Michael Jackson's THRILLER was released 30 years ago today

Ignoring the obvious - that soon thereafter he began his downward spiral into cosmetic catastrophe and overall instability - it will forever be acknowledged that once upon a time, Michael Jackson was a musical genius. As well as a masterful performer on stage and in his music videos. It was not without reason that he was dubbed the "King of Pop". How long he maintained that title is debatable... but Jackson did earn it.

Thriller, Michael Jackson's masterpiece album, was released thirty years ago today, on November 30th 1982. It remains by a significant margin the best-selling music album in history.

So in honor of Thriller's thirtieth anniversary, here is a photo of the artist behind it. Along with two other celebrated figures from a far, far better era...

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Missing: Michael Jackson's nose

For the first time ever, it is not a joke.

Michael Jackson's prosthetic nose has disappeared. It was discovered gone as the late performer's body lay in a Los Angeles morgue. In its place was "a small, dark hole surrounded by bits of cartilage": what remained of Jackson's decades of plastic surgery.

But the good news is that a security camera at the morgue caught this image of two individuals who are suspected of heisting Jackson's nose...

(Okay, that's actually a still from Woody Allen's 1973 classic comedy film Sleeper, which was the first thing that came to mind after I read this story :-)

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Video of Michael Jackson's hair fire made public 25 years later

It's probably going to get yanked as soon as you try to view it, but rest assured: this will be showing up on YouTube for many years to come...

Well, there it is: Michael Jackson's hair catching fire during filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984, in footage published for the first time by US Magazine. This is something that had grown to legendary proportions long before Jackson's death a few weeks ago. And at the time this was a huge story.

Seeing this at last, the only thought that really comes to mind is "My God..." This was a far more gruesome mishap than I can recall ever hearing it described. Amazingly, Jackson was still dancing for several seconds, completely unaware that his head was ablaze.

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Michael Jackson's bed

The Mail Online has published a series of photos taken by the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department during its 2003 raid on Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

This might be the creepiest photo I've ever seen associated with the "King of Pop"...

Jackson slept in this bed and on the wall over it hangs a rendition of The Last Supper. Except this version of the famous painting has Michael Jackson sitting in place of Jesus Christ. Elvis Presley and Abraham Lincoln are also depicted as being among the disciples.

I don't want to even try to imagine how such a "work of art" possibly comes into being.

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Not so long ago...

...in a different time and a better reality...

The Eighties. What a time to have been alive.

Personally, I think America hit its high water mark as a culture around 1994. There was a kind of dynamic that seems to have vanished about the time that O.J. Simpson went for that ride in the Ford Bronco.

I don't know if we'll ever see days like those again.

But just as King Arthur came to cherish at the end: It was a fair time that will live on in memory. And so long as the memory of that time endures, it may yet come again.

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Michael Jackson has died!

Breaking everywhere right now.

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Filipino convicts perform Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Can't embed this YouTube video so you'll have to click here to watch it. It's just what the title says: 1,500 inmates at a prison in the Philippines dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

Yes, this is for real. Here's a story from the BBC about it, which is part of the exercise regimen that a security consultant came up with for the prisoners.

Thanks to Marc at Bmovies - who never fails to amaze me at the stuff he locates on the Internets - for finding this :-)

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