Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ a Funny Grift, and the Joy of Youth

Today’s blog discusses events that happened in December 1983, but the story begins a few years earlier, in January 1980, when my family moved to Memphis because my Dad took a job with FedEx.

When we departed the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves for our new hometown five hours south, I was in the third grade and devastated that my parents had uprooted me in the middle of the school year. But since 9-year-olds have no say in where their families live, Memphis it was.

Thankfully, 9-year-olds adapt quickly to new environs, something I learned on my first day at Ridgeway Elementary in East Memphis. Though I was terribly shy and nervous about living in a new city and attending a new school, my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Dunn, made me feel at home immediately.

The morning of my first day, she warmly introduced me to the class and then asked me to add my name and birthday to a large wall calendar where each classmate had done the same.

I grabbed a marker, scanned down to Dec. 3, and noticed another name was already there: Some kid named Jason LaFerny. Cool, I thought, a classmate who shared my birthday.

After adding my info to the calendar, I walked over to Jason and sheepishly told him we had the same birthday. Cool, he said.

As it turned out, we also lived on the same street, only 15 or so houses away. Jason and I soon became friends, and within a year or two, somebody—probably our Moms—decided we should have a joint birthday party each December rather than separate events.

Several memorable parties ensued over the years, but what happened when we turned 13 in 1983 is something Jason and I laugh about to this day.

My latest for “A Fan’s Notes” honors the hilarity of what transpired that year—all while paying tribute to a pivotal piece of music central to this story and the joy of a simpler time.

Before we get to December 1983, specifically the weekend of the birthday I’m commemorating today, we need to step back to November 1982. That’s when pop megastar Michael Jackson released his breakthrough album, his masterpiece, his magnum opus—the incomparable “Thriller.”

Like seemingly everyone else on this planet, I became a huge fan the day I heard it. All these decades later, I remain a fan of every song on that record, even though nothing else Michael Jackson released ever resonated with me the same way (that was especially true a year or two later when I moved on to other artists like R.E.M. and the Smiths).

But that whole damn album is brilliant, anchored by several of the biggest songs in pop history, including “Beat It” (featuring Eddie Van Halen’s smokin’ guitar solo), “Billie Jean” (the album’s best song, in this fan’s opinion), and the title track, “Thriller.”

Two more singles, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing),” also became massive hits, but every track on the album is fantastic, even “The Girl is Mine,” a sappy duet with legendary Beatle Sir Paul McCartney.

One offering that usually gets lost in the greatness of “Thriller” is the ballad “Human Nature,” Jackson’s only official “Yacht Rock” tune. Yes, the King of Pop has a song that’s “on the boat,” as we fans of this super smooth genre like to say, aided by the fact that members of Toto, one of the yachtiest bands around, served as session musicians for the album.

A couple of other songs from “Thriller” (“Baby Be Mine” and “The Lady in My Life”) round out what Rolling Stone ranked as the No. 12 best album of all time. In their review, they wrote, “Michael Jackson towered over the Eighties the way no superstar before or since has dominated an era—not even Elvis or the Beatles. And ‘Thriller’ is the reason why.”

“Thriller” was released at the tail end of vinyl’s first run, so not only did I buy the 33, but I later bought the cassette when tapes took over, and then the CD a few years after that when technology changed yet again. I would eventually own an MP3 file and, in true full-circle fashion, recently bought a new vinyl pressing. Sigh. Such is the life of a Gen-Xer.

But it’s a good example of how “Thriller,” which has sold more than 70 million copies and is the best-selling of all time by a long shot, was more influential than any piece of music I had ever experienced.

The album’s videos would only solidify this lofty position.

The 1980s were the era of MTV, so in the months after the release of “Thriller,” Jackson began rolling out music videos to accompany the album’s hit tracks. First came “Beat It,” followed by “Billie Jean.”

Then, in the fall of 1983, we began hearing that Jackson would debut a video of the title track, “Thriller,” on Friday, Dec. 2. According to MTV’s “VJs,” the premiere would be a must-watch global event. The anticipation was palpable.

As it happened, that was the weekend of Jason’s and my 13th birthdays, but something else was happening that Friday night that was equally important in our seventh-grade minds: Our school was hosting a holiday-themed dance.

Jason and I were becoming teenagers, so our parents—that would be my folks, Phil and Kitty Smith, and Jason’s folks, Bill and Georgia LaFerny (may all four of these wonderful people rest in peace)—vowed to do something special for this milestone birthday.

Somebody, I don’t remember who, came up with a great idea. Rather than host an awkward and annoying birthday party with games and food and a bunch of 12- and 13-year-olds running roughshod over one of our houses all evening, what if we threw a “watch party” for the big video debut and then immediately shipped all the kids off to the school dance?

And that’s precisely what we did.

When the big night arrived, dozens of friends came over with gifts in hand. Jason and I opened presents, we slammed some birthday cake and soda, and then everyone migrated to the LaFernys’ living room a few minutes before 7 p.m. (For a related post on this party and a mysterious missing photo, check out my latest Notebook.)

There, we all sat mesmerized as Michael Jackson’s epic video unfolded. And it was indeed epic. More of a movie than a video, really, with nearly 14 minutes of storytelling and dancing from Jackson and the video’s director, John Landis.

If you need a refresher, here is the full-length version, which has garnered more than a billion views on YouTube:

Once it was over, we all looked around at each other and gawked at how unbelievably cool it was. Amid our excitement, though—even as we tried to re-create the night-crawling dance moves or remember some of the dialogue or impersonate the narrator, Vincent Price—the party was over. It was time to go.

Our parents ushered us outside because other parents were idling in their cars, ready to drive us to the school dance, where we would talk about the video and awkwardly dance with our current crushes.

And that was it. Our folks had the entire evening to themselves after minimal planning and supervision, and Jason and I had a bounty of presents. The grift was complete.

I don’t know when Jason and I realized we had pulled a fast one on our friends—perhaps that next day, or on some later birthday, or when we roomed together in college—but we still laugh about it today.

I also doubt anyone finds this story as funny as Jason and I do. I’m sure of it, in fact.

It’s one of those jokes where not only did you have to be there, but you literally had to be one of the people pulling it off to appreciate the hilarity of our huge haul of gifts for maybe 45 minutes of party-hosting.

Even all these decades later, I can’t help but chuckle at how the evening unfolded.

Mostly, though, I think back to that strange and wondrous time in our youth as we tried to understand the world and ourselves, as we fell in and out of love (as much as a 13-year-old can, anyway), not realizing, in that moment, how quickly it would all be gone—how quickly we’d be in our 50s reminiscing about nights like those.

It’s another example of the magic of music and its ability to build an indelible connection to the past. That’s what makes me a fan of albums, of art, like “Thriller.”

These works offer much more than good songs that still hold up and sound fresh today. They provide a soundtrack to life’s big moments.

In this case, Michael Jackson’s masterpiece will always be a thread, a through-line to that specific time and place—the early 1980s in my old neighborhood and former hometown.

All I need is to hear the first few beats of “Beat It” or “Billie Jean,” or watch the opening scene of the video to “Thriller,” and I go whirling back to December 1983, where I’m somehow turning 13 again with my whole life ahead of me.

And I smile. And I’m reminded of why I’ll always be a fan.