Michael Jackson (45 page)

John and Michael came up with the idea of a video entitled
The Making of Thriller.
At the same time that the video was being taped, extra footage of how it was done, including interviews with some of the
key figures and even Michael himself, would be shot. John then approached Vestron Video, a video distribution company, and
had them pay approximately $500,000 for the right to distribute the product.

Afterwards, John went to MTV and told executives there that Michael was doing a sixty-minute documentary and that if they
wanted to show it, they'd have to pay for it. At that time, MTV didn't even pay record companies for the right to air videos
because it was considered terrific promotion to have an artist's video aired on the cable-music station. While today there
is much negotiating of money between MTV and an artist's managers, attorneys and record label executives, that was certainly
not the case in 1984. However, because Michael was so popular, MTV quickly agreed to finance part of
The Making of Thriller
– if Michael would license it to the station for an official debut. The video would end up costing a little over a million
dollars. The Showtime cable network also paid for second rights to the video. In all, MTV and Showtime put up nearly the whole
second half of the million dollars.

The ‘Thriller’ video combined illusion and reality, skilfully weaving one into the other. The story opens with Michael pulling
his white Chevy convertible over to the side of a wooded road. In a line that has been around since ten minutes after the
first Model T rolled off the assembly line, Michael turns to date Ola Ray (a former
Playboy
centrefold) and says, ‘I'm afraid we're out of gas.’ However, instead of staying put and romancing, they start to walk.

He asks her to be his girl. She accepts. ‘I'm not like other guys,’ he then tells her in a soft and whispery voice.

‘Of course not,’ she says, brushing off one of the great understatements of all time. ‘That's why I love you.’

‘No,’ Michael insists. ‘I mean I'm different.’

As the moon comes out from behind a cloud, Ola discovers how different Michael really is: how many other guys sprout fangs,
claws and whiskers and bray at the moon as they turn into werewolves? He chases her through the woods. She trips. She is flat
on her back. He hovers over her, clearly up to no good.

Just as the monster is about to attack, the camera focuses on Michael and Ola as part of a movie theatre audience, dressed
in a more modern fashion than their 1950-style counterparts on the screen. She is cringing in horror while he is clearly enjoying
the scene. ‘I can't watch,’ she says, getting up to leave.

Reluctantly putting aside his popcorn, Michael follows her out of the theatre, playfully taunting her about her fears. He
begins singing ‘Thriller’ as they walk along the deserted streets. When they pass a graveyard, an assemblage of ghouls emerge
from their graves and crypts to surround the couple. With skin the colour of mushrooms, blood dripping from the corners of
their mouths, and eyeballs bulging halfway out of their heads, they look as though they have been moldering for a long time.

Ola escapes to find shelter in a deserted house. Meanwhile, Michael leads the grotesque company in dance, his features contorted
and menacing, his blood-red clothing contributing to his sinister appearance. He leads the other ghouls to Ola and, as she
trembles in fear, Michael and his gruesome company break through the walls, the windows, the floor. Ola huddles on the sofa,
screaming as Michael reaches out for her.

Suddenly, they are in Michael's home. ‘Hey, what's the problem?’ a smiling Michael asks. Ola looks up at him with confused
eyes. Was it all a dream? Michael puts his arm protectively around her shoulder. But, then, as he turns to face the camera
his eyes are bestial, his smile ominous.

There's little doubt that Michael never intended the video to advocate Satanism or the occult. He was so engrossed with fantasy,
‘Thriller’ was no scarier to him than Halloween. After all, when he finished a hard day's work on the set, he went home to
a bunch of dead-eyed mannequins in his bedroom. Before he had even finished work on it, though, the video brought to a head
an ongoing conflict between Michael and the church elders of the Encino Kingdom Hall. After the elders heard about the concept,
they summoned Michael for a meeting, during which the state of his soul was discussed. He was not receptive. He didn't want
to be told what to do, not by his father and not by his church, either. He refused to make any kind of statement repudiating
his work, as the church insisted he should. ‘I know I'm an imperfect person,’ Michael said. ‘I'm not making myself out to
be an angel.’

Finally, when the elders threatened to banish him from the religion, Michael became worried. He telephoned John Branca's office.
When John's secretary picked up the phone, there seemed to be no one on the line. All she heard was the sound of desperate
breathing, as if someone was trying to catch his breath in between sobs. ‘I don't know who it is,’ she told John. ‘It might
be Michael.’

When John got on the line and heard nothing but panting, he became concerned. However, before he could figure out what was
going on, the line went dead. John telephoned Michael, but there was no answer.

The next day, Michael called back and whispered that he had ‘a big problem’. Then he abruptly hung up again. Could he be any
more dramatic? These kinds of maddeningly cryptic telephone calls went on for several days until John was extremely worried
about Michael.

Finally, Michael got a hold of himself, apparently, and called John to ask if he had the tapes to the ‘Thriller’ video. When
the attorney said that he didn't have them, that they were in the processing lab, Michael instructed him to retrieve them.
‘Then, I want you to destroy them,’ Michael said. He sounded desperate. ‘No one must ever see the video.’

Before John had a chance to respond, Michael hung up.

Michael called back the next day, wanting to know if his attorney had gotten the tapes. By this time, John was tired of playing
games. He wanted to know what was going on, especially since Michael had already spent a million dollars of MTV's, Showtime's
and Vestron's money on ‘Thriller’. How could they now destroy the tapes?

When Michael explained that his church had threatened to expel him if the ‘Thriller’ tape was released to the public, John
was astounded. He tried to convince Michael that he should not allow the church elders to dictate his artistry, but Michael
wasn't interested in his opinion at that point.

Michael called back the next day. ‘Do you have the tapes?’ he asked John. John did. When Michael asked, ‘Did you destroy them?’
John said that he had done just that; actually, though, they were sitting on his desk. ‘Okay, then fine,’ Michael said. He
hung up.

Coincidentally, at this same time John had been reading a book about Bela Lugosi. After thinking about Lugosi and his Dracula
character, John called Michael back and engaged him in a conversation about the horror star, explaining to Michael that Lugosi
had been a religious man but that, as an actor, he played the demonic Dracula and actually built a career for himself by doing
so. Michael listened intently as John then told him that Lugosi's religious beliefs had no bearing on his art, and that the
fact that he portrayed a vampire in movies didn't make him any less religious in real life. He suggested that Michael might
want to reconsider issuing the ‘Thriller’ video with a disclaimer at the beginning stating that the work was not reflective
of Michael's personal or religious convictions. Michael thought John's suggestion was brilliant. He wasn't even angry when
John confessed that he'd not destroyed the tapes, after all.

The next day, John telephoned the video's director, John Landis, to tell him that there would have to be a disclaimer. ‘Bullshit,’
Landis said. ‘No way.’

‘Look, man, if there's no disclaimer then there'll be no video,’ John told him. He then explained the entire story to Landis.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Landis said, ‘this kid's in bad shape, isn't he?’

John Branca couldn't really disagree, though out of respect for his client he didn't comment. Michael had handled the entire
matter in a manner that was so odd, it was actually eerie. What kind of madness was this behaviour, calling and hanging up,
panting and sobbing? In a sense, the scenario was reminiscent of his dramatic declaration that the
Thriller
album be cancelled. It's difficult to know if Michael was really upset (and if he was, one would think that there might have
been a better way to handle it) or, again, orchestrating a bombastic, attention-getting melodrama around a new and upcoming
project.

In the end, the ‘Thriller’ video was released with the following disclaimer at its beginning:
Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult – Michael Jackson.

As part of the Michael Jackson merchandising bonanza,
The Making of Thriller
video cassette was eventually released – one video showing how the
other
video was made. According to the Record Industry Association of America, Jackson's first release for the home-video market
was the first music video cassette to apply for immediate gold and platinum certification. It was, by far, the best-selling
music video to date. Michael would make millions from it.

The week before the ‘Thriller’ video was released in late December 1983,
Thriller's
sales had slowed down to 200,000 copies a week, more than respectable for an album that had been out for a year. According
to
Time,
the week after the video was issued and televised on MTV for only five days, the album sold another 600,000 copies and shot
back up to number one on the
Billboard
charts.

The first order of business for 1984 was the filming of the two Pepsi-Cola commercials. Michael was still unhappy about the
endorsement, especially when the Quaker Oats Company offered to support the Jackson's tour with a sum that was 40 per cent
more than offered by Pepsi-Cola. Though the contract was already signed with Pepsi, John Branca did try to get Michael out
of the agreement. However, Katherine was asked by Don to ‘talk some sense into Michael’. The Pepsi deal was back on.

From the beginning, it was understood by everyone involved that Michael would have complete quality control over the commercials.
His brothers could have no say about the footage, which was fine with them. They were being paid a hefty sum to do the commercials,
and were satisfied.

After a few meetings with Michael, the Pepsi-Cola executives were worried. As it happened, Michael's friends Paul McCartney
and Jane Fonda had told him he had made a mistake in agreeing to the commercials because the result would be overexposure
for him. Michael decided that one way to rectify the problem was to make sure his face should only be on camera for one close-up,
and only for a maximum of four seconds. In other words, he wanted to make a cameo appearance in his own commercial – and for
that, Pepsi would have to pay five million dollars.

‘There are other ways to shoot me rather than push a camera in my face,’ Michael insisted to three exasperated Pepsi-Cola
executives in a meeting at his home. ‘Use my symbols. Shoot my shoes, my spats, my glove, my look – and then, at the end, reveal
me.’ He offered to allow the Pepsi executives use of ‘Billie Jean’, for which he would write new Pepsi jingle lyrics. Michael
wasn't trying to get out of the deal, he just wanted the commercials to be special. If he was going to do them, he'd decided,
they may as well be worthwhile. When Michael met with Roger Enrico, president and chief executive officer of the Pepsi-Cola
Company, he told him, ‘Roger, I'm going to make Coke wish
they
were Pepsi.’

Though trying to be a team-player, Michael still had reservations. ‘I still don't have a good feeling about it,’ he said about
the Pepsi endorsement. ‘In my heart, I feel it's wrong to endorse something you don't believe in. I think it's a bad omen.’
He shrugged his shoulders and added, ‘But I guess I just gotta make the best of it.’

On Friday 27 January 1984, the time had come to film the commercial. Three thousand people were seated in the Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles, in order to simulate a live concert audience. The Jacksons were to perform ‘You're a Whole New Generation’,
which were special lyrics to the music of ‘Billie Jean’.

Prior to one of the takes, the brothers were preparing themselves for the shooting – adjusting their outfits, putting on their
makeup – when Michael had to go to the bathroom. ‘Go ahead, use mine,’ director Bob Giraldi suggested. ‘Don't worry, I'll just
be a minute,’ Michael said. He went in and closed the door.

Thirty seconds later, a bloodcurdling shriek came out of the bathroom.

‘Jesus! What happened?’ Bob Giraldi started banging on the door in alarm. ‘Michael, Michael. Are you okay?’