"Stand on your tiptoes, then bring your foot down. Move into it. Now you're moonwalkin'!"
In 1983, Michael Jackson appeared during the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever anniversary special. After performing with his brothers, he did a solo performance, namely his hit song "Billie Jean" from his then-recent album Thriller. As Jackson amazed the crowd with his smooth and undeniably "cool" dance moves, he suddenly premiered a dance that looks like he was walking forwards while going backwards at the same time. Despite only lasting a few seconds, the crowd went berserk, and the next day Jackson was the talk of the town, increasing his already massive national and international exposure. Fred Astaire saw the show on TV and personally called up Michael to meet him and show him how to do that particular dance, a question many people back then wondered about. Several have tried it and it is possible to do after much practicing, but it remains quite complex for beginners.
The dance was dubbed the moonwalk, because it seemed as if the performer was walking on the moon while doing it. It became an essential part of every Jackson concert and, for many people, the highlight of the show. He named both his autobiography and movie Moonwalker after it, and the dance became one of his trademarks.
However, Michael didn't invent the moonwalk, as he was quick to point out himself. He had learned it from some black school children in the early 1980s, who knew it as "The Glide". Other sources claim he was inspired by James Brown, who also used the move, and/or mime artist Marcel Marceau during his famous "walking against the wind" sketch, where he pretends to be pushed backwards by a gust of wind. Even Cab Calloway claimed that the dance move had been around since the 1930s and that they called it "The Buzz" back then, while others claim it was named the "backslide". However, none of these early prototypes quite match the magic and swift perfection of Jackson's performance. Generally, most of them are much slower, and the dancers don't move backwards very far. That being said, if they had the same amount of massive media exposure Jackson had at the time, things might have been different.
Nevertheless, the dance is nowadays universally recognized as the moonwalk, and although Jackson wasn't the Trope Namer for the dance, he is definitely the Trope Codifier. Since he popularized it and made it his trademark, virtually all appearances of a moonwalk in popular culture will automatically be assumed to be a shout-out to the "King of Pop". Because of this, it has become both a Stock Pose as well as a Stock Parody.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A Pepsi commercial aired at the height of Michaelmania between 1983 and 1984 has a group of street children dance to the beat of Billie Jean, one of them being a very young Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) who both dresses and dances like Jackson. As he moonwalks while drinking a Pepsi he just happens to bump into the real Michael Jackson and his brothers in the street.
- The Dance Pony Dance
commercial for the 3G network in the UK features a Shetland pony moonwalking across the countryside to the tune of Fleetwood Mac's "Everywhere".
Anime and Manga
- Angel Beats!: One brief scene shows TK dancing in the hallway. One of the move he pulls is a moonwalk. "Hey yo, check this out! It's a moonwalk! It's a moonwalk! Headspin!"
- One episode of the Eclipse Celestial Spirit Filler Arc of Fairy Tail involves Gray having a dance battle against a corrupted Cancer. Through Cancer's powers, Gray ends up channeling Michael Jackson complete with fedora and dance moves. One of said moves is the moonwalk.
- Jango from One Piece is a big Shout-Out to Michael Jackson and he shows it by not only dressing like him but literally moonwalking in his very introduction.
- Stitch Meets High School Musical: Felix does this while sweeping the court at the same time during the aliens' dance.
Blogs
- Early on in Moonstuck, Woona decides to moonwalk during a long walk across the surface of the moon.
Comic Books
- Urbanus: In one album Urbanus, Amedee and Nabuko Donosor visit Jackson in his Neverland Ranch and try to impress him by performing the moonwalk. As they slide out through his door he is able to close it and get rid of them.
- Spirou & Fantasio: In the album Le groom de sniper alley, Spirou and Spip escape said sniper alley while dodging bullets, with dance moves. Which includes moonwalk◊.
Fan Works
- A Pokémon fanfic envisioning a Pokémon Colosseum remake maintains Miror B.'s Jackson-inspired nature from XD (see Video Games folder), and makes more prominent use of the moonwalk in what seems to be intended as Miror's battle-intro. Wes is constantly confounded by the performance.
Wes: How does he do that?
Films — Animated
- Kuzco in The Emperor's New Groove does it during his theme song. He accidentally bumps into an old man while doing it, blames him for throwing off his "groove" and has him thrown out a window.
- Max Goof does it while lip syncing to Stand Out in A Goofy Movie.
- Pinocchio performs it near the end of Shrek 2 during the finale song, complete with crotch thrust.
- Roadside Romeo: At one point the mouse does Michael Jackson's signature moonwalk and pelvic thrust. Complete with crotch grab.
Films — Live-Action
- The 1974 film version of The Little Prince featured Bob Fosse as a snake doing a dance that is also considered a precursor to the Moonwalk. It helps that he is sporting an all black jacket, pants, and hat combo with a white shirt, much like MJ's signature style.
- Moonwalker. Duh! Though Jackson only performs it a few times during the music video of "Smooth Criminal". Earlier in the film a cop gives him a ticket for moonwalking on the road in a "No moonwalking zone".
- In Back to the Future Part III, Marty is forced to dance while Buford Tannen shoots at his feet. He confuses the 19th century cowboy by performing the moonwalk, even singing part of "Billie Jean" under his breath.
- Near the end of Austin Powers in Goldmember, Scott Evil performs a moonwalk just before the end credits.
- In American Psycho, Bateman does this with an axe in hand immediately before killing Paul Allen. Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote the source novel, said this was one of the only problems he had with the adaptation, as he felt it was out of character.
- Charlie's Angels (2000). When a number of Knox's goons attempt to take out Dylan, who is tied to a chair, Dylan describes to them, step-by-step, how she's going to knock each and every one of them out, and finish by moonwalking out of the room. Although, it's not so much "moonwalking" as it is just "walking backwards".
- In The Animal, main character Marvin suffers a seemingly fatal accident, but finds out a doctor saved him by transplanting animal parts into him. The doctor also reveals that he looks after lone animals, some abandoned in the wild and others released from the ownership of pop stars. He gestures to a monkey sitting on a countertop and mentions that he "really misses the pop star... I'm not allowed to say who". Cut to the monkey doing a moonwalk.
- X-Men: Apocalypse: Quicksilver does this briefly while he was in the middle of rescuing Xavier's students from an explosion. Why does he do this? Because he has time to do so.
- In Blind Date, this is one of the humiliating things that an enraged gun-wielding Walter forces David to do. And then he says "I hate that shit!" and starts shooting the ground at David's feet.
- In Michael Jackson's This Is It, Michael doesn't perform the moonwalk at all during the rehearsals. Even during the "Billie Jean" segment, he simply does a quick shuffle with his feet while remaining in place. Sorta sad, given that we'd never see him do it again.
Literature — Fiction
- In Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Dead, Johnny Maxwell and his 1990's gang teach the ghosts in the local cemetery - all of whom died in the period 1850-1948 - how to do the Moonwalk dance. (an affectionate parody of the Thriller video with real Undead). The sight of a corpulent Victorian mayor and a suffragette who died for her beliefs getting really into it is one that provokes much amusement.
Literature — Non-Fiction
- Michael Jackson named his 1987 autobiography Moonwalker.
Live-Action TV
- Michael Jackson debuted the moonwalk in the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever TV special in 1983. This performance was later reenacted by Wylie Draper for the 1992 ABC miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream.
- In season 2 of America's Got Talent, a mime contestant calling himself "Mr. Heart and Soul" [1] claimed to have been the inventor of the moonwalk, which he originally called the mimewalk. The fact that he also claimed to have invented popping and locking should show how true this is.
- Silver Spoons:
- When Alfonso gets caught in a Celebrity Lie, claiming he knows Michael Jackson, he hires a Jackson impersonator to come to the local hangout and moonwalk dance with him. This actually succeeds, until the pressure of keeping the lie going gets to him and he 'fesses up. At the end of the episode Alfonso and Ricky put on a breakdance demonstration for their parent[al substitute]s, including moonwalking and posing on their toes.
- In the episode "Mr. Cool" Ricky shows off his "coolness" by wearing Sunglasses at Night and moonwalking.
- Quantum Leap: In the season one episode "Camikazi Kid," Sam the time traveller (leaped into the role of a teenager in 1961) demonstrates the moonwalk for a five-year-old Michael Jackson.
- One act on Puttin' on the Hits combined this with The Smurfette Principle: the blonde woman acting as the keyboardist finished the entire performance with this move.
- On Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the guys get the suggestion, "If celebrities had been the first people to walk on the moon." Guess what Wayne Brady does.
- In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, on the rare occasion that Carlton isn't reduced to doing his dorky dance, he's able to bust out moves worthy of Michael Jackson himself, including a perfect moonwalk.
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie: Stephen Fry plays Michael Jackson (without any costume or accent or mannerism to actually mimic him) and after a brief interview, he performs a song "Move It On Out Girl". He gets on a treadmill and walks on the spot. It's surprisingly accurate to the actual moonwalk.
- The Sketch Show: "Dead man walking. Dead man moonwalking."
- Odd Squad: In "20 Questions", as Oprah explains to Olympia and Otis why the agents of Precinct 13579 are moving backwards, an agent begins moonwalking through the bullpen. Oprah's quick to point out that he's not moonwalking — he's just a weird walker.
Music
- Referenced in "Bartier Cardi" by Cardi B:
Red bottom MJ, moonwalk on a bitch
Moonwalkin' through your clique
I'm moonwalkin' in the 6
Sticky with the kick, moonrocks in this bitch
Music Videos
- Jackson didn't perform the moonwalk often in his music videos. "Smooth Criminal" from Bad is the most notable exception.
- In the music video of Michael Jackson's Ghosts Michael turns himself into a skeleton, then performs the moonwalk.
- In the video for "Jam", Jackson does both the regular moonwalk and a stationary version, and tries to teach Michael Jordan the dance at the end of the video along with a few other moves.
- In the fan video Behind The Mask by Jackson several fans perform the moonwalk as part of their tribute.
- In the video for Junior Senior's "Move Your Feet", one of the steps of the dancing robot is the moonwalk.
- A disappointed astronaut without a helmet does the moonwalk on Mars in Britney Spears' "Oops!...I Did It Again" music video.
- The video for Rod Stewart's "The Motown Song" has a none-too-subtle cartoon parody of Jackson blithely moonwalking. A cartoon dog opens a sewer manhole, causing him to fall in.
Pro Wrestling
Video Games
- Michael Jackson's Moonwalker: Probably the earliest example in video games. It's done by holding the attack button, then pressing the opposite direction you are facing.
- In Plants vs. Zombies, the Dancing Zombie moonwalks into your lawn before summoning 4 Backup Dancers.
- In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Deadpool moonwalks whenever he walk backwards, as opposed to other characters.
- The Secret World features the moonwalk as an emote. Subverted in that /moonwalk causes your character to awkwardly shuffle backwards, eventually getting frustrated by their inability to do it right. In the cutscene for "the Bank Heist", Cloudcuckoolander yakuza-kingpin Daimon Kiyota is caught doing cartwheels in his office and he explains that being crazy can be the edge needed to survive, doing a proper moonwalk as the player leaves. It turns out there was method behind his madness—you have to cartwheel past lasers and poorly moonwalk over pressure plates during the robbery, the reward for doing so without tripping the alarm is a perfect moonwalk emote.
- In Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Alister Azimuth does this when Ratchet uses the Groovitron on him.
- In Sonic Colors, Sonic did this in one of the cutscenes.
- Features as a dancing emote in both Impressive Title and FeralHeart. However, since the players are playing as either Disneyesque lions or canines, the dance tends to resemble the Hakuna Matata dance from The Lion King (1994), but with a smoother, backwards-walking stride like the actual Moonwalk Dance instead.
- Dante does this dance in Devil May Cry 5 when he obtains the Dr. Faust hat weapon. In fact, the entire cutscene for it is a Michael Jackson reference.
- In Mortal Kombat 11, Guest Fighter RoboCop integrates this into the Robot dance he performs for his Friendship.
- Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness: Miror B, the previous game's Disco Dan, has been retooled as a Jackson parody, complete with entering his first scene with a moonwalk.
- In one of the Street Fighter III backgrounds (more specifically, Dudley's) there is a young punk doing the dance◊.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario Party has Waluigi moonwalk when he wins in the Sound Stage mode as his "freestyle" dance. The animation would be reused as part of a board event in Horror Land for Mario Party Superstars.
- WarioWare Gold: In the microgame 'Stalled Out', there's a chance someone will exit their stall doing this.
- An amusingly accidental case of this happens with the "True Damage Ekko" skin in League of Legends, which reimagines the teenage Time Master Ekko into a hip-hop-inspired superstar. While using the skin, triggering his "Z-Drive Resonance" (a passive ability that siphons movement speed from enemies) will cause Ekko start to moonwalking. As it turns out, despite the fact he has plenty of dance-inspired movement animations, this one was actually a bug (specifically the result of some of his animations triggering at the wrong time and facing the wrong direction), but fans and developers liked it enough to keep it and make sure it plays properly (though for clarity purposes, this only applies to the Ekko player and his ally team — enemies will perceive him facing the direction he's moving in).
Visual Novels
- Sigma in Virtue's Last Reward at one point gets asked by Phi to demonstrate her point by taking some random action, in which the player can choose to clap, wave, or dance (among other choices). If the player chooses "moonwalk," she tells him he's doing it wrong.
Websites
- Chuck Norris Facts: Chuck Norris invented the Moonwalk, and it went forward. When Michael Jackson performed a backward version at one of his performances, Chuck threatened to Roundhouse Kick MJ off the stage if he messed up his moves again. MJ got so scared, he turned white.
Web Videos
- The Angry Video Game Nerd: When reviewing Michael Jackson's Moonwalker the Nerd at one point jokingly performs the moonwalk (just shuffling backwards) while holding his joystick.
- Demo Reel. Rachel performs a quick moonwalk in the second episode of the series.
- The machinima Arby 'n' the Chief has an episode in their Arby N The Chief in L.A. spinoff series where Arbiter and the Chief visit several attractions and sights around L.A./Hollywood, one of which is the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Chief does the moonwalk on Michael Jackson's tile, although, because of the format of the show (live-action action figures), only his upper body is seen, while his legs are not.
- Epic Rap Battles of History:
- Naturally done by Michael when battling Elvis, after the line: "Watch me moonwalk over your blue suede shoes".
- Done by Darth Vader in his first confrontation vs. Hitler.
- A variant of the "invisible gorilla experiment" replaces the person in a gorilla suit with a person in a bear suit doing a moonwalk dance.
Western Animation
- 2DTV: One gag, referencing Michael's baby bungling incident in 2002, has Jackson teaching his infant to moonwalk from one end of a window to another across the street by tightrope walking over a washing cord.
- Alfred J. Kwak: In one episode, Alfred's girlfriend Winnie is in love with an arrogant pop singer named Michael Duckson, who is a partial parody of Prince too. His stage act is mostly parodying Michael though, even with a moonwalk-like dance.
- Black Dynamite: In one episode, Black Dynamite talks to young Michael Jackson's "Dad", Joeseph Jackson, in prison. Joeseph explains that every time he and his sons screw up, Michael would theaten them with a reminder of Jamon, whom he moon walked to death.
- Futurama: In "The Prisoner of Benda", Bender uses the moonwalk as a Reverse Turing Test (to prove he actually is a machine, since he's stuck in Amy's body). It works.
General Basil: He... steps forward, but moves backwards!
Emperor Nikolai: By the gods! He is a machine! - The Loud House: In "Sleuth or Consequences", Lincoln is seen doing that while he is dressed up as Ace Savvy in bed.
- The Mr. Men Show: Mr. Grumpy does this in the website-exclusive music video of "Dillydale Dance Floor".
- Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: Louis does one during “Say It In Song”, the retro-themed musical number of “Music Is Universal”.
- Robozuna: Spark does this in "Hacked" while asking "Who's bad?"
- The Simpsons
- As part of his dancing as a Springfield mascotte in "Dancin' Homer", Homer performs a moonwalk.
- In "Stark Raving Dad", where the real Michael Jackson voiced himself Jackson (as the mental patient Leon Kompowski who thinks he is Jackson) demonstrates this dance because Homer has never heard of the famous singer. Homer is amazed at the moonwalk and asks Michael: "How do you do that thing with your feet?" Jackson shows him, Homer tries, but he slides forwards instead of backwards. Later in the episode, after Bart is informed by phone that Michael Jackson will pay a visit to his house, he tells Marge that Homer is in an asylum and performs the moonwalk while humming the melody of "Beat It" at the same time.
- Homer does the move correctly in "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs" while preparing to bowl.
- In the Couch Gag of "Them, Robot", Leon Kompowski (from the aforementioned "Stark Raving Dad") is seen moonwalking by for a brief moment when the Clip Show mentions the year 1991.
- South Park: In "Meet the Jeffersons", Mr. Jefferson (actually Michael Jackson himself under a Paper-Thin Disguise) performs the moonwalk briefly. When Ike is possessed by Jackson's ghost in "Dead Celebrities", he briefly does it too.
- In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Sleepover", Marco attempts this to impress his crush Jackie, but then he trips and falls on his butt.
Real Life
- There have been several celebrities credited with inventing the moonwalk before Jackson: Jeffery Daniels (Shalamar), Bill Bailey, Cab Calloway, Marcel Marceau, James Brown, Adalberto Martínez "Resortes", etc...
- After Jackson's death in 2009 the Belgian radio station Studio Brussel organized a tribute called the "eternal moonwalk", where fans from all over the world could imitate the moonwalk in short clips that fade into each other as one long never-ending continuous shot. All the clips can be viewed on this site (though it must be said that most people are just walking backwards.)
- In 2012 a man was charged with assault after demanding another man to do the moonwalk at gunpoint. See it here.
- The male red-capped manakin is a bird that has a courtship dance that resembles moonwalking.
