he was surprised to see that someone was legit moonwalking,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, fifties something years earlier. Yeah, the same move.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, that's kind of close, like maybe
Speaker 1: the camel walk or um, the buzz like Cab calloway.
Speaker 1: It was a moonwalk. It was the moonwalk. But that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, That's what's so bizarre is that this
Speaker 1: guy invented the moonwalk in ve and it began and
Speaker 1: ended with him. Um, and it took mimes getting a
Speaker 1: TV show to create the moonwalk as we understand it today,
Speaker 1: different about it. Talk about chaos theory, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying though, like other people could have influenced the
Speaker 1: mimes that knew about Bill Bailey like it. Guess, I
Speaker 1: guess that's entirely possible. But Marcel Marceau was doing the
Speaker 1: air walk as far back as the thirties before Bill Bailey.
Speaker 1: Was he around in the thirties from what I understand, Okay,
Speaker 1: which is weird because well, he was pretty old when
Speaker 1: in the seventies when he hit it big. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think then he was doing it in the thirties
Speaker 1: because that's what this article says in it. I didn't
Speaker 1: find anything. I didn't find any footage of him from
Speaker 1: the thirties, like all of it seemed to be from
Speaker 1: the seventies or early eighties, well, the heyday of mimes. Also,
Speaker 1: I was curious why people hate mimes and did little
Speaker 1: research and of course there's no no like definitive thing.
Speaker 1: It's not like a phobia now. But everything I saw
Speaker 1: I came down to a few things. They look like
Speaker 1: clowns in clowns. We did a whole episode on that,
Speaker 1: and uh, the silent thing seems to bug people. And
Speaker 1: then just the notion that there, you know, they'll get
Speaker 1: up all in your face in the park. You're out
Speaker 1: just enjoying your day and a mom will come up
Speaker 1: and be like, you know, to start doing their like
Speaker 1: intruding upon you to do their act, which I don't
Speaker 1: even know is I don't even know if that's the
Speaker 1: case over there. Oh it is, believe me. Yeah, mine's
Speaker 1: very intrusive, like to start static and finish it. Uh
Speaker 1: So back to Jeffrey Daniel, He's dancing on Soul Train,
Speaker 1: He's dancing on Solid Gold. There's another couple of dancers
Speaker 1: name Jeron Casper, candidate Great name and Derek Cooley Jackson
Speaker 1: j A X s O N another cool name, and
Speaker 1: they were moon walking around or backsliding around, and so
Speaker 1: all these dudes were basically kind of laying the foundation
Speaker 1: for what the moonwalk would come to be. It got
Speaker 1: real like even if you watch Bailey's it's a legit moonwalk,
Speaker 1: but it's not as smooth as Daniel ended up doing it.
Speaker 1: You know, like when you see him on Solid Gold,
Speaker 1: he like, that's one of the smoother moonwalks you'll ever see.
Speaker 1: And he probably debuted it for the first time in
Speaker 1: American history on TV on Top of the Pops. That's
Speaker 1: what I was talking about. Yeah, yeah, that's so smooth.
Speaker 1: So um people thought he was cheating. Yeah, They're like,
Speaker 1: this is the floor oiled or something like what is
Speaker 1: that kind of witchcraft? Are we watching? Right? It blew
Speaker 1: everybody away, right, but everybody's no one knew who this
Speaker 1: guy was really it was a Solid Gold dancer at
Speaker 1: the time, everybody knew who Michael Jackson was. So in
Speaker 1: about a year later, almost exactly a year later, UM
Speaker 1: NBC broadcast this special called Motown Big Retrospective, and it
Speaker 1: was a huge, huge thing. Um Diana Ross did her
Speaker 1: first appearance with the Supreme since nineteen sixty nine. Marvin
Speaker 1: Gaye played um that there was a battle of the
Speaker 1: bands between the Temptations and the Four Tops Stevie Wonder, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody wanted like a soccer game. Um, And
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson comes out right, and people like, who's he?
Speaker 1: I mean, he was pretty big at the time. Of
Speaker 1: course he was. He was huge, but so was Marvin
Speaker 1: Gaye and the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder. Right, Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson comes out and brings the house down. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons he brought the house down was because
Speaker 1: he was doing Billy Jean, which when the thing came out,
Speaker 1: was the number one song in America. But during the
Speaker 1: dance he did the moonwalk, and it was the first
Speaker 1: time basically anybody who had seen uh had ever seen
Speaker 1: the moonwalk. Yeah, like, like no one in America watching
Speaker 1: this NBC special had been watching Top of the Pops.
Speaker 1: They made a scene stuff on solid gold here and there,
Speaker 1: But it was definitely like a mind blower for because
Speaker 1: it was such a widely watched special for sure. Um, well,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. He was taught the moonwalk depends on
Speaker 1: who you asked. Some people say he sought out Daniel
Speaker 1: said you teach me. Other people say no, it was
Speaker 1: Casper Candidate or Coolie Jackson. But from what I gather it,
Speaker 1: it sounds like all those guys eventually worked with him
Speaker 1: over the years as like either choreographers or choreographer slash
Speaker 1: backup dancers. So he he learned it from some or
Speaker 1: all of those people. Yeah, Like um Daniel choreographed like
Speaker 1: his Smooth Criminal video, and Coolie and Casper are the
Speaker 1: dudes who like lean with him on other that very
Speaker 1: famous like crazy side lean that did in the video.
Speaker 1: Does he do one of those the lean move? Yes,
Speaker 1: the crazy side lean, I think is what it's called.
Speaker 1: Can I say what happened to me yesterday? What did
Speaker 1: you do a lean? Well? I was looking at videos
Speaker 1: on how to moonwalk tutorials, uh to see if I
Speaker 1: could get it, And when you watch it slowed down
Speaker 1: and broken down, it's like, oh, well, I get it.
Speaker 1: It's not that complex, but it's hard to master. And
Speaker 1: we'll get to all that coming up. Like I'm sure
Speaker 1: we're gonna bumble our way through a description about a moonwalk.
Speaker 1: We always do, but we're gonna try. But then I
Speaker 1: started following into that local YouTube vortex of videos, and
Speaker 1: I saw this guy saying, here's how you do the lean,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want to know how to
Speaker 1: do that because it's cool. It is it's like an illusion.
Speaker 1: It is like at the obviously, well it's not. It's
Speaker 1: real strong ankles, right, And there's a guy that well,
Speaker 1: I don't And there's a guy named Robert Hoffman who
Speaker 1: it turns out this guy is great. He does He's
Speaker 1: day It's tutorials, and he's kind of funny and and
Speaker 1: does it in such a way that it's interesting to watch.
Speaker 1: And so I encourage everyone to go watch Robert Hoffman's
Speaker 1: tutorial on how to do the lean, and he kind
Speaker 1: of explains, He fully explains the illusion and how to
Speaker 1: how to do it well, and I look at it
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, you're about to fall over.
Speaker 1: And then he pulls it back, and I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna practice the lean because that'll be like I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to know how to dance, but I'm just not
Speaker 1: good at it. But I want to get like the
Speaker 1: lean down at least so I can bust that out
Speaker 1: at the party. Just like standing in place. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know you shouldn't even do it on a dance
Speaker 1: floors while you're having a conversation with somebody, like slowly, slowly,
Speaker 1: just start to leave, so they you're about to go over,
Speaker 1: snap back into place and be like, what if You're
Speaker 1: totally right? Because I don't go to dance parties anymore anyway,
Speaker 1: what am I talking about? Yeah, I would be in
Speaker 1: the office one day in the kitchen and I'll just
Speaker 1: do my lean. He's gonna go, oh my god, you
Speaker 1: didn't go over? He stood back up. Oh man, um,
Speaker 1: all right, So where are we? So we were talking
Speaker 1: about how there's a there's a discrepancy over who taught
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson the moonwalk. Correct. The thing is is Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson never claimed to have invented the moonwalk. People just
Speaker 1: assumed he had because he was huge at the time.
Speaker 1: And he also later said that he didn't know what
Speaker 1: he what his dance routine was going to be for
Speaker 1: Billy Jean for this Motown special. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I buy that. So a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 1: obviously he just did the spur of the moment or whatever. No,
Speaker 1: totally untrue. He employed choreographers and including those three guys,
Speaker 1: like you said, all three of them worked with him
Speaker 1: as choreographers. And he also, as far as his sister
Speaker 1: Janet I think, says, they went to see Shalamar at
Speaker 1: Disneyland before this and saw um Jeffrey Daniel doing the
Speaker 1: backslide and said, dude, you gotta teach me that. Here's
Speaker 1: some money. Teach me the moonwalk. Oh wait, it's not
Speaker 1: called the moonwalk yet. And he also said that he
Speaker 1: he called it the moonwalk, that it was actually the
Speaker 1: media that came up with that, but he adopted name.
Speaker 1: Surely some I mean obviously someone named it some Yeah,
Speaker 1: some ap reporters. Yeah, there's me, uh, for what it's worth,
Speaker 1: Daniel said, besides she Shields and Yard now that the
Speaker 1: the Electric Boogaloos, yes, is who inspired him as well.
Speaker 1: And I looked up those guys. They're the ones who
Speaker 1: originated body popping. Yeah, And they were a dance group
Speaker 1: and I was looking at one of them and I
Speaker 1: was like, let's rerun. Okay, you're talking about locking, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is rerun. Yes, he was huge. He was a
Speaker 1: member of the Lockers, which was at one point the
Speaker 1: Electric boogaloos. No, those are two different well, no, at
Speaker 1: one point they were. They were merged, okay, and then
Speaker 1: then that's where popping and locking came from, because popping
Speaker 1: and lock and are two different types of day. Originally
Speaker 1: they were the electric boogaloo lockers and then I guess
Speaker 1: they diverged at one point. Okay, maybe they were like
Speaker 1: I want to lock, I want to pop. Well they
Speaker 1: dude who invented locking. It was good Friends with Rerun
Speaker 1: and like, if you think of Rerun dancing, like those
Speaker 1: wrist twists and the jumps and the suspender stuff, that's
Speaker 1: lock and it totally and they were on that dance squad,
Speaker 1: the Lockers. It was Don Campbell who invented locking Rerun
Speaker 1: and then Tony Basil, the girl who sang Mickey. So
Speaker 1: if you don't know who rerun as, you're like, what
Speaker 1: in the world are you guys talking about? What? You oldsters? Um?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a It was a TV show called
Speaker 1: What's Happening About These Three Friends in South Central l
Speaker 1: A In the seventies, great show, very funny, uh and
Speaker 1: Rerun was one of the characters played by the Great
Speaker 1: Fred Barry, who was in the lockers in the electric
Speaker 1: googlue lockers and just go watch go type rerun dancing.
Speaker 1: What's happening and uh, what you're watching is pure locking
Speaker 1: one of the great TV theme songs of all time too.
Speaker 1: Now if you throw what he's really is what instrument
Speaker 1: was that like a klesmer or something? I have no idea,
Speaker 1: So it's weird, but it's a great one. Um. The
Speaker 1: if you throw in that that our movement, that wave
Speaker 1: and the worm, you've got popping locking and breaking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what people think of as breakdancing, that's right. Like we've
Speaker 1: I was thinking the other day about how how in
Speaker 1: our lifetime is people our age and there's a range,
Speaker 1: but we've seen like a complete like two complete at
Speaker 1: least two new complete art forms created in hip hop
Speaker 1: music and that and breakdancing created out of whole cloth.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. And the new sports like what like you
Speaker 1: know X games and snowboarding and skateboarding, Like we've like
Speaker 1: seen these new things created and you always think that, well,
Speaker 1: music is what else can you do well under this time?
Speaker 1: I guess techno and all that stuff that was created
Speaker 1: as well, Um, jazz, well that was before us a
Speaker 1: little but no it's true. I just think it's pretty
Speaker 1: neat to look around. No, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Two you you're like, well, there's grunge. Well grunge is
Speaker 1: an offshoot of like rock and roll or whatever. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean these were completely new art forms that some
Speaker 1: people still think are a fad, which is funny. Really well,
Speaker 1: you know, you hear like older mudgeons like rap is
Speaker 1: going to be a fad. No, wrap is a brand
Speaker 1: new art form and he's here forever, and it changes
Speaker 1: in morphs and is you know, it's amazing, it's neat.
Speaker 1: So we did a hip hop episode. You mentioned that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was good. I thought for you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of shamos like us. I think we did a pretty
Speaker 1: decent job. Agreed. Um, all right, so do we need
Speaker 1: to explain how to break dance? I want to hear
Speaker 1: you explain it? No, I can't you mean moonwalk? Yea,
Speaker 1: I want to say break dance break? Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: need to say how to moonwalk? Okay, so go ahead
Speaker 1: take it away. Well you're the one who does it
Speaker 1: so well. Alright, alright, are you ready? So you start?
Speaker 1: First of all, you want to take off your shoes
Speaker 1: and put on some socks on a nice slick floor.
Speaker 1: Don't try to do it on like um uh pine bark. No.
Speaker 1: Maybe pour yourself a vodka gimlet. Yeah, well that's the
Speaker 1: that's the drink of the moonwalker. So um. You you
Speaker 1: are on a slick floor, wearing socks, and you stand
Speaker 1: straight up and down right, and you take your right
Speaker 1: foot and you put it out in front of you
Speaker 1: with your foot flat on the floor. Okay, bend your
Speaker 1: left knee and go up on the ball of your
Speaker 1: left foot. Okay, now holding yourself in place with just
Speaker 1: your the ball of your foot. All of everything is
Speaker 1: on whatever foot you have up, the ball of whatever
Speaker 1: foot you have up. Take a sip of that gimlet, right,
Speaker 1: maybe another one too, I need one now, And then
Speaker 1: you drag your foot back the foot that's on the floor.
Speaker 1: And as you drag your right foot back past your left,
Speaker 1: you drop your left and you drop your left heel
Speaker 1: and raise your right that's right, and then you repeat
Speaker 1: the same process and you're floating. There's the moonwalk, a
Speaker 1: k the backslide. You're pretty square if you call it
Speaker 1: the moonwalk. These days, we had to title this episode
Speaker 1: moonwalk because we wanted everybody to know what we were
Speaker 1: talking about. But it's called the backslide. Okay, that is correct.
Speaker 1: And I watched the tutorial which the guy who did
Speaker 1: the tutorial actually wasn't great at it. Um, like he
Speaker 1: he had it down like how to teach you. But
Speaker 1: when he did it, I was going, yeah, it's not great.
Speaker 1: Was Steve Brule? No, God, that would be great. I
Speaker 1: just think the guy had the wrong shoes on personally,
Speaker 1: but um, I'll bet that's what he blames it onto.
Speaker 1: The thing he stressed for a good moonwalk is a
Speaker 1: long stride, which is where you're lacking. If I can
Speaker 1: be honest. Oh am I doing it to you? Short? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: long stride, Josh, Okay, Um, I didn't realize you've had
Speaker 1: so many formed opinions about my moon wall. Uh. That
Speaker 1: foot that you're keeping flat needs to be so so
Speaker 1: flat to create the illusion. Right, What what am I doing?
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about you know your foot was pretty
Speaker 1: good and flat. That's your stride. I pretend like it's dead,
Speaker 1: like my foot is dead when I drag it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then when you when you go to switch feet,
Speaker 1: he said, you really just snap them both real hard
Speaker 1: to create that illusion like a good completely synchronized simultaneous
Speaker 1: snap up and down with those two feet. You're long stride,
Speaker 1: keep that foot flat, keep that vodka gimlet flowing, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna be moonwalking in no time. And then you
Speaker 1: can also because what you're doing is it's supposed to
Speaker 1: look like you're walking while you're moving backward. You're walking
Speaker 1: forward but moving backwards. That's the definition of the moonwald.
Speaker 1: So you can um, you can like add your arms swinging,
Speaker 1: lean like your till till your body forward a little
Speaker 1: bit if you're real good. Michael Jackson used to like
Speaker 1: move his head up and down in rhythm to his
Speaker 1: walking or whatever, and it adds to the effect. Totes Shalamar,
Speaker 1: I feel like I kind of should try it, try
Speaker 1: it right now. Well, I'm not gonna do it now.
Speaker 1: You don't have a vodka gimlet, Nope, Are you got
Speaker 1: anything else? And you go get some cocktail onions. Those
Speaker 1: are great Gibson onions. Oh is that a Gibson and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of yeah, but that's it. It is the
Speaker 1: lime juice, yes, roses lime, yeah, yeah. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more, about vodka gimlets. You can type
Speaker 1: that word in the search part how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said gimlet, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: Before listener mail, this is ah, I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: correction time. Okay, we need like a Lila by music.
Speaker 1: We do so you know, we have corrections on the
Speaker 1: show from time to time. This was sort of a
Speaker 1: big one because we really goofed on the Gettysburg Address episode. Um,
Speaker 1: and boy did we hear about it. Remember how I
Speaker 1: said I wanted to be a civil war buff. I
Speaker 1: don't anymore. You know, you had to start to your
Speaker 1: career as a civil war buff. They're not nice people,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, no one on the internet it's
Speaker 1: a nice person. No I was. I was just very
Speaker 1: surprised if people got angry that we messed something up?
Speaker 1: Did I just like, so, what did we mess up?
Speaker 1: We said fifty thou dead. It was fifty total casualties.
Speaker 1: Is that what it was? So we messed up and
Speaker 1: said mistaked casualties for dead, when in fact casualties is dead,
Speaker 1: missing or wounded. Um. And then we also said that
Speaker 1: what we were talking about the percentage of the army
Speaker 1: like it was this much a percentage of of the
Speaker 1: Union army and a third of Lee's army. But it
Speaker 1: was just for the army fighting in that battle, not
Speaker 1: the total Union army and the total confess or An army.
Speaker 1: And we very specifically were like, this is for the
Speaker 1: entire army. So we got a little excited and a
Speaker 1: little ahead of ourselves. Well, clearly we're the most evil
Speaker 1: people of the century. Yeah, so very sorry about that.
Speaker 1: Civil War buffs you know, now, don't have a contact
Speaker 1: Chuck again. Please all right, listener mail now. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read this one. Hey, guys, great podcast,
Speaker 1: especially like how you pointed out, uh, here's some about
Speaker 1: the bogus studies, how to do good research, especially like
Speaker 1: how you guys pointed out the pressure when you're an
Speaker 1: understudy to do studies that support the current theories of
Speaker 1: your employer without getting into a ton of detail. I've
Speaker 1: been there, and I left research altogether because I became
Speaker 1: pretty disillusioned with it all. One thing you did not
Speaker 1: mention is that entire industries get erected based on the
Speaker 1: results of a few initial studies. Uh, the sexiness of
Speaker 1: the studies aside, which is what you talked about the
Speaker 1: research or does a good job and does not show
Speaker 1: anything or has a negative study, their funding is often
Speaker 1: at stake. For my personal experiences, is the largest basis
Speaker 1: for bias. WHOA, that was a mouthful. It's hard to
Speaker 1: say when you're missing the tooth um research. Researchers become
Speaker 1: heavily vested and being right from a face perspective if
Speaker 1: a c in a monetary perspective. We don't really recognize
Speaker 1: realize this because the scope of the impact of the
Speaker 1: studies are usually small. But that researcher who suddenly lost
Speaker 1: all their grants is a pretty high price to pay
Speaker 1: for being ethical. I don't really have any answers to
Speaker 1: how clean it up, but science is contrarian and by
Speaker 1: nature anti consensus. Instead, we have a system that rewards
Speaker 1: only rewards reinforcement. Good researchers have to be allowed to
Speaker 1: say you did this great study and found nothing without
Speaker 1: the fear of losing grant money. Amen. That's from Trevor.
Speaker 1: Thanks Trevor. That was very illuminating. Yeah, an enlightening, very
Speaker 1: very aditt Can you say that, Rudy, really, I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us. You
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
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