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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 2: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 2: and more. We are your two night creatures of the

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Speaker 2: nitty gritty, your hounds of Hellish history, your foul stenches

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Speaker 2: of facts parentheses, the funk of forty thousand years.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex Heider. That's what he says, foul stenches. Not

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Speaker 1: only the lyrics to that rap are ridiculous. Wow, the

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Speaker 1: funk of forty thousand years is pretty great.

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Speaker 2: I got considering Michael Jackson was afraid of the word funky.

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Speaker 1: Hence smelly jelly if I believe. Yeah, Okay, that's correct,

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Speaker 1: and I'm Jordan Rontg. There we go and Jordan. Today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the biggest Halloween song of all time

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Speaker 1: with an earth shattering visual impact to match. That's right,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about Michael Jackson's just the song in the video,

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Speaker 1: though not the record because that would take days. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Halloween season came around, you were like we should do another,

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Speaker 1: Like what are the other music ones that we could do?

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Speaker 2: And since we already did Monster Mash. I thought back

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Speaker 2: to all the Halloween music compilations I've heard in my youth,

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Speaker 2: and it's it's it's monster mash, thriller and then a

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Speaker 2: bunch of horror movie soundtracks.

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Speaker 1: That's all of them. The Purple People Eater, I guess

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Speaker 1: if you scre sort of.

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Speaker 2: An edge case though, But yeah, what do you say

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Speaker 2: about thriller?

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Speaker 1: Dude? I mean, it's no monster mash, but that's true.

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Speaker 1: That is true.

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Speaker 2: But it's pretty, pretty, pretty deep, pretty good. Uh yeah,

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Speaker 2: sold a bajillion copies, revolutionized the art form of the

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Speaker 2: music video. Uh party standard from now Party standard, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: viral dance success.

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Speaker 1: Vincent Price got like, I don't know, a couple grand

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Speaker 1: for it. List goes on, it's nice to see black

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Speaker 1: people ripping off old white men for a change. Ah

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Speaker 1: ah is that staying in I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I mean yeah again, do you say, dude, It's like

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Speaker 2: the national anthem of October. It's in the firmament of

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Speaker 2: American culture. There's like nothing it's thriller. You shut up?

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Speaker 2: It's what do you have to say about it? This

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Speaker 2: is gonna get me into trouble.

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Speaker 1: But it's not my favorite song on thriller by a

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Speaker 1: long shot fair it's in like my lower half. I think, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: so in descending orders for me, it's all about Billy Jean.

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Speaker 1: Did they come up with that baseline while driving over

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Speaker 1: a bridge like the Beg's did when they came up

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Speaker 1: with jive talking going over a bridge in Florida. It's

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Speaker 1: just like the tires would hit the grooves in the

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Speaker 1: road at a weird, weird rhythm. It makes makes sense.

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Speaker 1: I think that's maybe I might be making so but

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Speaker 1: that's number one. Yeah, I want to be starting something.

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Speaker 1: I think number two it's got that great soul Makosa

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Speaker 1: sample which rips. That song's incredible, let's see pyt. Number

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Speaker 1: three also rips what.

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Speaker 2: Is wrong with you that you have beat it so low?

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Speaker 2: It's it's too rocky for me. I like more of

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Speaker 2: the R and B stuff. It hurts my ears.

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Speaker 1: It's telling the girl's mind is number four because Paul

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Speaker 1: McCartney's got to be in the top half of whatever

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Speaker 1: I'm ranking. Although that song, I hate that song. I know.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like an eighties sitcom theme. It sounds like

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Speaker 1: the family that does like no, no, no, no, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I just think of the the there's like a clip

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Speaker 2: or there's like an interview clip of Paul McCartney doing

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Speaker 2: like a withering Michael Jackson impression that's been like burned

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Speaker 2: into my brain.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it's from you know what I

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Speaker 1: think it's from.

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Speaker 2: I think it's from the it's VH Well, the one

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Speaker 2: that I'm thinking of is I was I remember it

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Speaker 2: because VH one's one hundred Most Shocking Moments in Rock

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Speaker 2: and Roll came out when I was watching a lot

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Speaker 2: of VH one lists, And yeah, it's when Michael Jackson

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Speaker 2: bought the Beatles rights and and Paul tells that story

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Speaker 2: about how on that video said he.

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Speaker 1: Was like, you know the real you know, the real

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Speaker 1: money is and music publishing and uh and and Michael

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Speaker 1: says to him, I'm gonna about your songs. We have

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Speaker 1: we have to have like a like a trip like

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Speaker 1: moment where how Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon do like

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Speaker 1: dueling Michael Caine impressions. We gotta go do dueling Paul

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Speaker 1: McCartney doing Michael Jackson's I'm gonna bouyt your songs. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna about your songs.

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Speaker 2: Paul Yeah, so uh yeah, girls, my god, that song sucks.

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Speaker 1: I know, human Nature a good mid tempo cut, and

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Speaker 1: then I think I'm up to Thriller and that's so

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Speaker 1: that's my My sixth favorite song on Thriller is the

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Speaker 1: title track. But I we talked about this during our

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Speaker 1: spooky season last year, which I know is a lot

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Speaker 1: more robust than this year's. I'm sorry. I take full

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Speaker 1: responsibility for that, but I'm not really into Halloween. I know,

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Speaker 1: I know, but I love how much you love it.

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Speaker 1: It's so good.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's great, man, I what what other like?

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Speaker 2: It's the biggest artists of all time doing a Halloween song, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's like where I'm trying to think of what else?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I carry all over for Christmases you in

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Speaker 1: terms of like that's a huge artists, huge holiday.

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Speaker 2: But I think ad but I think around the same

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Speaker 2: time it would be it would like, oh god, we

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Speaker 2: should just pitch other versions of this. What if the

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Speaker 2: Eagles because that's the only the only band that's sold

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Speaker 2: higher than Michael What Eagles did Thanksgiving Thanksgiving song?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what they would do. That's exactly what they

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Speaker 1: did or fourth of July. I was going to say,

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Speaker 1: I feel like they would maybe do Fourth of July.

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Speaker 1: No Beach Boys would Fourth of July. God, that would

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Speaker 1: can you imagine how much that would suck. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: they did do a Fourth of July song at some

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Speaker 1: point in their in their wilderness years that I've just

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Speaker 1: not acknowledged. Old please not Eagles Thanksgiving. Maybe it's a

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Speaker 1: bird Turkey eagle thing. Nope, they sure do Fourth of July.

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Speaker 1: But it actually seems to be dramatically anti war.

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Speaker 3: Oh.

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Speaker 1: I think it's because it was written by Dennis that's why. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there is a an excellent Bollywood version of Thriller. Okay,

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Speaker 1: it was like it made the rounds on YouTube. Like

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Speaker 1: back when YouTube was was was brand new, it was

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Speaker 1: more pure. Have you ever heard it? I don't think so.

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Speaker 2: Now maybe I just remember all the viral I remember

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Speaker 2: all the viral dance challenges.

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Speaker 1: Well, no, that I mean this is like actually good.

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Speaker 1: Like I actually think like the baseline in it, because

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Speaker 1: it's such a wild rip like it's so clearly thriller,

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Speaker 1: but it's like just different enough to not get sued.

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Speaker 1: But the baseline of it I kind of prefer I

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Speaker 1: want you to I want you to hear it and

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Speaker 1: see what you have to say. You might remember this

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Speaker 1: because I feel like it was big only E Bomb's

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Speaker 1: world or something when we were freshman in college.

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Speaker 4: Live reacts, No, this sucks, It's awful.

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Speaker 2: That is the worst synth tone I've heard. Dancing's great though, Yeah, yeah, no,

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Speaker 2: that sucks. What else you got?

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Speaker 1: That's all I got? All right?

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Speaker 2: Well, from the silent songwriter behind the monster hit to

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Speaker 2: the truly mind blowing sales records notched to the landmark

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Speaker 2: music video, here's everything you didn't know about Michael Jackson's thriller.

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Speaker 2: Necessarily quick thumbnail sketch before we dive in. Michael Jackson

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Speaker 2: obviously first rose to fame in the early nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 2: This is the adorable, pint sized front man of Motown's

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Speaker 2: Jackson five. We get a quick super Sounds of the

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Speaker 2: seventies style montage of him in the platform shoes, dancing

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Speaker 2: and then with Joe Jackson hitting him with a chair.

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Speaker 2: The Jackson's left Motown in nineteen seventy five and released

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Speaker 2: three albums on Epic, the most contemporaneous of the time,

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Speaker 2: of which Destiny had peaked at number eleven on the

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Speaker 2: Billboard two hundred and nineteen seventy eight. But then Jackson

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Speaker 2: became a bonafide global solo superstar with his first album

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Speaker 2: for Epic under his own name, Off the Wall.

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Speaker 1: When it came out in nineteen seventy nine, Epic made

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Speaker 1: the then unusual move of promoting the album simultaneously to

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Speaker 1: pop and RnB markets, which helped it become this just

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Speaker 1: enormous crossover success. And then after that or Jackson and

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Speaker 1: Quincy Jones producer Quincy Jones, who's what his producer?

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Speaker 2: Quincy Jones producer quizy Yeah. If you don't know Quincy Jones,

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Speaker 2: I can't help you. You're listening to the Rod podcast.

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Speaker 2: Jones came back to help Jackson realize his vision of

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Speaker 2: an album where every single song was a hit. That

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Speaker 2: was what everyone who has been interviewed about Thriller said

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Speaker 2: that they were going in and trying to do. Larry Williams,

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Speaker 2: who played saxophone, flute and since on the album, said

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Speaker 2: that to The New York Post in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: He said, that was the mandate.

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Speaker 1: I have a question for you just and this may

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Speaker 1: be something that requires my research offhand, what are some

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Speaker 1: other albums that you can think of that almost follow

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Speaker 1: that same edict. I mean, the only one I can

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Speaker 1: think of that comes close is Katy Perry. Katy Perry, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because she t tied or broke the record of the

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Speaker 1: most number ones on one album. Yeah, I mean that

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Speaker 1: they set out to do ahead of time either way.

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Speaker 1: Either way, I don't know. That's an interesting question because

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Speaker 1: I feel like it would kind of either ahead of

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Speaker 1: time or just in retrospect, like why every single one

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Speaker 1: of these either it was a hit or could have

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Speaker 1: been a hit.

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Speaker 2: I mean even just going to the top list of

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Speaker 2: all time California.

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Speaker 1: As much as I hate to admit it, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean, Dark Side of the Moon is pretty up there

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Speaker 2: when you think of like every single song on that

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Speaker 2: album is actually like a banger. Like the weakest song

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Speaker 2: on there is like.

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Speaker 1: Eclipse, Yeah, maybe on the run, on the Runs, the

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Speaker 1: one I can't deal with.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's an instrument I mean I'm talking about the instrumentals.

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Speaker 2: But like when you think about like Breathe Time, great

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Speaker 2: gig and It's got money Us and them, like those

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Speaker 2: are all like those. I mean it was FM radio

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Speaker 2: rocks and maybe that's a bit of a dark horse.

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Speaker 1: We gotta do dark Side we got somebody requested that

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Speaker 1: and oh yeah, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean the thing about Back in Black is that

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Speaker 2: it is not it's not all bangers. But when you've

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Speaker 2: got yeah, I guess it really was only three on that, man,

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Speaker 2: it's kind.

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Speaker 1: Of Hell's bells. The title one, You Shook Me. The

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Speaker 1: rest of them are all kind of you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: come on over. Oh yeah, Rumors has filler on it,

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Speaker 1: like oh daddy, Yeah, that song sucks, yeah it does.

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Speaker 2: Secondhand News sucks. Oh Daddy also sucks. But the rest

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Speaker 2: of these are all strong.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, all right.

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Speaker 2: Zeppelin four, oh yeah, good, but but there's not that

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Speaker 2: many songs on that. It's only an eight song record

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Speaker 2: the cars day, but they all oh man, Zeppelin fours

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Speaker 2: for sure up there. The weakest one on Zeppelin four

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Speaker 2: is like Battle of Evermore and four Sticks, and then

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Speaker 2: every one of those other songs Smack, Black Dog, Rock

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Speaker 2: and Roll, Stairway to Heaven, ste Mountain Hop, going to

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Speaker 2: California when the Lemon breaks. Like that's that's a high

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Speaker 2: batting average for a record. Car's debut, Sure, car a

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Speaker 2: Dell twenty one. I feel like twenty one was really

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Speaker 2: just like powered by Rolling Deep, Rolling the Deep, set

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Speaker 2: Fire to the Rain, and someone like You. I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: say nineteen eighty nine might have been the most recent

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Speaker 2: Santana's Supernatural Oh oh well, okay, Yeah, Which doesn't that

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Speaker 2: share a story with Thriller where they both basically had

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Speaker 2: engineers engineers on four Yeah, Gurney's when they were done?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Interesting thought experiment. Maybe Born in the USA? Oh, Born Run?

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Speaker 1: Maybe too?

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Speaker 2: I don't think so. Yeah, I want to elaborate on

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Speaker 2: that run Born and Run has Born to Run?

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Speaker 5: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: No, David Lynn choice, No, any what's the David Cross

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Speaker 1: in the rest of the development? Do you want to

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Speaker 1: try that a little bit simpler?

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 1: Asked in two thousand and nine by Rolling Stone about Thriller,

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Speaker 1: Quincy Jones was admirably a forthright about the fact that

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Speaker 1: it was a team effort.

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Speaker 2: He said, Michael didn't create Thriller. It takes a team, right,

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Speaker 2: It takes a team to make an album. He wrote

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Speaker 2: four songs and he sang his ass off, but he

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Speaker 2: didn't conceive it. That's not how an album works. Real

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Speaker 2: talk facts aside from engineer Bruce Swedeen Sweden Swedeen Sweden

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Speaker 2: with Sweden Swedeen Bruce Sweeden who will get to but

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Speaker 2: English songwriter Rod Temperton is the guy who comes up

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Speaker 2: most in the discussion of Thriller.

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Speaker 1: For good reason.

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Speaker 2: Temperton is such a relentlessly low key dude though, that

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Speaker 2: his nickname and the title of a documentary about his

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Speaker 2: career by the DBC was the Invisible Man. He grew

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Speaker 2: up a musical kid. I think both his parents were

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Speaker 2: classically trained musicians. I grew up in Lincolnshire and he

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Speaker 2: eventually joined a multi racial disco funk band called Heat

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Speaker 2: Wave heat Wave Whips. Yeah, I imagine you pulled that

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Speaker 2: out in your DJ knights.

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Speaker 1: I pull that out at home.

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Speaker 3: Well.

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Speaker 2: His biggest hits for the band, Boogie Nights and the

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Speaker 2: Ballot Always and Forever, were both million sellers, and they

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Speaker 2: helped break the band in America, which is how Quincy

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Speaker 2: Jones heard about him. Producer Barry Blue were called to

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Speaker 2: the BBC that despite this, Temperton was hardly living large

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Speaker 2: at the time. He had a very small flat, so

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Speaker 2: everything had to be done within one room, and he

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Speaker 2: had piles of washing and he had the TV on

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Speaker 2: top of the organ. It was a nightmare. He had

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Speaker 2: trams running outside, but he made it, just absorbed himself

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Speaker 2: in the music, and Rod seemed to come up with

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Speaker 2: these amazing songs. So Rod left Heatwave in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 2: eight after writing another hit for them, the Groove Line,

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Speaker 2: with the intention of focus on his writing. It was

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Speaker 2: not a career decision in the sense of I knew

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Speaker 2: what I was going to do, he told the BBC.

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Speaker 2: I had no idea where I was going. If I

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Speaker 2: was any good, somebody will call me, I guess. Obviously

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Speaker 2: that person ended up being Quincy Jones, who, based on

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Speaker 2: the heat Wave hits, called Temperton in nineteen seventy eight

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Speaker 2: and liked his demos enough to fly him to la

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Speaker 2: on weekends to work on Off the Wall. Jones said

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Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen that Temperton had asked Jones to manage

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Speaker 2: heat Wave, but he wasn't interested in doing that, but

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Speaker 2: they hit it off, and Temperton contributed rock with You,

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Speaker 2: Off the Wall and Burn this disco out to the

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Speaker 2: Jackson record Off the Wall. Intention was for that was

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Speaker 2: to actually have Jackson and Jones select just one song

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Speaker 2: for the record, but they liked all of his demos

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Speaker 2: so much that they went with three.

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Speaker 1: So Michael Jackson was only twenty four at the time,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote four of the nine songs on Thriller himself.

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Speaker 1: Want to be starting something, which borrows heavily on Solmakosa,

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Speaker 1: which I feel like I should splice in now to

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Speaker 1: the tune of getting sued, Right, did they get sued? Who?

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Speaker 1: I mean taking a shot at Michael Jackson? You better

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Speaker 1: not miss wow? Uh that's who is that? Hugh Massaa?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, mam, I.

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Speaker 1: Mean it's the same song. I mean I maybe he

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Speaker 1: was arguing that it was sampling before sampling was heavily.

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Speaker 1: You know, I had a precedent of, oh, you got

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Speaker 1: to pay these people for this. Oh no, it was

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Speaker 1: man It was man U Dubongo, not huge massee Kela.

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Speaker 1: Oh I thought funny. I thought it was he Mesagia too. Yeah, whoops,

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Speaker 1: we're racist.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because he sued Jackson and won in nineteen eighty six,

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Speaker 2: and then he also sued Rihanno when she sampled right for.

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Speaker 1: Place of Stuff the music. Yeah, but yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: think I realized until right this moment that Jackson wrote

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Speaker 1: my favorite songs on Thriller. I want to be starting something.

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Speaker 1: The Girl is Mine Paul McCartney, Beat It and Billy Jean,

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Speaker 1: and the other songs for Thriller were selected by Quincy

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Speaker 1: Jones and Rod Temperton in two thousand and one autobiography

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Speaker 1: Q The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. I love him so much,

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Speaker 1: he said Rod Temperton, and I listened to nearly six

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Speaker 1: hundred songs before picking out a dozen we liked, And

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Speaker 1: in another interview he cited this figure as eight hundred,

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Speaker 1: but he's consistently seemed to say that thirty or so

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Speaker 1: of these songs were written by Temperton. That's a hell

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Speaker 1: of a batting average for that songwriter. Good lord. He said.

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Speaker 2: They would all come with like alternate titles and lyrics too,

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Speaker 2: Like he submitted a bunch of different versions of He's

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Speaker 2: like well in case you don't like it with this

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Speaker 2: title in these lyrics, like he was like a three

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Speaker 2: other alternates.

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Speaker 1: So he essentially would write all of these songs like

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Speaker 1: three times. That is wild, and that is what he

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Speaker 1: did with Thriller. Temperaman explained to m magazine that as

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Speaker 1: you got to know Jackson better, he honed in on

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Speaker 1: Michael's love of movies, and that was the prompt that

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Speaker 1: generated thriller. He said, I came up with the idea

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Speaker 1: that I should write something really theatrical. This is him

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Speaker 1: talking in twenty twelve. I've been really impressed with Michael's

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Speaker 1: participation in the rhythm section when recording don't stop till

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Speaker 1: you get enough, so I wanted to write something with

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Speaker 1: the same power, but a really dramatic melody structure. Michael's

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Speaker 1: love of movies did not extend to horror, however. Michael

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Speaker 1: described himself as being too scared, and this probably came

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Speaker 1: from when it comes to talking about Michael's trauma where

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Speaker 1: else his father Joe in that what you've described as

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Speaker 1: our second Arrested Development reference on this episode a hilariously

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Speaker 1: tragic prefiguring of the That's why you Don't Lie bit

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Speaker 1: from Arrested Development. Joe Jackson tried to teach his kids

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Speaker 1: a lesson about leaving their bedroom windows open by climbing

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Speaker 1: through their window one night in a mask and shouting

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Speaker 1: at Michael, which gave him recurring nightmares about being kidnapped.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you have to need a mask, Joe. Climbing

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Speaker 1: through your window period in the middle of the night

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Speaker 1: is scary enough.

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Speaker 2: You have to laugh because otherwise you cry. But like,

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Speaker 2: what an insane person thing to do to your child

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Speaker 2: and largest breadwinner of your.

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Speaker 1: Family, to take it much kidnaps. He was so mad

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Speaker 1: about the window being open.

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Speaker 2: He was like, I will risk, and not risk, but

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Speaker 2: I will permanently damage my son and the man who

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Speaker 2: makes enough money for all of us to live because

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Speaker 2: leaving the.

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Speaker 1: Damn window open. It's kind of it's like sort of

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Speaker 1: the ultimate dad thing to do. Oh yeah, it'd be

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Speaker 1: like if you wanted to teach your kid a lesson

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Speaker 1: about leaving the thermostad on by like faking a house.

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Speaker 2: Fire or something like kind of shocked. He never did that,

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Speaker 2: to be honest. Uh, Temperton continued. I remembered messing around

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Speaker 2: with bass patterns and drums until I came up with

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Speaker 2: the core baseline that runs through the piece. Then I

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Speaker 2: started building chords on top to grow the tune into

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Speaker 2: its climax. I wanted it to build and build a

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Speaker 2: bit like stretching an elastic band throughout the tune to

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Speaker 2: heighten suspense. Actually I should have put this in from

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Speaker 2: the top.

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Speaker 1: Uh. I guess you can kind of hear that. You're right,

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Speaker 1: It's like, m.

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Speaker 2: Well, I just want you to sing it, but you

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Speaker 2: got to listen to this. This is a bass player

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Speaker 2: named Ian Martin Allison who does a lot of stuff

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Speaker 2: with a sight that I and social bass channel Scott's

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Speaker 2: Bass Lessons, and he does a great bit on this bassline.

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Speaker 5: So but really, what I'm trying to do is think

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Speaker 5: about this tune in the way that a keys bass

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Speaker 5: player would think about it.

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Speaker 1: But doo dooo do don't.

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Speaker 5: Go short notes right, short notes, cut off, muted notes.

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Speaker 2: It's a great part, so you can actually hear how

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Speaker 2: everyone thinks that bassline is doom doom, doom doom, butting

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Speaker 2: doom doom, doom doom.

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Speaker 1: But it's got that extra little punch, that low one

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Speaker 1: in it.

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Speaker 2: That does make a difference. Yeah, great, great bassline. The

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Speaker 2: demo was done in Temperton's usually humble circumstances. He said

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Speaker 2: he lived in Germany at the time and he was

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Speaker 2: recording with a two track revox, so he'd put drums

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Speaker 2: on one track, then play the bass live, bounce back

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Speaker 2: the drums record that in the other track. Uh, just

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Speaker 2: a lot of self recording and bouncing over to a

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Speaker 2: new channel. And he did that with guitars keys and vogels.

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Speaker 1: That is insane.

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Speaker 2: It really is nuts when you hear that, which we

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Speaker 2: will plug in in a second. That the scrapped version

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Speaker 2: of this before it was thriller, but like how fully

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Speaker 2: formed it was.

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Speaker 1: Was he like some kind of songwriting virtuoso? I want

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Speaker 1: to know, did he start writing when he was a

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Speaker 1: kid and sell like a panale that?

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Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I don't really. There's he did

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Speaker 2: like three interviews in his life, and then there's that documentary,

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Speaker 2: so we don't really know a ton about him. He's

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Speaker 2: no Quincy Jones, right, yes, I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, just you think about I was watching something about

402
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Speaker 1: a documentary about ten CC recently, and I didn't realize

403
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Speaker 1: that one of the guys in a Glenn Goldman as

404
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Speaker 1: like a fourteen fifteen, sixteen year old would write these

405
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Speaker 1: incredible sixties pop hits, things like a lot of Holly

406
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Speaker 1: songs like Bust Stop Now.

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Speaker 2: He started out as a drummer, then moved to keyboards,

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Speaker 2: and I guess just discovered that he could write really well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that the guy from ten CEC wrote for Your

410
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Speaker 1: Love and Heartful of Soul for the Yardbirds. I didn't, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had a bunch of Holly songs too, look through

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Speaker 1: any Window, Bustop no Milk Today for Herman's Hermons. That's

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Speaker 1: why they were so good at aping that pop sounds,

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Speaker 1: but with like a weird art school twist, because he

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Speaker 1: got to start as like a fifteen sixteen year old

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Speaker 1: writting these pop songs for British pop groups, and I just, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's weird. I would have thought Temperton had a similar

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Speaker 1: background because he's churning them out single handedly. Wow. But

419
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Speaker 1: getting back to Thriller, the song's lyrics and title did

420
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Speaker 1: not arrive fully formed, and in fact they went through

421
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Speaker 1: a few iterations, Temperton told The Telegraph in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and seven. Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I

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Speaker 1: called it Starlight. That scans really well. I can totally

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Speaker 1: hear that. Yeah, Quincy said to me, you managed to

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Speaker 1: come up with the title for the last album. See

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Speaker 1: what you can do for this album. I said, oh great,

427
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Speaker 1: So I went back to the hotel, wrote two or

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Speaker 1: three hundred titles and came up with the title Midnight Man,

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Speaker 1: which a kind of rules. I like that.

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Speaker 2: I don't care what you say, like it does be

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Speaker 2: Getting back to Arrested development. It just makes me think

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Speaker 2: of like the Man and me right, yes, you know, like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, of all people should not be singing a

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Speaker 2: song called the Midnight.

435
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 1: Midnight mat Yeah. Yeah. The next morning, this is temperament continuing.

436
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: I woke up and I just said this word thriller.

437
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:27,959
Speaker 1: Something in my head just said, this is the title.

438
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,719
Speaker 1: You could visualize it on the top of the Billboard charts.

439
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: You could see the merchandising for this one word. How

440
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: it jumped off the page as thriller. So wait, I

441
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: have a question. You did was Quincy assigning him to

442
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: basically just write a title for the album, and then

443
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 1: once he had thriller, he realized.

444
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 2: That it fit the Starlight song I don't know. And

445
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:51,840
Speaker 2: to distract you, we're now going to listen to the

446
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 2: Starlight demo. Oh I've never heard this. I'm excepting because

447
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 2: I don't know. This is including on one of the

448
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 2: massive Thriller box sets that came out, so it is

449
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 2: up on all the streamers.

450
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's there.

451
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 7: The rubber bands pulling it back, that's in the case shot.

452
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 8: Stunning name shut. It's always trying to pat it down.

453
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:56,679
Speaker 1: Now I'm leaving until until the chorus drops in.

454
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 7: I want to hear him.

455
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: Sorry, I can forget soon. I kind of like it better.

456
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 2: Oh I don't like spooky things, so yeah, well it

457
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 2: doesn't you know, it doesn't have uh, it doesn't have room.

458
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: I'm not hearing Vincent Price monologue in there. That's still okay, fair.

459
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right

460
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: back with more. Too much information in just a moment.

461
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 2: I can't believe they put Thriller together in two months.

462
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 2: He's the craziest thing, not the song, the whole album.

463
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 1: How am was mixing? Was mixing well? Or get to

464
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: mixing okay? Recorded by Bruce Swede Swedeen swydey Ian. His

465
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,199
Speaker 1: name is spelled s w e d i e n

466
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 1: so tweet elis.

467
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 2: If you were a loved one, know how to pronounce

468
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,560
Speaker 2: Bruce Swedian's name.

469
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: Westlake Recording Studios in LA. Seven hundred and fifty thousand

470
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: dollars was the budget, which in today dollars is nearly

471
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: two point four million. The entire production team worked around

472
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: the clock. On an interview with the BBC, Quincy Jones

473
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: said they would carry the second engineers out on stretchers

474
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: and the musicians too. Bruce and I would stay up

475
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: for five days, five nights.

476
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 2: The passion drives you and the cocaine yeah yeah, but

477
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 2: the supernatural thing is real too. That was another thing

478
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: for because Clive was so obsessed with making making Supernatural

479
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 2: a hit. So they I think they were literally working

480
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: in like twenty four hour shifts on this when Union

481
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 2: rules said, like that guy has to stop mixing your

482
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 2: duet with the guy from Everlast, And then another guy

483
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 2: would come in the Union steward tapping his watch, Yeah,

484
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 2: no more, ever Last, stop comping Everlast Vocals.

485
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: The guy with the gurney comes in, haulsome out and

486
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: puts him an ivy drip. He's like, I don't want

487
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: to go back, Clive, please get back there and mix

488
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: the guy from Everlast vocals.

489
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 2: Cut me, Clive, cut me, cut me. I can't see Clive,

490
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 2: I can't see you. Gotta cut me, guy. I hate

491
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 2: Santana so much.

492
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: This is a question, I mean, because you know a

493
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: lot more about this stuff than I do. I have

494
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: no concept of what a budget for a big name,

495
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: a list musician album is, like like two point four

496
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: million dollars today? Is that normal? For what would like,

497
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: I don't know, Maroon five, Adele. I mean, it's definitely interesting.

498
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: It's it's an interesting thing that's evolved at the cost

499
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: of it has evolved. Like back in the day when

500
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: you were doing this with musicians, a lot of those

501
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: fees would be eaten up by just having people cycle

502
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: in and play oh okay, everything right, because like Steely

503
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: Dan the class example for Asia, when they were just

504
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: like calling in every top session guitarist in LA and

505
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,479
Speaker 1: giving him a crack at one song solo and being like, Nope,

506
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: that wasn't it.

507
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 6: Uh.

508
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 2: You know, those guys were all making scale union fee.

509
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: And then you have engineers at least two probably more percession,

510
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 2: a head engineer, a head you know producer. Nowadays that

511
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 2: is all probably getting eaten up by like producers and programmers,

512
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 2: like because everything is done so piecemeal. You would you know,

513
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 2: have a guy who's doing sequencing and programming, and then

514
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 2: you have like a lot of top people have their

515
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 2: preferred vocal engineer. So you see the engineer lists nowadays

516
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 2: are so long because it'll be like someone engineered the

517
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 2: basic tracking and then someone came in and did Taylor

518
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 2: Beyonce's vocal or whoever. As far as an average cost,

519
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like I've been interviewing you

520
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 2: on this episode. Sorry, I just you know a lot

521
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 2: more about this than I do. I mean, even just

522
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 2: going back like the top Google results, Invincible supposedly is

523
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 2: the most expensive record ever made, the last Michael or

524
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 2: the sort of basically last Michael Jackson one. Yeah, yeah,

525
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 2: at thirty and forty million.

526
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Yeah, I mean how much that was hush money?

527
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 2: Well exactly, I mean, you know, the first out so

528
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 2: this is again just going by Wikipedia. The first album

529
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 2: to cost over a million was actually believed to be Tusk,

530
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 2: and then it was Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy, but

531
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 2: that album took you know, fourteen years, fifteen years to make. Yeah,

532
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: and one of the more recent ones is actually My beautiful, dark,

533
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 2: twisted Fantasy by Kanye and that is I'm gonna go

534
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 2: ahead and say due to just hourly studio costs getting

535
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 2: all these different producers in there and having them hit

536
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 2: their hourly. Because he's also on there for Jesus Watch

537
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 2: the Throne is also on there. You know, it's a

538
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 2: really surprised one.

539
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: Ricky Martin that doesn't surprise me that era in music,

540
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: and like the late nineties, I'm sure there were the

541
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: producer on that. I'm sure there was some big name

542
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: producer that I'm forgetting. Great question.

543
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 2: Oh Desmond Child, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Emilio Estefon Yeah, and

544
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 2: our boy Walter Fantasy, writer of All I Want for Christmas. Yes,

545
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 2: that's funny. They put a lot of money behind that record.

546
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 2: The Darkness is one way ticket to Helen Back is

547
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 2: on here.

548
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: That's so weird. I just reference The Darkness today, which

549
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,680
Speaker 1: I do maybe bi annually.

550
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 2: It's interesting because it becomes a thing about like Hollywood

551
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 2: accounting too, because it gets into promotional costs too, like

552
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 2: when you budget. You know, again, Michael Jackson's History in

553
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five is the most expensive marketing campaign ever supposedly,

554
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 2: but you know, something like a Virgin is the other

555
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 2: thing that's sponsored or cited in here had a two

556
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 2: million campaign from Warner Brothers. But like recently ten years ago,

557
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 2: Born This Way by Lady Gaga cost three million, but

558
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 2: apparently that was sponsored by Amazon. So it does come

559
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 2: become a really interesting case of accounting where it's like

560
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 2: when do you consider the line cut off? Is like

561
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 2: what the label paid. Is it the money that was

562
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 2: paid for the studio musicians? Is it money that was

563
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 2: paid for mixing and everything?

564
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 1: So? Where were we talking about how much I hate Santana?

565
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 3: Oh?

566
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to know what your favorite song is?

567
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 2: Supernatural is uh it's like a quick look here, deep.

568
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: Cut, no hits you don't get I mean smooth? Is

569
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 1: that someone Marie Marie on it? Yeah, and might have

570
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: to go with that, Yeah, probably, but nothing nothing well.

571
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: Compare with Game of Love written by Greg what's his name?

572
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: The guy who wrote You Get What You Give by

573
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,239
Speaker 1: the New Radicals. Oh, Game of Love is incredible. I

574
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: was thinking of damp.

575
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 2: There's this songar on here with Dave Matthews, Love of

576
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 2: My Life. Oh God, I hate Santana.

577
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: All right, there's swid.

578
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 2: Swedeen's parents gave him recording gear for his tenth birthday.

579
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 2: By the age of fourteen, he wasn't only recording everyone

580
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 2: anyone who wanted to swing by, he was also broadcasting

581
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 2: his projects on the neighborhood radio station he set up himself.

582
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 2: At nineteen, he was establishing his own commercial studio in Minneapolis,

583
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 2: and by twenty one he was recording the Chicago Symphony

584
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 2: Orchestra professionally for RCA Victor before moving on to Universal

585
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 2: the following year. Quite a wunderkin.

586
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: See, this is what I thought Ted Templeton would have

587
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: had his background like that, kind of like started young

588
00:33:58,000 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: and was just a virtuo so at writing pop.

589
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 2: It's interesting because Swedeens has Swedeens has kind of a

590
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 2: he's got a real mix of high and low culture.

591
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 2: Like Michael's vocals on this album are recorded on the

592
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 2: same model mic that you and I are both using.

593
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: That's insane wo wow.

594
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 2: In a full disclosure for podcasts set up, this is

595
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,800
Speaker 2: like a three hundred and fifty dollars mic as opposed

596
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 2: to use like the probably staple for a lot of

597
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 2: recordings around this time would have been Annoyman, which are

598
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 2: like three thousand dollars two mics. So yeah, that's that's interesting.

599
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: Do you think it was because he would just belt?

600
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 2: Thank you, James Burrown. That's an interesting question.

601
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: Some of what he did well, I mean some of

602
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: the engineering that he did was actually uh to get

603
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: the sound of Michael's dancing involved, because Michael would dance

604
00:34:54,640 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: while he was moving, and so they talked about recording. Uh, well,

605
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 1: he was recording me this is Yeah, it didn't start

606
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: on this album, but it actually started on Bad, which

607
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: I think Swedeen also engineered.

608
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 2: But yeah, they would set him up on a drum

609
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 2: riser and use a bunch of baffles around it so

610
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 2: that his dancing and vocals wouldn't echo. But they would

611
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 2: actually use a bunch of like different mics pointed around

612
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 2: to get that sound as well as just one on

613
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 2: his voice. But I mean they also had him do

614
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 2: like on Billy Jean, the like I think it's the

615
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 2: you think twice, like one of the backing vocals is

616
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 2: him like singing through like a cardboard, like a gift

617
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 2: tilepper tube. Yeah, gift wrapping tube because it was like long.

618
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 2: There's another weird thing that people have always parsed in

619
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 2: the liner notes. It has recorded and mixed by Bruce

620
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 2: Swedeen using the ACU Sonic recording process, and everyone thought

621
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 2: it was this like weird piece of outboard gear or

622
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: like rack mounta gear that And believe me, there are

623
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 2: extensive documentations of the rap gear that he used on this.

624
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 2: If you want to know the exact compressors and e

625
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 2: U used on this, you can find it, but no,

626
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 2: this is actually like basically just like an overdub and

627
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 2: sinking process without getting too much in the weeds. It's

628
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 2: like a two step process. Basically, he would record the

629
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 2: rhythm tracks and then lock the master tape away for

630
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 2: those and never touch it again until it was time

631
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 2: to do a final mix. So every subsequent overdub was

632
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 2: done on like a scratch track, a temp track, a

633
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 2: temp comp of all the rhythm tracks, so that when

634
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 2: they went to do the final mixes, all the rhythm

635
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 2: tracks wouldn't have been degraded by constant overdubs, which, as

636
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 2: you remember from the Bohemian Rhapsody episode, you know, they

637
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 2: literally overdubbed the tape into transparency, and so Bruce's whole

638
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: thing was like, well, if you don't want that to happen,

639
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 2: you need to keep the original tape as pristine as possible.

640
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 2: The other part of it that he would that this

641
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 2: ACU sonic thing entails is basically just the other part

642
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 2: of the Bohemian Rhapsity thing that we talked about, where

643
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,359
Speaker 2: you just record a bunch of overdubs, mix them down

644
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 2: into a sub mix, bounce that onto a smaller part

645
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: of the tape and then you can just you he

646
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 2: was recording on twenty four track, but there's way more

647
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 2: than twenty four tracks on these because of that process.

648
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:09,359
Speaker 1: And then there's stuff about he.

649
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 2: The way that he would like sync it up to

650
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 2: keep track of all this stuff, but it's really not

651
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 2: it's not like a single piece of gear or anything.

652
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 2: Oh and yeah, if you see the drum set that

653
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 2: he made for this to get like the isolation of

654
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 2: the drum sounds is really funny because he basically like

655
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 2: he took the kick drum apart and put like a

656
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 2: cinderblock in it and like a furniture blanket, so it's

657
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 2: this really diy kind of jury ragged looking thing. And

658
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 2: then he would I think he enclosed or separated the

659
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 2: snare and high hat with pieces of wood.

660
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: Like.

661
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 2: So he just made all this like custom carpenter style,

662
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 2: like really literally built stuff to isolate all the drum

663
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 2: sounds and get them as crisp as sounding as possible.

664
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,480
Speaker 2: And this went as far as building a ten inch

665
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 2: drum riser because he knew that the low end vibrations

666
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 2: from the kick drum and the low tom's could bleed

667
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 2: into the walls and floor and affect the resonant frequencies

668
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 2: of the room. So yeah, that guy's a nerd.

669
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: But I'm sure that there wasn't It wasn't all electronic drums.

670
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: I think I just sort of assumed they were drummer shans.

671
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: I think it's a little early. I mean, there is

672
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: Michael's credited with using the lin drum on this, which

673
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: is like one of the first ones Roger Lyn's drum,

674
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: and that's in particular for a lot of Prince stuff.

675
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: But I think at this point in the eighties they

676
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: would have been using it for like hits more than

677
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 1: actual full tracks. Do you know that the lin drum

678
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: is samples of the Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's drummer?

679
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:52,839
Speaker 1: No really? Yeah, oh no, so i'vecked it up.

680
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 2: Actually, the L one is mostly samples from Ronnie Wood's

681
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 2: brother Art Wood, and then the clap sounds come from

682
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 2: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. So when you hear that

683
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 2: early LM one, let's.

684
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 1: See if I can find it actually that was.

685
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 2: Is that that supposedly supposedly the Tom Petty.

686
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: From the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sessions. Is that

687
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: the sound that opens uptown Funk? Probably that little weasels. Oh,

688
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,399
Speaker 1: I like Mark Ronson, Yeah you would, Oh, I meant

689
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 1: Bruno Mars. I have no quarrel with Mark Ronson. Oh yeah.

690
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 2: So you know we've talked about this, this wild Prince

691
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson rivalry and multicaseted long, decades long thing. But

692
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:51,760
Speaker 2: one of the funniest influences on Thriller is specifically from

693
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 2: Prince's nineteen ninety nine and let me backtrack a little bit.

694
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 2: Filling out the ranks of the people who played on

695
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 2: Thriller is a group of known Quincy Jones collaborators Greg

696
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 2: Filling on synths, Rhoades, David Williams on guitar, guys Jerry Hay,

697
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 2: Gary Grant, so close to Carry Grant, Larry Williams and

698
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:12,720
Speaker 2: Bill Reichenbach on various horns. Brian Banks, who also played since,

699
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 2: told the Telegraph it was late in the evening one night,

700
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 2: which is so.

701
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: Close to Monster Mash. I don't know if he knew

702
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:21,919
Speaker 1: that he was doing that. It would have been.

703
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 2: Amazing if in this interview Brian Banks was like, we

704
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 2: were working in the lab late one night. So he said,

705
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 2: it was late in the evening one night and we

706
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 2: were working Quincy came to us. He wanted this huge

707
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 2: chord sequence. He said, there's this sound I've got in

708
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 2: my head. There's this underground this new artist that nobody's

709
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 2: ever really heard of. But he's great, he's hot, he's

710
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 2: got this great song. And he pulled out the album

711
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 2: and it was nineteen ninety nine by Prince and so

712
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 2: he says, you know that opening sound on nineteen ninety nine,

713
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 2: that was the sound that he wanted, but bigger that

714
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 2: Quincy Jones wanted for thriller. So let's take a listen

715
00:40:54,760 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 2: to that. And there's a bit of non musical stuff

716
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: that goes into the thriller as well, which we will

717
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 2: now let's get into that before we get to uh,

718
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 2: get into the rest of the song.

719
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: Jordan take it away. Talking to music radar Bruce Swedeen,

720
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: the engineer explained that the wolf howls were Rod Temperton's idea.

721
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: He said, at the time, there was a Sherlock Holmes movie,

722
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: The Hound of the Baskervilles, and they had this huge dog,

723
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: a great Dane, and that did some howling, and of

724
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 1: course I had that in my mind's ear, my mind's

725
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: ear like that, I automatically thought of my great Dan,

726
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: who I figured ought to be in show business. So

727
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: I tried to get him to do those howls, and

728
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:06,839
Speaker 1: you know what, he never did it. We put him

729
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: up in the barn at night to listen to the coyotes,

730
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: and I had my tape machine ready to record him.

731
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 1: He was a fantastic dog, two hundred pounds. His name

732
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: was Max. But you know who it is doing those

733
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: wolf howls. That's Michael Jackson. We had to get Michael

734
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: to do it instead, but he did so great. There's

735
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,280
Speaker 1: some library stuff in there, but Michael did those lone

736
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: wolf howls. I had no idea. That's that's very good.

737
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: I'm also obliged to mention at this point that Brian

738
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: Wilson of my beloved Beach Boys got his dogs Louis

739
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,399
Speaker 1: and Banana to bark in the studio for the end

740
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: of Caroline No. On one of my favorite albums of

741
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: all time, Pet Sounds. They were champs on like we

742
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: was the guy's this putts yes, Get me the Dog

743
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:52,840
Speaker 1: from Pet Sounds.

744
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:59,280
Speaker 2: I don't care how much it costs Michael's underwritingness, Bring

745
00:42:59,320 --> 00:42:59,839
Speaker 2: me the Dog.

746
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,800
Speaker 1: What are their names? Louis and Banana, bring me Louis

747
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:11,839
Speaker 1: and Banana put it on Quincy's bill. That was the

748
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: most organic use of the cigar shopping executive that we've

749
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: had in a long time. He's got to come for

750
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: a while, but that was a good one. Bruce whote

751
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,760
Speaker 1: and continued. For the creaking doors, I went to Universal

752
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: Studios in Hollywood, the movie lot and rented two or

753
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: three sound effects doors and brought them to Westlake and

754
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: spent a whole day auditioning these doors and Miking ma

755
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 1: Hinge is real close. Got the eighties record industry, had

756
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:40,960
Speaker 1: more money than he knew what to do with. They

757
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: spent the day checking out these doors. That was a

758
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:46,280
Speaker 1: real door. I recorded and I added it onto the track.

759
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:48,400
Speaker 1: Come to think of it, that might have been Michael

760
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: doing those footsteps too. Actually, God, I love it. What

761
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,359
Speaker 1: a town. Sorry, anything he couldn't do.

762
00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 2: Lastly, we've got to talk about Vincent Price baby bisexual

763
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 2: icon once taught Johnny Carson had a cook fish and

764
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 2: a dishwasher.

765
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: You could have made all of that up for all

766
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: I know. They think they think he might have been bisexual. Well,

767
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 1: I met more of the I was more referring to

768
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 1: the cooking fish and a dishwasher. What's that about? Oh well,

769
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: great question.

770
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 2: Vincent Price was a big fan of a big cooking guy,

771
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:27,160
Speaker 2: and among his many culinary endeavors was simple, easy ways

772
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 2: to cook. And when he was on Carson and he uh,

773
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 2: pulling the clip up. Now, this might be the most

774
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: clip rich episode we've ever done. Yeah, well, you know

775
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 2: you gotta pull out Vincent doing the dishwasher.

776
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 3: You put this in the oven.

777
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:42,439
Speaker 1: You don't put it in the oven?

778
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 9: No you don't.

779
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you what you do.

780
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: Put such distinctive voice. It is true the dishwasher.

781
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely true. Now I give you my word that

782
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 3: an hour before the show's we cooked exactly that meal

783
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 3: in this dishwasher on the full cycle, mind you, on

784
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 3: the boat cycle. The water and everything. Yeah, no rints,

785
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 3: no rent, no, and no soap, but the drying and everything,

786
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 3: the whole bit. Now here it all is. There are

787
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 3: dishes and they're hot. Now they're hot, and we hope

788
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,479
Speaker 3: they're done. And I'm sure they are done because they've

789
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 3: tried it and it was successful. And you'll take a

790
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 3: look first at the why why do you use the

791
00:45:21,680 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 3: dishwasher just to because it steams and it heats, and

792
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 3: fish is one of the few things you couldn't do,

793
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 3: you know, meat or anything, wipe that it. But fish

794
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,439
Speaker 3: cooks and only a very short time, and it really

795
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 3: is kind of beautiful.

796
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: Because it steams and it heats. That's incredible. That's a

797
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: great household tip. That did not make it to TikTok yet. Yeah.

798
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 2: Right, wait, do they get a load of Vincent Price's dishwashers?

799
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:48,240
Speaker 1: Salmon?

800
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 3: Uh?

801
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,600
Speaker 2: Temperton said an interview included on the CD reissue of Thriller.

802
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 2: I had always envisioned a talking section at the end,

803
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 2: but I didn't really know what to do with it.

804
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 2: It turns out that Quincy Jones' wife then wife.

805
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:00,800
Speaker 1: Wasn't he like seven wives?

806
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:04,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, Quincy John's wife of the moment, Peggy Lipton, at

807
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,280
Speaker 2: the time best known as Julie from The Mod Squad

808
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: but now beloved as Norma from Twin Peaks, knew the

809
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:13,720
Speaker 2: legendary horror actor Vincent Price. Funnily enough, the twenty seventeen

810
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 2: biography of Temperton, The Invisible Man by Jed Pittman, contended

811
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,360
Speaker 2: that Temperton's original choice for the voiceover was Elvira, Mistress

812
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,359
Speaker 2: of the dark, but her image was probably a little

813
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 2: too sexy for a.

814
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: Prudish little Mikey.

815
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 2: Temperton later said the idea was that Price would just

816
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 2: talk some horror talk like he would deliver in his

817
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,879
Speaker 2: famous roles. The night before our session, Quincy called and said,

818
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 2: I'm a bit scared. Perhaps you better write something for him.

819
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 2: So Temperton wrote one verse of that talking part while

820
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:47,439
Speaker 2: waiting for a taxi to the studio, and then two

821
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 2: more verses during the ride. Vincent apparently recorded this in

822
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:55,879
Speaker 2: two takes. And hear a bit of studio banter from

823
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 2: that recording session. And if you ever wanted to hear

824
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 2: two men who sound like old women, here it is.

825
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 1: Listen to this show, Okay, anytime you want. Hi, This

826
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 1: is Michael Jackson.

827
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 2: This is Vincent, so you can hear how his voice

828
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:19,320
Speaker 2: drives and doing the Vincent Price voice the thriller.

829
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 1: Do we both say it? Say it together? It's in

830
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:26,240
Speaker 1: my ears.

831
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 8: Anti.

832
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 9: Hi, this is Michael Jackson and this is Vincent Price,

833
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:44,800
Speaker 9: inviting you to the Thriller. Darkness falls across the land,

834
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 9: the midnight hour is close at hand.

835
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 8: Creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize yours neighborhood

836
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 8: and whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting

837
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 8: down incredible?

838
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: Did he ryan blood with the hood?

839
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 2: He sure did. He also said yawls, which is very funny. Yeah,

840
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 2: tatter raise Yoel's neighborhood. Was there visuals with that or

841
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 2: was it just the audio?

842
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 3: Nah?

843
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 2: He does A photoshopped image of Vincent Price holding Michael

844
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: Jackson's head severed.

845
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,719
Speaker 1: Temperton elaborated to m Magazine. I told the driver to

846
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: drive round back to the studio, and I raced in

847
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: and told the secretary to photocopy what I've written, and

848
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 1: was able to walk into the studio and calmly hand

849
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,760
Speaker 1: the copy to Vincent, who recorded it in two takes.

850
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: He was just fantastic. Wow. So he didn't have that

851
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: the night before and like prepped it. Man's prize. That's nuts.

852
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: That's what you get making seventeen movies a year with

853
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: Roger Corman. True. According to Sonic Fantasy, a documentary about

854
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:57,760
Speaker 1: engineer Bruce Swedeen, Vincent Price had never used headphones before

855
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 1: and was star OpEd when he put him on to

856
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 1: record and thriller blared out. Now I find that hard

857
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: to believe. I mean, I don't know, man, I don't

858
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: know what he did.

859
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 2: He record a Calypso album like everybody else was doing

860
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 2: in the sixties.

861
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe during his radio days or whatever.

862
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 2: But like, well, I guess you're right, I guess I

863
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 2: guess that doesn't seem to track because he was nominated

864
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 2: for a Grammy No why for what his voice work

865
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifty nine album Great American Speeches.

866
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 1: Huh huh.

867
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 2: He read on the War of eighteen twelve by Henry

868
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 2: Clay the Crime against Kansas by Charles Sumner, for which

869
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 2: he was nominated for a Grammy Award. Anyway, that's just

870
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 2: what That's just what the documentary said, so sue me.

871
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:52,439
Speaker 1: But as you alluded to earlier, Vincent Price recorded more

872
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 1: than what's heard on the final track of Thriller, and

873
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,799
Speaker 1: he only performed the monologue live on TV once, during

874
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 1: an episode of The Tonight Show hosted by Joan Rivers.

875
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 1: I guess she was the guest host back in nineteen

876
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 1: eighty seven.

877
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he was offered a flat fee for his

878
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 2: work on the track or a cut of the profits,

879
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:15,839
Speaker 2: and he chose poorly. The figure that I keep seeing

880
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 2: is twenty grand, which not bad for a couple hours work.

881
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 2: But you know when you later find out that this

882
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,719
Speaker 2: is the most the highest selling record of all time.

883
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 2: It did indeed rankle Price after the song became a hit.

884
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 2: John Landis, who directed the Thriller video, told the Telegraph

885
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:33,959
Speaker 2: Vincent called me about a year later and said, look,

886
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,359
Speaker 2: the kid made the most successful record of all time,

887
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:39,319
Speaker 2: and I made less than one thousand dollars. Michael won't

888
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 2: take my calls. I'm very upset about it. Let me

889
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 2: see if can do that in his voice.

890
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 1: Vincent called me about a year later and he said, look,

891
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 1: the kid made the most successful record of all time,

892
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:51,799
Speaker 1: and I made less than one thousand dollars. Michael won't

893
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 1: take my calls. Very upset about it. It's very Stewie.

894
00:50:56,719 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't. Yeah, strike that in crisis. Price's daughter

895
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 2: Victoria wrote a biography of her dad, and in it

896
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,719
Speaker 2: she wrote word eventually trickled back to Michael Jackson that

897
00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 2: my father was upset about the money. One day, I

898
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 2: answered the door at my father's house to find three

899
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 2: members of Jackson's entourage. They came bearing the gift, a

900
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 2: letter of thanks from Jackson and a large frame containing

901
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 2: a poster of the pop star and one gold and

902
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 2: two platinum albums, all dedicated to Vincent.

903
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 1: Post is not even autographed.

904
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 2: Needless to say, this framed wal art, coming from one

905
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 2: of the richest art people in the world, did not

906
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:36,240
Speaker 2: mollify Price. He attempted to get paid for the usage

907
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 2: of his voice in the music video, but there was

908
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,440
Speaker 2: a clause in his contract about video rights that was

909
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:43,800
Speaker 2: buried in it, so he didn't get any further money

910
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 2: from that either. And at that point, Victoria wrote, Vincent

911
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,880
Speaker 2: agitated to have the gold disc auctioned, with the proceeds

912
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 2: to go to his gallery at East Los Angeles College.

913
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 2: She continued in a truly stunning PostScript that when news

914
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 2: of Jackson's multi million dollar settlement to one of his

915
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 2: alleged victims was made public, Vincent Price quipped, all I

916
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 2: can say is Michael Jackson, me and I didn't get

917
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 2: paid for it.

918
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: Stunning line reading there too. That's good.

919
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:19,440
Speaker 2: As you meditate on that, We'll be right back with

920
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 2: more too much information after these messages, we will spare

921
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 2: you from the torturous details of post production on thriller.

922
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:40,720
Speaker 2: But one illustrative antidote is that Bruce Swedeen did ninety

923
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 2: one mixes of Billy Jean, ninety one separate mixes.

924
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: Guess which one they used Number two. Also complicating matters

925
00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:59,279
Speaker 1: was that they had actually too much music, which is

926
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:03,880
Speaker 1: an interesting archival or no, what's the word I want

927
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: to use, old timey, antiquated, antiquated, an antiquated concern from God,

928
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 1: I'm getting old, an antiquated.

929
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 2: Concern from the vinyl pressing days. The more music that

930
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 2: you have on a disc, the thinner the grooves have

931
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 2: to be. And thinner grooves do not transmit lower frequencies

932
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:24,960
Speaker 2: as well. You need wide, deep grooves for that. And

933
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:27,800
Speaker 2: Quincy Jones, obviously thinking with the mind that this was

934
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,320
Speaker 2: going to be a hit pop dance record, wanted thinner,

935
00:53:31,360 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 2: deeper grooves, so they actually had to cut stuff out

936
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 2: of this. They cut down the intro to Billie Jean,

937
00:53:36,760 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 2: and they cut a verse from the Lady in My Life.

938
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. Wow, Yeah, a lot of there

939
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: are problems on I think mixing some early Beatles singles

940
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: where the bass when it went too low would cause

941
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: the record to the needle to jump out of the grooves.

942
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:52,840
Speaker 2: I thought it was the distortion I thought it was

943
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 2: when they made they pushed the distortion on those too much.

944
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 1: I think it was both. Sometimes it was the lower

945
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 1: base stuff things like Paperback Rider. But that's interested.

946
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 2: That also plays into the sequencing that they would do

947
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 2: on records from this era, where they would have your

948
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 2: side one track one is your banger because that's going

949
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 2: to have the deepest base response and everything, and then

950
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,200
Speaker 2: the crews get thinner as it goes towards the center.

951
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 2: So that's why traditionally in these big classic rock albums,

952
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 2: the end of both sides is like a smaller acoustic

953
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,400
Speaker 2: number or like something that doesn't have to be as

954
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:27,239
Speaker 2: hard I did.

955
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,800
Speaker 1: I just thought that was a show busy thing. Although

956
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: I guess you're going to have an intermission like on

957
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:33,439
Speaker 1: the ending of a side or ending of an album.

958
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:35,320
Speaker 1: I guess that sounds like you want to end with

959
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 1: something huge anyway. So that's interesting. Well, speaking of interesting things.

960
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,240
Speaker 1: Despite the heavy marketing push behind Thriller, the brain trust

961
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 1: behind that push, which is Michael Jackson, his lawyer and

962
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: very close advisor John Branca, and CBS Records chief Walter

963
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:55,399
Speaker 1: Yetnikoff and epic heead of promotion for Frank de Leo

964
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: did not include plans for a third video, and certainly

965
00:54:59,480 --> 00:55:02,399
Speaker 1: not a video of the title track, which wasn't even

966
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,960
Speaker 1: going to be released as a single. No Thriller was

967
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 1: not going to be released as a single, to which

968
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: I say, good, my sixth favorite track on the album.

969
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 2: They should have made another video for the Girl as Mine.

970
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:22,759
Speaker 1: Yes, I focus more on Paul Walter. Yetnikoff, the head

971
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: of CBS Records, told Vanity Fair, who wants a single

972
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 1: about monsters? The prevailing thought seventeen billion Americans can't be wrong.

973
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 1: Bobby Boris Pickett also this despite the fact that Jackson

974
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: was batting a thousand at this point after the videos

975
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: for Billy Jean and Beat It. Part of the success

976
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: of those videos was yet Nakoff threatening to pull CBS

977
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:49,400
Speaker 1: and Columbia's acts from MTV's rotation unless they played Michael's videos.

978
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:53,280
Speaker 1: At the time, MTV had a no black Axe policy,

979
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:58,439
Speaker 1: which I'm sure was not written in such stark. I mean,

980
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,320
Speaker 1: I was an unreal in the rule. I would imagine.

981
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, you remember there's that clip of David Bowie pushing

982
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:05,799
Speaker 2: someone on air.

983
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 1: Mark Goodman. He's a friend of mine. Now I like

984
00:56:09,200 --> 00:56:13,279
Speaker 1: Mark Goodman. Wow, sucks to be him. I know I

985
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 1: felt bad for him when I saw that clip resurface.

986
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 1: Recently realized it was him. But yeah, MTV had this

987
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:24,239
Speaker 1: unspoken but strictly enforced no black acts policy at this time.

988
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 2: Buzz Brindle, MTV's former director of music Programming, told Jet

989
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 2: magazine in two thousand and six MTV was originally designed

990
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 2: to be a rock music channel. It was difficult for

991
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:36,400
Speaker 2: MTV to find African American artist whose music fit the

992
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:41,920
Speaker 2: channel's format that leaned towards rock. Out the outset sounds

993
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:45,799
Speaker 2: like a weak excuse, although you know Les Garland, who

994
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 2: isn't the Networked co founder also talked to Jet. He said,

995
00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:52,160
Speaker 2: we just had nothing to pick from. Fifty percent of

996
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:54,280
Speaker 2: my time was spent in the early days of MTV

997
00:56:54,880 --> 00:56:57,799
Speaker 2: convincing artists to make music videos and then convincing record

998
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 2: labels to put up money to make those videos. That's interesting,

999
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 2: I buy that. I'm sure like convincing people to spend

1000
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 2: money on music videos was an uphill battle.

1001
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:10,160
Speaker 1: I could have sworn there was another famous example of

1002
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:13,479
Speaker 1: somebody of a very famous artist. Maybe it was maybe

1003
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: it was Michael oh Rick James, not who I was

1004
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:18,160
Speaker 1: thinking of. But yeah, Rick had.

1005
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:21,600
Speaker 2: To battle Motown for money to make videos Forgive It

1006
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 2: to Me Baby and Super Freak. Actually funny enough, the

1007
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 2: director of those, Nick Saxton, did Can't Stop Till You

1008
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 2: Get Enough.

1009
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's a really groundbreaking video. But put the

1010
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 1: bubbles and stuff in the background. I guess it was

1011
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 1: green screens, but I'm sure at the time it was. Wow.

1012
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 2: This is actually really fascinating. This is on lit Hub

1013
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 2: by Raymond Hervey the Second. He basically along and short

1014
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 2: of this is that there was a Billboard Music Video

1015
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:49,640
Speaker 2: conference held in New York and Gail Sparrow, who's a

1016
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 2: vice president of MTV, who you may remember from our

1017
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:55,720
Speaker 2: Osborne's episode I Want to Say or cribs how that

1018
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 2: name rings a bell?

1019
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 1: Nuppy Baby got back. Yeah.

1020
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 2: So this guy, Raymond Hervey the Second, proposed that Rick

1021
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:08,360
Speaker 2: James philed the artist slot on this panel, and he

1022
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 2: said the panel discussion was well attended. When it came

1023
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 2: time for Rick to speak, he started out on point,

1024
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 2: but within a few minutes went off script and pointedly

1025
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:19,880
Speaker 2: attacked MTV's programming format for being discriminatory and racially biased.

1026
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 2: He took the exact stance we had told him to avoid,

1027
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 2: and his comments created a media firestorm contrary.

1028
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 1: To my vision.

1029
00:58:28,400 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 2: Ah yeah, this is an interesting side tangent that I

1030
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:35,720
Speaker 2: did not know anything about. This made it as far

1031
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 2: as the La Times. Rick did an interview with The

1032
00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 2: La Times. He accused MTV of being racist, Oh Rob

1033
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 2: Tannebaum and cred marks in I Want My MTV. The

1034
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 2: Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution said that MTV's

1035
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 2: lone black executive, Carolyn Baker, took credit for rejecting Rick's

1036
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 2: Super Freak video. She said, it was an MTV that

1037
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 2: turned down Super Freak.

1038
00:58:58,080 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 1: It was me.

1039
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 2: I turned it down, you know why, because there were

1040
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:03,720
Speaker 2: half naked women in it, and it was a piece

1041
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 2: of crap. As a black woman, I did not want

1042
00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 2: that representing my people as the first black video on

1043
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:10,360
Speaker 2: MTV far out.

1044
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 1: Oh where were we? I think we were about to

1045
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:17,480
Speaker 1: tell us about another factor in the thriller videos conception?

1046
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 2: Oh sure, well, another factor in the thriller videos conception

1047
00:59:20,760 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 2: was that in June nineteen eighty three, the album, after

1048
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:25,440
Speaker 2: four months at number one on the Billboard two hundred chart,

1049
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 2: was bumped from the top slot by the Flash Dance soundtrack.

1050
00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 2: It briefly crawled back atop the chart in July before

1051
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 2: him being bumped again by the Police's synchronicity. So the

1052
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 2: three remaining singles from the record want to be starting

1053
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:40,960
Speaker 2: something released in May, Human Nature scheduled for July, and

1054
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 2: PYT Pretty Young Thing for September. We're not a pretty

1055
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 2: own thing. We're not expected to drive album sales as

1056
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:49,800
Speaker 2: much as Billy Jean or beat It had, and were

1057
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 2: not pegged as good material for videos. But for the

1058
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:56,520
Speaker 2: extremely competitive MJ, who was obsessed with beating his peers

1059
00:59:56,920 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 2: like Prince and Madonna and his constant yardstick by w

1060
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:02,840
Speaker 2: she measured his own success the Beatles, this was cause

1061
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:07,360
Speaker 2: for alarm. Walter Yetnikoff and Larry Stescil, Epic's West Coast

1062
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 2: marketing executive, told Vanity Fair that they started getting calls

1063
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:12,720
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night from Michael Jackson.

1064
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:17,080
Speaker 1: Walter the record, isn't it number one anymore? What are

1065
01:00:17,080 --> 01:00:20,919
Speaker 1: we going to do about it? Walter Yetnikoff recalled. He said,

1066
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 1: We're going to go to sleep and deal with it tomorrow.

1067
01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: And it was Epic head of promotion Frank Delo who

1068
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 1: first mentioned the idea of making a third video and

1069
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: pressed Jackson to consider the album's title track, I work

1070
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 1: with people like that. That sucks.

1071
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:36,680
Speaker 7: Somehow.

1072
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 1: Despite not really being a horror ficionado, Michael had seen

1073
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 1: an American Werewolf in London, John Landis's groundbreaking horror comedy

1074
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 1: that featured Oscar winning makeup SFX icon Rick Baker. I

1075
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 1: shouldn't take this. He's a hero. As you take this.

1076
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 1: I do love Rick Baker. What else do we talk

1077
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: about him? We talked about him in one episode The Thing? Yes,

1078
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:01,160
Speaker 1: so John Landis. I also, did you know Blues Brothers

1079
01:01:01,400 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: killed some kids? Has a really fail son? Did he

1080
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: kill the kids?

1081
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 2: There was just a stunt man who died. I think

1082
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 2: it was both. Yeah, so that's the Twilight Zone movie.

1083
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,680
Speaker 2: But you know he also did Blues Brothers, so got

1084
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:16,560
Speaker 2: to break a few eggs.

1085
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:22,520
Speaker 1: Landis told The Telegraph.

1086
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:24,680
Speaker 2: Michael contacted me and asked me if I would make

1087
01:01:24,680 --> 01:01:27,360
Speaker 2: a video with him, and I said no actually because

1088
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 2: they were basically commercials, right, But he persisted and he

1089
01:01:30,280 --> 01:01:31,800
Speaker 2: said no, no, no, I really want to make it.

1090
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 2: So when I returned to La I called Rick Baker,

1091
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 2: who had done the makeup effects for American Werewolf, and said,

1092
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 2: Rick Michael Jackson wants to become a monster. It's funny

1093
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 2: because when Landis and Jackson met for the first time,

1094
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 2: Landis was talking to Vanity Fair. They did a great

1095
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:48,240
Speaker 2: oral history of the video. John land has apparently teased

1096
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson when he asked him about seeing American Werewolf

1097
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:51,720
Speaker 2: in London.

1098
01:01:51,720 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: He said, Michael, what about the sex? And Jackson said,

1099
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes.

1100
01:01:57,680 --> 01:02:00,720
Speaker 2: Another funny anecdote, according to Quincy Jones's autobiography, when they

1101
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:03,720
Speaker 2: were recording thriller re Beat at one of them. In

1102
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:07,400
Speaker 2: Quincy Jones's word, a healthy California girl walked by the

1103
01:02:07,440 --> 01:02:10,960
Speaker 2: front window of the studio there's one way mirror facing

1104
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 2: a street, and pulled her dress up over her head.

1105
01:02:14,520 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 2: She was wearing absolutely nothing underneath, and Michael Jackson ducked

1106
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:21,520
Speaker 2: behind the mixing console so that he wouldn't look, while

1107
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 2: Quincy Jones and all the studio musicians augled. This this

1108
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:28,240
Speaker 2: woman who for whatever reason just decided to flash a mirror.

1109
01:02:28,360 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, I don't know.

1110
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 7: LA is weird.

1111
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:37,360
Speaker 1: The funniest thing that my father has ever seen. And

1112
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:39,240
Speaker 1: I hope it's this thing right now so that he

1113
01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:41,200
Speaker 1: can he can have a good laugh at this. It

1114
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:42,800
Speaker 1: was I think it was out of Ripley's Believe it

1115
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:45,960
Speaker 1: or Not Museum, and they had a mirror and they

1116
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:47,880
Speaker 1: had like a plaque in front of it that was

1117
01:02:47,920 --> 01:02:50,600
Speaker 1: talking about like, you know, only one in ten people

1118
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 1: can like do the cloverly thing with their with their tongue,

1119
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:57,080
Speaker 1: and like only one in four can like roll your

1120
01:02:57,080 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 1: tongue into like a tube that goes straight up and down,

1121
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: and only one in eight can do it to face

1122
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:03,920
Speaker 1: into the left and right. And you're in front of

1123
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:07,240
Speaker 1: this mirror and you're making all these like you're testing

1124
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:09,600
Speaker 1: this out with your tongue and doing all these goofy

1125
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 1: things with your lips and everything. And then you go

1126
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 1: through the entire museum. It's like all one track and

1127
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: it takes like an hour to get through. At the

1128
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 1: very end, you just go there's a big window the

1129
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:22,200
Speaker 1: sign over that says monkey House, and you realize that

1130
01:03:22,200 --> 01:03:25,240
Speaker 1: that mirror with the tongue stuff was a one way mirror,

1131
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:29,000
Speaker 1: and you're just watching people just like making stupid faces

1132
01:03:29,200 --> 01:03:31,800
Speaker 1: in the in the window. And my dad thought that

1133
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:34,760
Speaker 1: was the funniest thing you ever seen. A friend of

1134
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:41,040
Speaker 1: the pod Big dig Tun, Yes, John Landis told Michael

1135
01:03:41,120 --> 01:03:43,400
Speaker 1: Jackson that he didn't want to direct a music video

1136
01:03:43,560 --> 01:03:45,800
Speaker 1: and instead wanted to think of the production as an

1137
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 1: actual short film shot on thirty five millimeter with multiple locations,

1138
01:03:50,360 --> 01:03:53,959
Speaker 1: a show stopping dance number as you wrote, and Ted

1139
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:58,040
Speaker 1: Baker's makeup not Ted Baker, Rick Baker, Ted Baker does Baker,

1140
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:04,680
Speaker 1: it's a clothing brand, It's a that's more my speed.

1141
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 1: And Landis's budget for the short film nine hundred thousand

1142
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:13,840
Speaker 1: dollars or nearly two point nine million dollars today. Landis

1143
01:04:13,880 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 1: recalled that when Michael called CBS had Walter Yetnikoff with

1144
01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:20,200
Speaker 1: that figure after CBS had already dropped a quarter million

1145
01:04:20,240 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 1: dollars for Beat It Yetnikoff screamed so loudly that the

1146
01:04:24,320 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: director had to literally hold the phone away from his ear,

1147
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:33,600
Speaker 1: a move I've only seen in cartoons. Really, steam coming off.

1148
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 1: I was gonna say this like air coming out of

1149
01:04:36,360 --> 01:04:40,320
Speaker 1: the phone, blowing Landis's hair to the side. When Landis

1150
01:04:40,360 --> 01:04:43,520
Speaker 1: hung up the phone, Jackson said, calmly, it's okay, I'll

1151
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:45,880
Speaker 1: pay for It's okay, I'll pay for.

1152
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 2: My MJ's getting there. I'm gonna start calling you in

1153
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 2: the middle of the night. I need practice doing weird

1154
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:55,000
Speaker 2: MJ monologues.

1155
01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:02,640
Speaker 1: Jordan, do you ever think do you believe in an afterlife? Okay,

1156
01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 1: we'll talk in the moment, just thinking about you, or

1157
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: just do it like what else?

1158
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:12,680
Speaker 2: I just do Werner Herzog monologues. Hang on, let me

1159
01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:14,560
Speaker 2: see where I can find my favorite one. This is

1160
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:20,160
Speaker 2: Verner her monologue from A Burden of Dreams Less Blank documentary.

1161
01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:21,640
Speaker 1: Oh that's blank.

1162
01:05:21,720 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1163
01:05:21,920 --> 01:05:25,920
Speaker 1: Yah. About the making of fitzcrado Kinski always says it's

1164
01:05:25,960 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 1: full of erotic elements, I don't see it so much erotic.

1165
01:05:29,960 --> 01:05:33,280
Speaker 1: I see it more full of obscenity. Nature here is

1166
01:05:33,400 --> 01:05:37,840
Speaker 1: vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I

1167
01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 1: see phonication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting. Of course,

1168
01:05:43,600 --> 01:05:46,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of misery, but it is the same

1169
01:05:46,200 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 1: misery that is all around us. The trees here are

1170
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:52,000
Speaker 1: in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't

1171
01:05:52,040 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 1: think they sing, They just screech and pain. That goes on.

1172
01:05:57,480 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 1: Do the end of seven and he's having way once

1173
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: rote the world's a fine place and worth fine. I

1174
01:06:05,680 --> 01:06:10,840
Speaker 1: agree with the second part. I don't know why that

1175
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:14,480
Speaker 1: was the one that came up with Oh what the

1176
01:06:14,480 --> 01:06:15,000
Speaker 1: hell are.

1177
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:17,520
Speaker 3: Oh so?

1178
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 1: Land has hung up the phone. After being yelled at

1179
01:06:19,880 --> 01:06:22,040
Speaker 1: by the head of CBS for asking for a nine

1180
01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:25,800
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars budget, Michael Jackson said, calmly, I can't

1181
01:06:25,800 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 1: do it in his vace. It's okay, I'll pay for it.

1182
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:33,000
Speaker 1: CBS ultimately spent another one hundred thousand dollars towards the video,

1183
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 1: which still left a huge shortfall, so they came up

1184
01:06:36,680 --> 01:06:39,560
Speaker 1: with a unique solution. They decided to film the behind

1185
01:06:39,600 --> 01:06:43,120
Speaker 1: the scenes on sixteen millimeter for a nearly forty five

1186
01:06:43,160 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 1: minute documentary called Making Michael Jackson's Thriller, which bundled with

1187
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,439
Speaker 1: the Thriller video could be sold to cable for eight

1188
01:06:50,440 --> 01:06:54,360
Speaker 1: hour special What the video itself is thirteen fourteen minutes

1189
01:06:54,560 --> 01:06:57,800
Speaker 1: forty five minutes special He got four hour ray MTV

1190
01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 1: agreed to pay two hundred and fifty thousand, and Showtime

1191
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:02,400
Speaker 1: agreed to pay at three hundred thousand for the one

1192
01:07:02,440 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 1: hour package. Jackson would cover the assorted costs up front

1193
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 1: and be reimbursed by them. And then also Vestren came in,

1194
01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:12,480
Speaker 1: I don't know what Vestrin is and offered a distribute,

1195
01:07:12,560 --> 01:07:15,520
Speaker 1: making Michael Jackson's thriller as a twenty nine to ninety

1196
01:07:15,560 --> 01:07:19,040
Speaker 1: five sell through video on VHS and Beta Max, which

1197
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:22,240
Speaker 1: was a pioneering deal of its kind. What is Vestan,

1198
01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:25,240
Speaker 1: Imagine it's just a distribution company. Yeah, something like that. Uh,

1199
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:28,400
Speaker 1: you have another story from landis I do?

1200
01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:31,480
Speaker 2: I don't know how much he's full of shit, but

1201
01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 2: he told the Telegraph that a part of the costs

1202
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:36,240
Speaker 2: where that he insisted that this would be a union shoot,

1203
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:39,280
Speaker 2: which most music videos at the time weren't, and that

1204
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:41,600
Speaker 2: the team of dancers that he assembled be given two

1205
01:07:41,600 --> 01:07:44,960
Speaker 2: weeks to rehearse. So make of that what you will.

1206
01:07:45,920 --> 01:07:48,640
Speaker 2: The plot of the film is and Michael's sort of

1207
01:07:48,640 --> 01:07:51,520
Speaker 2: look is loosely based on I Was a teenage Werewolf,

1208
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 2: which is Michael Landin?

1209
01:07:55,000 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 1: Is it Michael Lane?

1210
01:07:55,760 --> 01:07:55,960
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1211
01:07:56,000 --> 01:07:59,520
Speaker 2: I think there's a nod to a boatload of other

1212
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:01,960
Speaker 2: horror movies in there. And they needed a love interest

1213
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:04,840
Speaker 2: for Jackson, and they landed on Ola Ray, a former

1214
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:09,200
Speaker 2: Playboy playmate, which obviously caused some consternation from Jackson and

1215
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 2: has told Vanity Fair, I auditioned a lot of girls,

1216
01:08:11,600 --> 01:08:13,760
Speaker 2: and this girl, Ola Ray. First of all, she was

1217
01:08:13,800 --> 01:08:16,720
Speaker 2: crazy for Michael. She had such a great smile. I

1218
01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:19,320
Speaker 2: didn't know she was a playmate. I said, Michael, she's

1219
01:08:19,360 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 2: a playmate, but so what She's not a playmate in

1220
01:08:21,880 --> 01:08:25,479
Speaker 2: this Ola Ray and Michael Jackson got on well. She

1221
01:08:25,560 --> 01:08:28,320
Speaker 2: told Vanity Fair that she had a hilarious exchange with

1222
01:08:28,400 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 2: Jackson's makeup artist. Michael Jackson would watch her do her

1223
01:08:31,640 --> 01:08:35,559
Speaker 2: makeup and wanted to get tips from her for his

1224
01:08:35,640 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 2: makeup artist. He said, I have this shine on my

1225
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:40,840
Speaker 2: nose that I can't get off. And then when Ray

1226
01:08:40,920 --> 01:08:44,799
Speaker 2: tried talking to Michael Jackson's makeup artist, that person responded

1227
01:08:44,840 --> 01:08:46,840
Speaker 2: to her, don't you know that how much powder I

1228
01:08:46,840 --> 01:08:48,560
Speaker 2: put on his nose, it's gonna shine? Do you know

1229
01:08:48,600 --> 01:08:52,880
Speaker 2: how many nose jobs he's had? And this is news

1230
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:53,120
Speaker 2: to me.

1231
01:08:53,240 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 1: The pair even had something of a real life romance,

1232
01:08:55,680 --> 01:08:57,920
Speaker 1: or at least as close as you could get to it.

1233
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:02,559
Speaker 1: With a heavily ammatized Michael Jackson on the set of

1234
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:06,559
Speaker 1: the video. Ray described this to Vanity Fair thusly, I

1235
01:09:06,600 --> 01:09:08,719
Speaker 1: won't say that I have seen him in his birthday suit,

1236
01:09:09,040 --> 01:09:13,439
Speaker 1: but close enough kissing and puppy love makeout sessions and

1237
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:14,519
Speaker 1: a little bit more than that.

1238
01:09:15,680 --> 01:09:22,320
Speaker 2: Gross she actually sounds really like down bad for Michael

1239
01:09:22,400 --> 01:09:25,560
Speaker 2: Jackson out a after years for this, Like she just

1240
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:27,519
Speaker 2: talks about how head over heels she was for him.

1241
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:31,040
Speaker 2: Everyone remarks on their chemistry, and there's a really heartbreaking

1242
01:09:31,120 --> 01:09:33,679
Speaker 2: quote in Vanity Fair where she's like, she says something

1243
01:09:33,720 --> 01:09:36,240
Speaker 2: to the effect of, like, I just wish I had

1244
01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:38,680
Speaker 2: been allowed in Michael's life more because I feel like

1245
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:39,760
Speaker 2: I could have helped him.

1246
01:09:40,040 --> 01:09:43,440
Speaker 1: Oh wow, which is just so crushing. Yeah.

1247
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:46,679
Speaker 2: She also appeared on Cheers and in Beverly Hills cop Too,

1248
01:09:47,240 --> 01:09:49,519
Speaker 2: but her only other notable music video was give Me

1249
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 2: the Night by George Benson, a single also written by

1250
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:56,799
Speaker 2: Rod Temperton and produced by Quincy Jones. Isn't that funny?

1251
01:09:57,040 --> 01:10:00,479
Speaker 2: I love that connection. She and Jackson did not have

1252
01:10:00,520 --> 01:10:03,040
Speaker 2: a happy ending. She sued him in two thousand and

1253
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:06,160
Speaker 2: nine for non payment of royalties, saying I got the

1254
01:10:06,160 --> 01:10:08,400
Speaker 2: fame from Thriller, but I didn't get the fortune.

1255
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 1: This was surely the worst thing to happen to Michael Jackson.

1256
01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:16,120
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, heyo, I want to say, hey.

1257
01:10:15,920 --> 01:10:22,759
Speaker 2: Oh boy, Jordan, let me just take this next juck Okay.

1258
01:10:22,880 --> 01:10:25,120
Speaker 1: Makeup artist Rick Baker told the Telegraph. I got a

1259
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:27,240
Speaker 1: call from John Landis and he was like, you know

1260
01:10:27,280 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 1: who Michael Jackson is And I was like, yeah, kinda.

1261
01:10:30,479 --> 01:10:33,280
Speaker 1: He's the guy from the Jackson five, right, And he said, well,

1262
01:10:33,280 --> 01:10:35,040
Speaker 1: he's got the song called Thriller and he wants to

1263
01:10:35,040 --> 01:10:37,280
Speaker 1: do a short film. And I said, I didn't want

1264
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:40,479
Speaker 1: to do it. It's not the most popular job being

1265
01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 1: a makeup artist. It's like being a dentist in a way.

1266
01:10:43,240 --> 01:10:45,439
Speaker 1: They have to sit in a chair for hours while

1267
01:10:45,479 --> 01:10:48,439
Speaker 1: you work on them. It's uncomfortable. It's not something actors

1268
01:10:48,439 --> 01:10:52,519
Speaker 1: look forward to. Baker continued, You start with the casting

1269
01:10:52,560 --> 01:10:55,919
Speaker 1: of the actor's face than the latex the contact lenses.

1270
01:10:56,360 --> 01:10:59,360
Speaker 1: Michael's makeup started more as a werewolf and then became

1271
01:10:59,479 --> 01:11:04,679
Speaker 1: more like we made he elaborated on this, Rick Baker

1272
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:07,400
Speaker 1: did to Vulture in twenty ten. We made him into

1273
01:11:07,400 --> 01:11:10,720
Speaker 1: more of a wear cat, which I didn't I wasn't

1274
01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:11,479
Speaker 1: aware it was a thing.

1275
01:11:11,800 --> 01:11:14,640
Speaker 2: I've always thought that was the weirdest thing where I'm like,

1276
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:18,920
Speaker 2: you what, we.

1277
01:11:18,840 --> 01:11:21,960
Speaker 1: Made him into more of a wear cat just because

1278
01:11:22,000 --> 01:11:24,040
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do another were wolf. I guess

1279
01:11:24,040 --> 01:11:26,719
Speaker 1: because he'd just done on an American werewolf in London

1280
01:11:26,760 --> 01:11:29,240
Speaker 1: with John Landis. At first I was thinking it would

1281
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:31,519
Speaker 1: be almost like a black panther thing, but I ended

1282
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:33,920
Speaker 1: up putting a longer made of hair on Michael and

1283
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:38,120
Speaker 1: bigger ears. You've also read that the wear cat approach

1284
01:11:38,240 --> 01:11:42,400
Speaker 1: was also because of Jack Wells, so they said, they

1285
01:11:42,479 --> 01:11:45,600
Speaker 1: said because of Michael's delicate features.

1286
01:11:46,200 --> 01:11:48,519
Speaker 2: And I didn't parse it any more than that. But

1287
01:11:48,560 --> 01:11:51,600
Speaker 2: there's obviously two ways that that phrasing could be interpreted,

1288
01:11:51,680 --> 01:11:54,240
Speaker 2: and I think one of them is that his nose

1289
01:11:54,360 --> 01:11:59,719
Speaker 2: was simply structurally too delicate to support the larger muzzle

1290
01:12:00,040 --> 01:12:04,799
Speaker 2: aesthetic that our fine features just I literally delicate nos. Okay,

1291
01:12:04,840 --> 01:12:07,639
Speaker 2: that's what I that's what. There's just a tinfoil hatchet

1292
01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,240
Speaker 2: on my end. But you know, I have my theories

1293
01:12:10,280 --> 01:12:12,439
Speaker 2: because it's a really dumb looking wear cat.

1294
01:12:12,920 --> 01:12:17,479
Speaker 1: Sorry, it's no bad looking. The zombie dancers were also

1295
01:12:17,479 --> 01:12:20,960
Speaker 1: subjected to a makeup routine. Michelle Simmons, one of the dancers,

1296
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:23,519
Speaker 1: told the Telegraph, they took most of our teeth for

1297
01:12:23,600 --> 01:12:26,000
Speaker 1: the dancers that they put in our mouths. You put

1298
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:28,360
Speaker 1: those in your mouth and now you can't close your mouth.

1299
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:31,040
Speaker 1: And when you can't close your mouth, the saliva falls

1300
01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:33,960
Speaker 1: out too, and they just said, this is great. Let's

1301
01:12:33,960 --> 01:12:35,920
Speaker 1: just put some food color and die in there and

1302
01:12:35,960 --> 01:12:39,000
Speaker 1: make it really nasty looking. That was part of the deal.

1303
01:12:39,120 --> 01:12:42,879
Speaker 1: That's so cross it is. Another dancer, Lorraine Fields recalled,

1304
01:12:43,080 --> 01:12:45,559
Speaker 1: I remember at one point they got some dirt on

1305
01:12:45,640 --> 01:12:48,639
Speaker 1: the floor and stuck it on my face and said

1306
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:50,760
Speaker 1: this looks good. Yeah.

1307
01:12:50,840 --> 01:12:53,559
Speaker 2: Baker said he was frustrated because ordinarily they would have

1308
01:12:53,560 --> 01:12:57,120
Speaker 2: done individual casts of every every dancer's face for it,

1309
01:12:57,160 --> 01:12:59,439
Speaker 2: and instead they weren't given that much time, and so

1310
01:12:59,479 --> 01:13:02,360
Speaker 2: they instance had just kind of made three like rough

1311
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:05,200
Speaker 2: prosthetics that were kind of like a like small medium

1312
01:13:05,240 --> 01:13:07,639
Speaker 2: in large size, and then just slapped him on everyone.

1313
01:13:07,760 --> 01:13:12,000
Speaker 2: So Jackson's iconic wardrobe in the video was the work

1314
01:13:12,000 --> 01:13:15,639
Speaker 2: of Deborah Landis, John Lance's wife, who you will perhaps

1315
01:13:15,640 --> 01:13:21,240
Speaker 2: recall from Raiders of the Lost Arc Yeah long d

1316
01:13:21,479 --> 01:13:24,680
Speaker 2: Hollywood wardrobe designer. Since the video would be shot at

1317
01:13:24,760 --> 01:13:27,519
Speaker 2: night with a relatively subdued palette, she told Vanity Fair,

1318
01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:29,800
Speaker 2: I felt that red would really pop in front of

1319
01:13:29,840 --> 01:13:35,519
Speaker 2: the ghouls. Find that word so inherently comedic, you know,

1320
01:13:35,800 --> 01:13:39,160
Speaker 2: in front of the ghouls, And so she elected to

1321
01:13:39,200 --> 01:13:41,759
Speaker 2: make both his jacket and jeans red to make Jackson

1322
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:42,479
Speaker 2: appear taller.

1323
01:13:43,240 --> 01:13:46,439
Speaker 1: The shoulders of that jacket gave him some virility, she

1324
01:13:46,520 --> 01:13:50,920
Speaker 1: told the Telegraph, praising the socked. The socks and shoes

1325
01:13:50,920 --> 01:13:53,559
Speaker 1: were his own. He took that directly from Fred Astaire,

1326
01:13:53,600 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: who always wore soft leather loafers.

1327
01:13:55,520 --> 01:13:59,000
Speaker 2: To dance in and socks. One of those jackets the

1328
01:13:59,040 --> 01:14:02,040
Speaker 2: Jackson wore four. The video was sold to a Texan

1329
01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:07,240
Speaker 2: gold trader named Milton Varren Thomas Pinchin ass name and

1330
01:14:07,400 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 2: character in twenty eleven for one point eight million.

1331
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:13,519
Speaker 1: You gotta ask, I mean, do these people just like

1332
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:17,439
Speaker 1: put that on? I mean, I can't imagine Texas gold

1333
01:14:17,479 --> 01:14:20,400
Speaker 1: trader with fitting the Michael Jackson's fill of jacket, but

1334
01:14:20,520 --> 01:14:23,040
Speaker 1: like you know, he puts it on and does the dance,

1335
01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:26,400
Speaker 1: I mean, like risky business style, just like sliding around

1336
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:29,680
Speaker 1: the slipping room in the thriller jacket. Yes, I think

1337
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:32,479
Speaker 1: I saw one of the like b thriller jackets in

1338
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:36,360
Speaker 1: the in the hard Rock vault in Orlando that I

1339
01:14:36,400 --> 01:14:38,040
Speaker 1: tore it a bunch of years ago, which is one

1340
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:40,280
Speaker 1: of the most real things I've ever done. It's like

1341
01:14:40,280 --> 01:14:44,880
Speaker 1: a BJ's Sam's Club sized warehouse in the Orlando ever

1342
01:14:44,920 --> 01:14:48,280
Speaker 1: Glades and you walk in and it's just you know,

1343
01:14:50,640 --> 01:14:52,600
Speaker 1: first of all, one of the entire walls is just

1344
01:14:52,640 --> 01:14:55,280
Speaker 1: completely filled with guitars. They go all the way up

1345
01:14:55,320 --> 01:14:59,120
Speaker 1: to the ceiling. It's gargantuan, and they just have rosebund rose,

1346
01:14:59,160 --> 01:15:01,880
Speaker 1: bun rose. It looks like prop warehouse. But it's just

1347
01:15:01,960 --> 01:15:06,599
Speaker 1: everything is like, oh, this is from the YouTube Pop Tour,

1348
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:09,639
Speaker 1: This is from Lady Gago's Monster Ball. This is anything

1349
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:14,000
Speaker 1: anything good. Though a lot of the good stuff I

1350
01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:16,599
Speaker 1: think was in more climate controlled stuff. I'm trying to

1351
01:15:17,120 --> 01:15:20,720
Speaker 1: give me a second. I don't care, no, no, I

1352
01:15:20,760 --> 01:15:21,760
Speaker 1: gotta eat dinner, keep going.

1353
01:15:23,479 --> 01:15:25,519
Speaker 2: I truly don't give a about the hard rock of

1354
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:28,679
Speaker 2: old I think you need to understand that, my friend.

1355
01:15:31,840 --> 01:15:34,840
Speaker 1: The iconic choreography in the video came about in conjunction

1356
01:15:34,880 --> 01:15:38,240
Speaker 1: with beat It choreographer Michael Peters. Jackson said it was

1357
01:15:38,240 --> 01:15:40,599
Speaker 1: a delicate thing to work on. I remember my original

1358
01:15:40,640 --> 01:15:43,799
Speaker 1: approach was, how do you make zombies and monsters dance

1359
01:15:43,880 --> 01:15:47,120
Speaker 1: without it being comical? This is Michael talking to MTV

1360
01:15:47,240 --> 01:15:50,000
Speaker 1: News in nineteen ninety nine. So I said, we have

1361
01:15:50,080 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 1: to do just the right kind of movement so it

1362
01:15:51,960 --> 01:15:54,720
Speaker 1: doesn't become something that you laugh at, but it just

1363
01:15:54,760 --> 01:15:57,000
Speaker 1: has to take it to another level. I got in

1364
01:15:57,040 --> 01:15:59,559
Speaker 1: a room with choreographer Michael Peters, and he and I

1365
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:02,479
Speaker 1: together kind of imagine how these zombies move by making

1366
01:16:02,520 --> 01:16:05,439
Speaker 1: faces in the mirror. Second reference to making faces and

1367
01:16:05,479 --> 01:16:08,240
Speaker 1: mirrors in this episode. I used to come to rehearsal

1368
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:11,120
Speaker 1: sometimes with monster makeup on and I loved and I

1369
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:14,200
Speaker 1: love doing that. So he and I collaborated and we

1370
01:16:14,240 --> 01:16:16,400
Speaker 1: both choreographed the piece, and I thought it should go

1371
01:16:16,400 --> 01:16:19,000
Speaker 1: into this jazzy kind of step, you know, kind of

1372
01:16:19,040 --> 01:16:22,280
Speaker 1: grewsome things like that. Michelle Simmons, one of the dancers,

1373
01:16:22,320 --> 01:16:25,360
Speaker 1: told The Telegraph that the rehearsals were held in Debbie

1374
01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:29,680
Speaker 1: Reynolds Dance studio in North Hollywood. That's amazing, speaking of

1375
01:16:29,840 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 1: buying stuff, one of the largest Hollywood memorabilia collections in history.

1376
01:16:34,320 --> 01:16:37,360
Speaker 1: That's true. Yeah.

1377
01:16:37,520 --> 01:16:39,560
Speaker 2: In the Making of Thriller, the making of video that

1378
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:43,639
Speaker 2: accompanied this, Peters, the choreographer, Michael Peters, choreographer, talks about

1379
01:16:43,720 --> 01:16:48,080
Speaker 2: Jackson's physical facility with these steps. He said, Michael danced

1380
01:16:48,080 --> 01:16:50,799
Speaker 2: in front of eighteen professionals who spent their lives training

1381
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:53,960
Speaker 2: to achieve what Jackson picked up in minutes, he said,

1382
01:16:54,000 --> 01:16:54,719
Speaker 2: purely on rhythm.

1383
01:16:54,840 --> 01:16:55,160
Speaker 1: He works.

1384
01:16:55,200 --> 01:16:56,600
Speaker 2: I give him the rhythm of a step and he

1385
01:16:56,640 --> 01:16:58,360
Speaker 2: does it. You say, this is the beat you know,

1386
01:16:58,479 --> 01:17:01,880
Speaker 2: don and he does. It's really wonderful to watch because

1387
01:17:01,880 --> 01:17:05,280
Speaker 2: it's an innate gift. He's a dancer in his soul.

1388
01:17:06,040 --> 01:17:09,360
Speaker 2: The thriller dance has become so beloved that you remember

1389
01:17:09,400 --> 01:17:11,200
Speaker 2: that when they were going around in the early web

1390
01:17:11,200 --> 01:17:13,479
Speaker 2: two point zero days, you know, I remember everyone's the

1391
01:17:13,920 --> 01:17:18,280
Speaker 2: remembers the guy the prison version of the Prison Thriller.

1392
01:17:18,320 --> 01:17:20,200
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I forgot about that. I haven't thought

1393
01:17:20,240 --> 01:17:22,080
Speaker 1: about that in years and then.

1394
01:17:22,360 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 2: But did you know that the world record for the

1395
01:17:24,479 --> 01:17:27,160
Speaker 2: most people doing the thriller dance at once was achieved

1396
01:17:27,479 --> 01:17:31,519
Speaker 2: by thirteen thousand, five hundred and ninety seven participants in

1397
01:17:31,600 --> 01:17:33,840
Speaker 2: Mexico City in August of two thousand and nine.

1398
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:36,519
Speaker 1: I did not. I assume this was in tribute to

1399
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:46,120
Speaker 1: the then recently departed King of pop. It was I'm

1400
01:17:46,280 --> 01:17:50,000
Speaker 1: just trying to set up The thriller.

1401
01:17:50,040 --> 01:17:52,880
Speaker 2: Shoots took place at the Palace Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

1402
01:17:52,920 --> 01:17:55,479
Speaker 2: The Zombie sequence at the junction of Union Pacific Avenue

1403
01:17:55,520 --> 01:17:58,240
Speaker 2: in South Calzona Street. And East Los Angeles and the

1404
01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:00,760
Speaker 2: final house scene at thirteen forty five Carrol Avenue in

1405
01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:04,280
Speaker 2: the Angelino Heights neighborhood of Echo Park. Marty Thomas, the

1406
01:18:04,360 --> 01:18:06,800
Speaker 2: video's props assistant, recalled the atmosphere around the shoot to

1407
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:09,200
Speaker 2: the Telegraph. I remember we had to sign a non

1408
01:18:09,200 --> 01:18:11,880
Speaker 2: disclosure agreement not to tell anyone what we were filming,

1409
01:18:12,120 --> 01:18:14,479
Speaker 2: not to tell family or anything. What they would do

1410
01:18:14,520 --> 01:18:16,879
Speaker 2: is print up maps to the location and leave them around,

1411
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:19,439
Speaker 2: but they were false locations. Some of it from the

1412
01:18:19,439 --> 01:18:21,519
Speaker 2: press would sneak on set and steal these maps, and

1413
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:23,519
Speaker 2: they were just sort of locations of the shopping mall

1414
01:18:23,560 --> 01:18:25,719
Speaker 2: that's closed way way out in the valley.

1415
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:28,519
Speaker 1: He continued. We couldn't believe this was sure just one

1416
01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:30,759
Speaker 1: music video. It was a small city.

1417
01:18:30,840 --> 01:18:33,280
Speaker 2: Everywhere we went there was a lot of police, a

1418
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:36,080
Speaker 2: lot of security, and John Landis he would let people

1419
01:18:36,080 --> 01:18:38,320
Speaker 2: who made it there get pretty close, but behind a barrier.

1420
01:18:38,600 --> 01:18:41,400
Speaker 2: They had third and fourth and fifth assistant directors handling

1421
01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:43,599
Speaker 2: the crowd, which would be in numbers of two, three

1422
01:18:43,680 --> 01:18:45,880
Speaker 2: to four hundred who had figured out where to go

1423
01:18:46,000 --> 01:18:47,719
Speaker 2: or had heard from one of the film crew wherever

1424
01:18:47,840 --> 01:18:48,840
Speaker 2: there watching on the.

1425
01:18:48,760 --> 01:18:55,320
Speaker 1: Set filming, unfortunately, was occasionally marred by Jackson's eccentricities we'll

1426
01:18:55,320 --> 01:18:58,720
Speaker 1: call them. One telling detail in Vanity Fair's profile of

1427
01:18:58,720 --> 01:19:01,200
Speaker 1: the shoot had him showing up forty five minutes late

1428
01:19:01,240 --> 01:19:04,960
Speaker 1: to a makeup session, infuriating John Landis, the director, and

1429
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:08,759
Speaker 1: returning from a bathroom break carrying his Boa constrictor called

1430
01:19:08,880 --> 01:19:12,120
Speaker 1: muscles in a pilow case, which he then proceeded to

1431
01:19:12,200 --> 01:19:15,600
Speaker 1: drape around the neck of a reporter. The shoot was

1432
01:19:15,640 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 1: also marked by a series of high profile visitors. We

1433
01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:21,680
Speaker 1: got Rock Hudson, Fred Astaire, which must have really made

1434
01:19:21,720 --> 01:19:25,320
Speaker 1: Michael happy. Jackie Kennedy O NASA's who would later edit

1435
01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:29,840
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's Moonwalk autobiography. I didn't realize that although our

1436
01:19:29,880 --> 01:19:35,439
Speaker 1: Hollywood heavy in your parentheticals, pun intended visiting was Marlon Brando,

1437
01:19:35,840 --> 01:19:40,320
Speaker 1: who was giving Jackson acting advice. One day, when Landis

1438
01:19:40,400 --> 01:19:44,519
Speaker 1: chastised Jackson for flubbing his lines, Jackson said, Marlon told MA,

1439
01:19:45,200 --> 01:19:47,479
Speaker 1: can't do it. Marlon told me to always go for

1440
01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:51,719
Speaker 1: the truth, not the words. Other less fun visitors included

1441
01:19:51,760 --> 01:19:56,519
Speaker 1: Michael's parents, Joseph and Catherine Jackson, which caused a minor stir.

1442
01:19:57,320 --> 01:20:00,920
Speaker 1: Landis told Vanity Fair. Michael asked me to have Joe removed.

1443
01:20:01,160 --> 01:20:03,200
Speaker 1: He said, will you please ask my father to leave?

1444
01:20:03,720 --> 01:20:06,799
Speaker 1: So I go over to mister Jackson. Mister Jackson, I'm sorry,

1445
01:20:06,840 --> 01:20:07,839
Speaker 1: but can you please?

1446
01:20:08,160 --> 01:20:08,559
Speaker 7: Who are you?

1447
01:20:09,240 --> 01:20:12,320
Speaker 1: I'm John Landis, I'm directing this well, I'm Joe Jackson.

1448
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:15,519
Speaker 1: I do what I please, I said, I'll have to

1449
01:20:15,560 --> 01:20:17,800
Speaker 1: ask security. It's a movie. If you don't leave now.

1450
01:20:18,600 --> 01:20:20,599
Speaker 1: John this told the magazine that he had a policeman

1451
01:20:20,760 --> 01:20:24,160
Speaker 1: escort at Joe Jackson off the set, which Jackson, through

1452
01:20:24,160 --> 01:20:30,120
Speaker 1: his lawyer, denied in the Peace Damn Oi.

1453
01:20:30,960 --> 01:20:33,240
Speaker 2: As the project moved out of shooting and began into

1454
01:20:33,280 --> 01:20:35,880
Speaker 2: the editing stage with a slated premier date at the

1455
01:20:35,960 --> 01:20:39,280
Speaker 2: Crest Theater in Westwood of November fourteenth, nineteen eighty three,

1456
01:20:39,800 --> 01:20:43,519
Speaker 2: Jackson's religious beliefs nearly derailed the entire thing when he

1457
01:20:43,600 --> 01:20:46,680
Speaker 2: called his lawyer, John Bronca and ordered him to destroy

1458
01:20:46,760 --> 01:20:49,960
Speaker 2: the negative of Thriller two weeks before the premiere.

1459
01:20:52,040 --> 01:20:54,360
Speaker 1: This is just for the making of video. This is funny.

1460
01:20:54,439 --> 01:20:56,519
Speaker 2: Landis added up all the footage that they shot and

1461
01:20:56,560 --> 01:20:58,640
Speaker 2: realized that they were at twenty six minutes rather than

1462
01:20:58,680 --> 01:21:00,920
Speaker 2: the half hour they were aiming for so he dug

1463
01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:04,400
Speaker 2: through Jackson's closet for the old eight millimeters home videos

1464
01:21:04,400 --> 01:21:07,240
Speaker 2: that you see in there to pad out the running time. Anyway,

1465
01:21:08,120 --> 01:21:11,599
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson had eventually divulged on the phone to Bronco

1466
01:21:11,720 --> 01:21:14,360
Speaker 2: that the Jehovah's Witnesses, and at this time Jackson was

1467
01:21:14,360 --> 01:21:17,560
Speaker 2: a devout practitioner. He would go door to door proselytizing

1468
01:21:17,600 --> 01:21:20,800
Speaker 2: as the religion demands, wearing a fake mustache. I'm not

1469
01:21:20,920 --> 01:21:23,880
Speaker 2: making that up anyway, that Jehovah's witness had gotten wind

1470
01:21:23,920 --> 01:21:26,240
Speaker 2: of Thriller in the Thriller video and told him that

1471
01:21:26,280 --> 01:21:30,400
Speaker 2: it promoted demonology and that they were going to excommunicate him.

1472
01:21:30,640 --> 01:21:33,919
Speaker 2: Bronco smartly got John Landis to remove the film canisters

1473
01:21:33,920 --> 01:21:36,479
Speaker 2: from the processing lab and lock them up in his office.

1474
01:21:37,240 --> 01:21:40,599
Speaker 2: Landis said that he heard from Jackson's security chief, Bill Bray,

1475
01:21:40,640 --> 01:21:42,240
Speaker 2: that the star had been in his room with the

1476
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:45,320
Speaker 2: door locked for three days, refusing to come out. So

1477
01:21:45,360 --> 01:21:48,840
Speaker 2: he drove to Michael's Encino estate and with Bray kicked

1478
01:21:48,880 --> 01:21:52,160
Speaker 2: the door down. Michael said he hadn't eaten in three days,

1479
01:21:52,880 --> 01:21:56,160
Speaker 2: so after getting into the doctor, Landis said that Jackson

1480
01:21:56,200 --> 01:21:58,639
Speaker 2: apologized the following day for wanting to destroy the film,

1481
01:21:58,800 --> 01:22:00,800
Speaker 2: at which point Landis then had to explain to him

1482
01:22:00,800 --> 01:22:03,719
Speaker 2: that they had ignored those orders from the jump. Bronca

1483
01:22:03,800 --> 01:22:06,599
Speaker 2: eventually resorted to just lying to his client to preserve

1484
01:22:06,640 --> 01:22:09,840
Speaker 2: the work. He told Vanity Fair, I said, Mike, did

1485
01:22:09,880 --> 01:22:11,800
Speaker 2: you ever watch Bella Legosi in Dracula?

1486
01:22:12,240 --> 01:22:12,880
Speaker 1: He goes why?

1487
01:22:13,560 --> 01:22:15,679
Speaker 2: I said, do you know that he was a devout Christian?

1488
01:22:16,080 --> 01:22:18,840
Speaker 2: I was just making it up, And I said, did

1489
01:22:18,840 --> 01:22:21,639
Speaker 2: you ever notice there were like disclaimers on those movies?

1490
01:22:22,040 --> 01:22:25,639
Speaker 2: He goes, no, So, Michael, before we destroy this film,

1491
01:22:25,760 --> 01:22:27,720
Speaker 2: let's put a disclaimer on it, saying this does not

1492
01:22:27,760 --> 01:22:30,200
Speaker 2: reflect the personal convictions of Michael Jackson.

1493
01:22:30,479 --> 01:22:32,320
Speaker 1: Is that I'm there. I don't remember that. Oh yeah,

1494
01:22:32,439 --> 01:22:34,599
Speaker 1: narrator voice, they did. Yeah.

1495
01:22:34,640 --> 01:22:37,880
Speaker 2: The whole thing opens with due to my strong personal convictions,

1496
01:22:38,439 --> 01:22:41,600
Speaker 2: I state that this film does not endor let me

1497
01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:45,320
Speaker 2: find it? Why am I trying to paraphrase it? Due

1498
01:22:45,360 --> 01:22:47,640
Speaker 2: to my strong personal convictions. I wish to stress that

1499
01:22:47,680 --> 01:22:50,040
Speaker 2: this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.

1500
01:22:50,800 --> 01:22:52,360
Speaker 2: That's just like the title card.

1501
01:22:52,720 --> 01:22:55,679
Speaker 1: Well that's settled. Thriller premiered at the five hundred seat

1502
01:22:55,720 --> 01:22:58,120
Speaker 1: Historic Crest theater, which I believe is the movie theater

1503
01:22:58,400 --> 01:23:01,120
Speaker 1: used in the video itself. Attended by the likes of

1504
01:23:01,160 --> 01:23:06,679
Speaker 1: Diana Ross, Warren Batty Prince and Eddie Murphy, John Landis

1505
01:23:06,680 --> 01:23:08,479
Speaker 1: warmed up the audience with a new print of a

1506
01:23:08,520 --> 01:23:12,719
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse cartoon called the Band's Concert. For some reason,

1507
01:23:12,840 --> 01:23:15,240
Speaker 1: to need something to do with it, or just I

1508
01:23:15,280 --> 01:23:17,680
Speaker 1: can imagine Michael just being really pumped to see a

1509
01:23:17,680 --> 01:23:22,400
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse cartoon. Yeah, and fourteen minutes later, after Thriller

1510
01:23:22,439 --> 01:23:26,599
Speaker 1: had been received with a rapturous standing ovation, Landis found

1511
01:23:26,640 --> 01:23:29,280
Speaker 1: himself stuck with what to do next until Eddie Murphy

1512
01:23:29,360 --> 01:23:32,400
Speaker 1: yelled out, show the damn thing again. Show the damn

1513
01:23:32,439 --> 01:23:37,680
Speaker 1: thing again. You could probably cut that. That's verging on

1514
01:23:37,680 --> 01:23:42,640
Speaker 1: the racist. That's pretty good. That was accurate, though. Thanks.

1515
01:23:43,120 --> 01:23:47,440
Speaker 1: The video premiered on MTV on December second, nineteen eighty three,

1516
01:23:47,520 --> 01:23:50,720
Speaker 1: and former MTV executive Les Garland told Vanity Fair the

1517
01:23:50,760 --> 01:23:54,280
Speaker 1: network settled on a saturation strategy, which he describes as

1518
01:23:54,360 --> 01:23:56,479
Speaker 1: every time we played Thriller, let's tell them when we're

1519
01:23:56,479 --> 01:23:58,680
Speaker 1: going to play it again. We played it three to

1520
01:23:58,760 --> 01:24:01,599
Speaker 1: five times a day. We were getting audience ratings ten

1521
01:24:01,680 --> 01:24:05,920
Speaker 1: times the usual when we popped Thriller. Showtime meanwhile aired,

1522
01:24:05,960 --> 01:24:10,240
Speaker 1: making Michael Jackson's Thriller six times that February. Within months,

1523
01:24:10,280 --> 01:24:13,360
Speaker 1: the Vestern release had sold a million copies, making at

1524
01:24:13,360 --> 01:24:17,639
Speaker 1: the time the biggest selling home video release ever. Sadly,

1525
01:24:17,960 --> 01:24:20,559
Speaker 1: like so many other things in Michael's life, Thriller was

1526
01:24:20,600 --> 01:24:24,799
Speaker 1: subsumed by the financial chaos of his fame. In January

1527
01:24:24,880 --> 01:24:27,559
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, six months before his death, John

1528
01:24:27,640 --> 01:24:31,080
Speaker 1: Landis and co producer George Folsey, filed suit against Michael

1529
01:24:31,120 --> 01:24:34,920
Speaker 1: Jackson and his company, Optimum Productions for breach of contract,

1530
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:37,799
Speaker 1: alleging that they had not been paid their fifty percent

1531
01:24:37,800 --> 01:24:42,840
Speaker 1: of royalties in many years and accusing Jackson of quote fraudulent, malicious,

1532
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:46,120
Speaker 1: and oppressive conduct end quote.

1533
01:24:46,439 --> 01:24:48,200
Speaker 2: So this is good as time as any to get

1534
01:24:48,240 --> 01:24:50,960
Speaker 2: into the insane numbers that Thriller, the song, and the

1535
01:24:51,000 --> 01:24:54,320
Speaker 2: album put up. For context, it is important to understand

1536
01:24:54,320 --> 01:24:57,800
Speaker 2: that the American record industry was literally in the toilet before.

1537
01:24:57,520 --> 01:24:59,960
Speaker 1: This album came out. It was in its second slump

1538
01:25:00,040 --> 01:25:00,880
Speaker 1: in three years.

1539
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:03,200
Speaker 2: Well, the United States was still in the middle of

1540
01:25:03,240 --> 01:25:06,599
Speaker 2: a deep recession. Unemployment was at a four decade high.

1541
01:25:06,920 --> 01:25:09,879
Speaker 2: I am just spitballing here. But I have to assume

1542
01:25:10,040 --> 01:25:12,920
Speaker 2: that the oil shortage played into this, well just for

1543
01:25:13,040 --> 01:25:17,320
Speaker 2: like making yeah, the actual vinyl. Yeah maybe you think

1544
01:25:18,040 --> 01:25:21,360
Speaker 2: maybe thanks for me? All right, I won't.

1545
01:25:21,120 --> 01:25:21,760
Speaker 1: Tell if you don't.

1546
01:25:24,120 --> 01:25:28,280
Speaker 2: Billboard reported that record shipments had declined by fifty million

1547
01:25:28,360 --> 01:25:32,160
Speaker 2: units between nineteen eighty nineteen eighty two. CBS staffers referred

1548
01:25:32,200 --> 01:25:35,280
Speaker 2: to August thirteenth, nineteen eighty two as Black Friday. Their

1549
01:25:35,680 --> 01:25:38,479
Speaker 2: vice president of merchandising told Reuters, we had a major

1550
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:41,120
Speaker 2: layoff that day. Half the marketing department was let go

1551
01:25:41,160 --> 01:25:50,920
Speaker 2: at epic. Good come anyone that looks like them. It's

1552
01:25:50,920 --> 01:25:54,600
Speaker 2: a training day quote for you. Yeah, oh man, I

1553
01:25:54,600 --> 01:25:57,040
Speaker 2: should do what training day monologues are there?

1554
01:25:57,760 --> 01:26:03,559
Speaker 1: Ys? Michael Jacks, King Kran you gotta do the King

1555
01:26:03,640 --> 01:26:04,080
Speaker 1: Kong one?

1556
01:26:04,520 --> 01:26:09,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would like to hear this.

1557
01:26:09,479 --> 01:26:11,280
Speaker 1: I think I think our fans would also. I think

1558
01:26:11,280 --> 01:26:16,400
Speaker 1: IDDS would also like to Oh you motherers, Okay, all right,

1559
01:26:16,920 --> 01:26:20,040
Speaker 1: I'm putting cases on all you bitches. You think you

1560
01:26:20,080 --> 01:26:26,360
Speaker 1: can do this, Jake, you think you can do this

1561
01:26:26,400 --> 01:26:29,960
Speaker 1: to me? You motherickers will be playing basketball on Pelican

1562
01:26:30,040 --> 01:26:33,719
Speaker 1: Bay when I get finished with you. Shoe Program twenty

1563
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:37,040
Speaker 1: three hour lockdown. I'm the man up in this piece.

1564
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:41,240
Speaker 1: Do you think you're sicking with I'm the police. I

1565
01:26:41,400 --> 01:26:45,760
Speaker 1: run around here. You just live here. Yeah, that's right.

1566
01:26:45,840 --> 01:26:48,719
Speaker 1: You better walk away. Go on and walk away because

1567
01:26:48,720 --> 01:26:52,599
Speaker 1: I'm gonna burn this mother for down. King Kong ain't

1568
01:26:52,640 --> 01:26:58,519
Speaker 1: got you on me, That's right, I don't. I'm winning anyway.

1569
01:26:59,320 --> 01:27:03,920
Speaker 1: I'm winning an motherfucking way. I can't lose. Yeah, you

1570
01:27:04,439 --> 01:27:07,280
Speaker 1: can shoot me, but you can't kill me. Thank you,

1571
01:27:11,640 --> 01:27:22,679
Speaker 1: probably Instentiam Bernard hung Well. Originally, the label Epic planned

1572
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:25,640
Speaker 1: for a Christmas nineteen eighty two release for Thriller, but

1573
01:27:25,720 --> 01:27:27,559
Speaker 1: then they were going to push it to January nineteen

1574
01:27:27,600 --> 01:27:30,800
Speaker 1: eighty three as Jones and Jackson continued to fiddle with it.

1575
01:27:31,360 --> 01:27:34,280
Speaker 1: But the album leaked to radio and stations began playing

1576
01:27:34,360 --> 01:27:38,000
Speaker 1: multiple cuts, forcing the label to release Thriller on November thirtieth,

1577
01:27:38,080 --> 01:27:41,439
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. The first single, the Girl Was Mine.

1578
01:27:41,840 --> 01:27:43,360
Speaker 1: Of course, they went with the Girl as Mine. It's

1579
01:27:43,360 --> 01:27:46,120
Speaker 1: got Paul McCartney on. It went to number two, and

1580
01:27:46,160 --> 01:27:48,240
Speaker 1: then the label made the decision to go for broke

1581
01:27:48,320 --> 01:27:52,000
Speaker 1: and release Beat It. While Billy Gan was also still

1582
01:27:52,080 --> 01:27:56,360
Speaker 1: climbing the charts. Real Flex Yeah, When the Thriller video

1583
01:27:56,439 --> 01:28:00,439
Speaker 1: came out, sales reduced again. Epic was shipping one million

1584
01:28:00,479 --> 01:28:04,160
Speaker 1: copies a week, with thirty two million copies sold worldwide.

1585
01:28:04,160 --> 01:28:06,640
Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen eighty three, Thriller became the

1586
01:28:06,680 --> 01:28:10,479
Speaker 1: best selling album of all time and was ratified by

1587
01:28:10,479 --> 01:28:13,599
Speaker 1: the Guinness Book of World Records on February seventh, nineteen

1588
01:28:13,640 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 1: eighty four. I wonder how much that pissed off Paul McCartney,

1589
01:28:16,960 --> 01:28:19,759
Speaker 1: because that is the twentieth anniversary of the Beatles' arrival

1590
01:28:19,760 --> 01:28:22,960
Speaker 1: in the United States. It was the best selling album

1591
01:28:23,000 --> 01:28:25,760
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty three worldwide, and in nineteen eighty four

1592
01:28:25,800 --> 01:28:28,679
Speaker 1: it became the first album to become the best selling

1593
01:28:28,760 --> 01:28:31,280
Speaker 1: in the United States for two years in a row.

1594
01:28:32,040 --> 01:28:35,479
Speaker 1: As of May twenty twenty two, Billboard put its global

1595
01:28:35,520 --> 01:28:39,040
Speaker 1: sales at over one hundred million copies, though you've seen

1596
01:28:39,080 --> 01:28:41,080
Speaker 1: figures closer to seventy million.

1597
01:28:41,280 --> 01:28:43,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm always interested in sales figures for this kind

1598
01:28:43,439 --> 01:28:46,600
Speaker 2: of stuff. I don't know how people exactly certify it.

1599
01:28:46,760 --> 01:28:48,800
Speaker 1: And then especially when you get into nowadays, when it's

1600
01:28:48,840 --> 01:28:51,960
Speaker 1: like how many streams count towards a sale or whatever, So,

1601
01:28:52,960 --> 01:28:54,280
Speaker 1: but you know, it's still in the top.

1602
01:28:54,360 --> 01:28:57,719
Speaker 2: It's kept from the top slot by their greatest hits,

1603
01:28:58,120 --> 01:28:59,360
Speaker 2: by the fucking Eagles.

1604
01:29:01,400 --> 01:29:04,479
Speaker 1: It also pulled in eight Grammys, with seven for Jackson

1605
01:29:04,520 --> 01:29:07,719
Speaker 1: and one for Bruce I forgot how to say it already,

1606
01:29:08,000 --> 01:29:10,240
Speaker 1: Sweideen Sweet Sweets.

1607
01:29:09,880 --> 01:29:09,960
Speaker 3: And.

1608
01:29:12,600 --> 01:29:16,360
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's incredibly high royalty rate two dollars per album

1609
01:29:16,840 --> 01:29:20,360
Speaker 1: helped him become ludicrously wealthy. So let's think about that.

1610
01:29:20,400 --> 01:29:22,640
Speaker 1: Thirty two million copies sold worldwide at the end of

1611
01:29:22,720 --> 01:29:25,479
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, two dollars an album. So that's sixty

1612
01:29:25,479 --> 01:29:28,600
Speaker 1: four million on record sales alone. Good god, let's see me.

1613
01:29:28,760 --> 01:29:33,360
Speaker 1: Let's just go for the inflation calculator. I'm gonna say

1614
01:29:32,960 --> 01:29:36,240
Speaker 1: six sixty four million turns into one hundred and ten million,

1615
01:29:36,240 --> 01:29:39,040
Speaker 1: as my guess, all right, was this eighty four you said?

1616
01:29:39,320 --> 01:29:42,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred and eighty nine almost one hundred and

1617
01:29:42,400 --> 01:29:46,600
Speaker 2: eighty nine point six million dollars christ.

1618
01:29:46,680 --> 01:29:53,719
Speaker 1: Not counting tours, not counting singles sales, YEP, radio play man,

1619
01:29:53,920 --> 01:29:55,800
Speaker 1: that's just know it's I mean, that's it. That's the

1620
01:29:55,840 --> 01:29:57,800
Speaker 1: top of the mountain. That's that's exactly it.

1621
01:29:57,960 --> 01:30:00,400
Speaker 2: And it's it's so funny because this album, I mean,

1622
01:30:00,439 --> 01:30:02,880
Speaker 2: obviously what do you do? But it did become something

1623
01:30:02,880 --> 01:30:06,120
Speaker 2: of the albatross around Jackson's neck, and he fully expected it,

1624
01:30:06,160 --> 01:30:08,840
Speaker 2: perhaps in the depths of his delusion, that this would

1625
01:30:08,840 --> 01:30:12,760
Speaker 2: just be a stepping stone onto bigger and better things.

1626
01:30:12,960 --> 01:30:15,680
Speaker 2: I think there's a quote it's from one of his

1627
01:30:15,760 --> 01:30:18,519
Speaker 2: team at some point where they're like, well, you know, Michael,

1628
01:30:18,560 --> 01:30:20,040
Speaker 2: how do you how do you feel? And he's like, well,

1629
01:30:20,080 --> 01:30:22,320
Speaker 2: the next one's going to be bigger. Like I think

1630
01:30:22,320 --> 01:30:24,560
Speaker 2: he expected Bad to sell like or no, you know

1631
01:30:24,560 --> 01:30:24,960
Speaker 2: what it was.

1632
01:30:25,000 --> 01:30:27,160
Speaker 1: It was he was disappointed when Bad came out and

1633
01:30:27,240 --> 01:30:29,880
Speaker 1: sold twenty million because he thought it was going to

1634
01:30:29,920 --> 01:30:32,840
Speaker 1: sell better than Thriller. But yeah, man, I mean it's

1635
01:30:32,920 --> 01:30:34,960
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, where do you go from the top

1636
01:30:35,000 --> 01:30:39,160
Speaker 1: of the world. You go on a post nine to

1637
01:30:39,160 --> 01:30:44,320
Speaker 1: eleven road trip with Elizabeth Taylor and maybe hang out

1638
01:30:44,360 --> 01:30:45,200
Speaker 1: in your private zoo.

1639
01:30:46,040 --> 01:30:48,559
Speaker 2: Was that Elizabeth Taylor nine to eleven thing disproved that

1640
01:30:48,640 --> 01:30:49,280
Speaker 2: actually happened?

1641
01:30:49,360 --> 01:30:52,920
Speaker 1: I think it was disproved. Yeah, bummers, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor,

1642
01:30:53,000 --> 01:30:56,320
Speaker 1: and Mylon Branda. That was someone weirder. For those of

1643
01:30:56,360 --> 01:30:58,240
Speaker 1: you who have no idea what we're talking about, there's

1644
01:30:58,280 --> 01:31:01,559
Speaker 1: a a I'll call on been legend that on nine

1645
01:31:01,600 --> 01:31:06,160
Speaker 1: to eleven, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, and somebody else. I

1646
01:31:06,160 --> 01:31:08,920
Speaker 1: thought it was Marlon Brando. Was Marlon Brando? You okay,

1647
01:31:09,280 --> 01:31:12,320
Speaker 1: fled New York City in a rental car. I don't

1648
01:31:12,320 --> 01:31:14,160
Speaker 1: think they even had a driver. I think they in

1649
01:31:14,200 --> 01:31:15,840
Speaker 1: the story they all took turns driving.

1650
01:31:16,000 --> 01:31:21,040
Speaker 2: And this disproved disproved by Tim Mendelson, trustee of Elizabeth

1651
01:31:21,080 --> 01:31:21,880
Speaker 2: Taylor's estate.

1652
01:31:22,080 --> 01:31:25,599
Speaker 1: I think Liz Leonard wrote that. Liz McNeil wrote that, yeah,

1653
01:31:25,840 --> 01:31:28,640
Speaker 1: you know what people call it, bomber. Well, I have

1654
01:31:28,640 --> 01:31:32,599
Speaker 1: a question for you about Thriller before we end did

1655
01:31:32,600 --> 01:31:37,000
Speaker 1: it end up? Did it end up in the Library

1656
01:31:37,000 --> 01:31:41,439
Speaker 1: of Congress? It sure did, Thank god, thank god. It

1657
01:31:41,640 --> 01:31:45,800
Speaker 1: truly is the top of the mountain. Yeah.

1658
01:31:45,880 --> 01:31:47,400
Speaker 2: I mean again, it's like we were saying at the

1659
01:31:47,400 --> 01:31:53,080
Speaker 2: top of the episode, like Thriller Man. Nancy Griffin writes

1660
01:31:53,080 --> 01:31:55,479
Speaker 2: in Vanity Fair, it just feels like not just a

1661
01:31:56,400 --> 01:32:01,599
Speaker 2: high water mark for music, but culture period. She wrote,

1662
01:32:02,120 --> 01:32:04,400
Speaker 2: Thriller seems like the last time everyone on the planet

1663
01:32:04,400 --> 01:32:06,880
Speaker 2: got excited at the same time by the same thing.

1664
01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:09,280
Speaker 2: No matter where you went in the world, they were

1665
01:32:09,280 --> 01:32:12,920
Speaker 2: playing those songs. You could dance to them. Since then,

1666
01:32:13,080 --> 01:32:16,080
Speaker 2: the fragmentation of pop culture has destroyed our sense of

1667
01:32:16,200 --> 01:32:20,439
Speaker 2: collective exhilaration and I miss that. Well, folks, this has

1668
01:32:20,479 --> 01:32:24,080
Speaker 2: been too much information. Thank you for listening, Thank you

1669
01:32:24,120 --> 01:32:25,600
Speaker 2: for hanging tough with us.

1670
01:32:26,160 --> 01:32:32,280
Speaker 1: I'm Halloween on Halloween, I'm out Tigel, and I'm Jordan

1671
01:32:32,360 --> 01:32:36,280
Speaker 1: run Tug. We'll catch you next time. Well, folks, after

1672
01:32:36,320 --> 01:32:40,480
Speaker 1: we stopped recording, Heigel delivered us a little treat. Thankfully

1673
01:32:40,840 --> 01:32:44,120
Speaker 1: I had a backup recorder going, so please enjoy. You

1674
01:32:44,160 --> 01:32:46,160
Speaker 1: know what you look like to me, with your good

1675
01:32:46,200 --> 01:32:49,320
Speaker 1: bag and your cheap shoes. You look like a rube,

1676
01:32:49,800 --> 01:32:53,519
Speaker 1: a well scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Good

1677
01:32:53,600 --> 01:32:56,040
Speaker 1: nutrition's given you some length of bone. But you're no

1678
01:32:56,200 --> 01:32:58,720
Speaker 1: more than one generation from poor white trash. Are you

1679
01:32:58,800 --> 01:33:03,200
Speaker 1: agent starling accent? You've tried so desperately to shed pure

1680
01:33:03,240 --> 01:33:06,680
Speaker 1: West Virginia? What is your father, dear? Is he a

1681
01:33:06,720 --> 01:33:10,479
Speaker 1: coal miner? Does he stink of the lamp? You know

1682
01:33:10,520 --> 01:33:14,040
Speaker 1: how quickly the boys found you, all those tds, sticky

1683
01:33:14,080 --> 01:33:16,599
Speaker 1: fumblings in the back seats of cars, while you could

1684
01:33:16,640 --> 01:33:19,960
Speaker 1: only dream of getting out, getting anywhere, getting all the

1685
01:33:19,960 --> 01:33:28,439
Speaker 1: way to the FB I Too Much Information was a

1686
01:33:28,439 --> 01:33:31,960
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel

1687
01:33:32,000 --> 01:33:35,519
Speaker 1: Brown and Jordan Runtog. The show's supervising producer is Michael

1688
01:33:35,560 --> 01:33:38,880
Speaker 1: Alder June. The show was researched, written and hosted by

1689
01:33:38,960 --> 01:33:42,120
Speaker 1: Jordan Runtog and Alex Heigel, with original music by Seth

1690
01:33:42,160 --> 01:33:44,800
Speaker 1: Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what

1691
01:33:44,840 --> 01:33:47,200
Speaker 1: you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For

1692
01:33:47,280 --> 01:33:51,480
Speaker 1: more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1693
01:33:51,640 --> 01:34:01,160
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Expect Mom

1694
01:34:02,000 --> 01:34:02,040
Speaker 1: and